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I am a resident of Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha, India . We are currently bearing the brunt of Cyclone Fani. The wind speed was phenomenal , comparable to the super cyclone of 1999.

Even after 48 hours the city is in dark.

But thanks to proactive steps of the govt agencies the casualty number is much less than that of '99s.

>Government workers drafted lists of people in vulnerable houses, particularly the elderly and children.

This is particularly important to note given the current contention over the 2020 US Census. The administration desires that a "citizenship" section be added to the survey, in an environment where that same government has used these kinds of lists—those of DACA recipients and process-abiding individuals going to court for their immigration hearings—to conduct broad sweeps for deportation.

Failure to collect information as critical as "how many people live in a given area" weakens us in the face of disaster response. As climate change ensures we have more catastrophic events, racism at the very top of government ensures its ravages are felt by the most vulnerable.

The Census and Census takers have always worked on dealing with homeless, transient, and undocumented populations, and survey them regularly.

Trump's thing is about "asking the question".

"Asking the question" of undocumented people is not innocuous from a nazi-sympathizing administration[1] that has called that population "animals[2]."

1. https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18517980/trump-unite-the-right...

2. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-ol-enter-the-fray-about-t...

No, I absolutely agree. That was my point, that asking that question is irrelevant from a "well, we need to know how many people are really here". The Census already does a good job of that, for a wide variety of populations.
Stupid nytimes still uses phrases like "a Poor State in India". I bet they think India is still under colonial rule.