This is from an Indian Organisation.
The original story is from The Business Standard
'Transvestite' debuts in Economic Census
The gender 'transvestite' will make its debut along with religion in the Sixth Economic Census, a nationwide exercise conducted by the Union Ministry for Statistics and Programme Implementation, an official said.
"For the first time, transvestite has been included as a gender option other than male and female," Sunil Jain, deputy director at the ministry, told reporters here Tuesday.
He was addressing the media after attending a workshop for census officials at the Goa International Centre in Dona Paula on the outskirts of Panaji.
"Earlier, we had only two genders. Now we will list the third gender, transvestites, under the header of proprietary ownership," Jain said.
The Economic Census is the sixth such pan-India exercise conducted - the first was carried out in 1977 - to collect economic data and to tabulate a complete count of business establishments and units in the organised and the unorganised sectors.
Jain added that another salient feature was the inclusion of religion as another classification for the first time in the census.
"We will also list the proprietors' religion. Religion is a demographic feature and collecting religion-wise information is one of the directives of the Sarkaria Commission," Jain said.
The Sarkaria Commission was set up in 1983 to examine the relationship and balance of power between state and central governments and suggest changes within the framework of the constitution.
The Economic Census operation in Goa would begin from August and nearly 1,000 government employees would be involved in gathering data from all over the state.
Meg -
ReplyDeleteThere is a "third gender" which has been part of some Indian subcultures for a while. I think this development is only a recognition of the subcultures, noting that these people are somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum. However, only someone from India can give this a proper perspective, explaining whether this is good or bad...
M
I am equally concerned with big brother here in the US. If the current administration is using NSA to mine meta data regarding phone and internet usage they can determine that I follow your blog. If you and I are friends or if we are simply guys with an interest in presenting as women I do not think that is the business of the government.
ReplyDeleteWe have seen the willingness of the government to chill free speech by using the IRS to target those entities that they believe may not support their plans to stay in power. When the government uses its power for its purposes of power control as we have seen in the past few years I worry that they may invade our privacy as well as our purses.
Pat
I think that's a case of poor translation. I am familiar with the "third gender" that Marian describes, but whoever wrote the article doesn't grasp the distinction in English between "transvestite" and "transgender".
ReplyDelete