Bengaluru: Deployment of 1 lakh teachers for census sparks backlash
Bengaluru: The state government’s decision to deploy over one lakh government school teachers for the 2027 population census has drawn strong criticism from the teaching community over increased workload.
Teachers from primary, higher primary and high schools will be involved in census enumeration starting April 16, while the self-evaluation process is already under way from April 1 to 15, The New Indian Express reported.
However, teachers have already expressed displeasure over the census duty assigned to them. They have said that there is no vacations or holidays for them due to extra workload apart from academic work assigned to them by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
After evaluating exam papers, they have to rush door-to-door collecting data on the total number of family members.
A high school teacher from Chikkaballapur government high school said, “I am on SSLC exam duty and April 2 will be the last exam. From April 7 to 12, we need to finish the evaluation of answer papers of exam-1. From April 16, we need to rush to complete the population census.
With the harsh summer, we need to do this job from 6.30am to 11.30am and resume again from 4.30pm to 8.30pm. Again, we have to resume exam duty for SSLC exam-1 from the first week of May 2026. At least they exempt SSLC exam evaluators like us. It is difficult to manage it throughout the year.”
Chandrashekar Nuggali, president, Karnataka State Primary School Teachers Association (KPSTA), said they have written to the Revenue Department to provide exemptions for teachers above 50 years of age due to health concerns and rising temperatures, but the proposal was rejected.
“This decision was taken after school teachers died on duty during the SIR process in other states. However, the Revenue Department has rejected our request. We had also requested the School Education Department to exempt teachers on SSLC exam duty from the population census job, but even that has been rejected. We have tried to speak to different ministers but nothing has worked in favour of teachers so far.”
Responding to the concerns, School Education and Literacy Minister Madhu Bangarappa said the issue was discussed in the Assembly, acknowledging that it adds to teachers’ workload. “While we understand the problem, we cannot involve or outsource agencies for these kinds of important tasks requiring data collection. So we have to deploy teachers on census enumeration duty,” he said.
When asked if there is a discussion to bring a new Act to not involve teachers in any other jobs except academics, he said, “For now, there are no such talks, and it is difficult to bring one.”
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34 years on, Gujarat police crack woman’s murder; two brothers held
Ahmedabad (PTI): Thirty-four years after a woman was allegedly murdered and buried, the Gujarat police have arrested two brothers following the exhumation of skeletal remains from a house in Ahmedabad, an official said on Saturday.
The crime branch nabbed the accused, Shamshuddin Khedawala (61) and his brother Iqbal (63), in connection with a 1992 murder case, after DNA from the exhumed bones matched with siblings of the victim, Farzana Doshu Radhanpuri, he said.
The victim was Shamshuddin's wife, and the latter had allegedly killed her with the help of his brother and two others. They then buried the body in the pit in the veranda of a house in Qutub Nagar in the Vatva area, the official said.
Acting on a tip-off, the police dug at the site on April 29 to recover a jawbone and teeth, which were subsequently analysed by the Forensic Medicine Department at B.J. Medical College to establish the victim's identity.
Following enquiries with locals, the police traced the victim’s family to Dholka taluka, where her brother, Liyakat Ali, revealed she had been missing for 35 years. To confirm the identity, investigators compared DNA from the skeletal remains with blood samples from Farzana’s sister, Mehbooba, resulting in a positive match, the official said.
The family informed the police that Farzana had left home 35 years ago and had later married Shamsuddin, he said.
Based on the information, the police registered a first information report (FIR) against the Khedawala brothers and one Abdul Javarawala and Shaliyabibi Pathan, both of whom are deceased.
As per the FIR, Shamshuddin, along with his brother Iqbal, his friend Abdul Javarawala, and Shaliyabibi Pathan, allegedly killed Farzana and buried the body in a pit in the veranda and sealed it.
A case has been registered against all four accused under sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), and 120(B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, police said.
The brothers have been arrested and will be produced in the court on Saturday, Deputy Commissioner of Police Ajit Rajian said.
