A video of Assam teacher Rumi Deka carrying out her Census 2027 fieldwork with her twin daughters has gone viral online.

The clip, shared on Instagram, shows Deka moving from house to house with one daughter in her arms and the other by her side as she completes her assigned duty.

She said she had no option but to take her daughters along, since the fieldwork involved visiting multiple homes and the time required for each round was uncertain.

The video has since won widespread praise for her dedication, though some social media users questioned how she was juggling childcare alongside her official responsibilities.

A person identifying himself as Deka’s husband clarified in the comments that her teaching job and Census assignment are separate roles, with her school close to home while the Census work requires visiting different households.

He noted that her school is close to home, while the Census assignment requires travelling to different households, making the twin-daughter workaround necessary during fieldwork hours.

Census-related fieldwork in India typically involves enumerators, many of whom are drawn from the teaching and government employee workforce, visiting households to record demographic data.

The video is among a string of recent human-interest clips from India’s ongoing Census 2027 preparatory exercises to draw attention on social media.

Officials overseeing Census operations have periodically highlighted individual enumerators’ efforts as part of broader outreach around the exercise, though this particular clip circulated organically rather than through official channels.

The response to Deka’s video reflects a recurring pattern online, where everyday acts of balancing work and childcare draw significant public sympathy and engagement.

Deka posted the video on Instagram, showing herself moving door to door with one daughter in her arms and the other holding her hand as she completed her rounds.

She explained that she had little choice but to bring her daughters along, since the fieldwork involved visiting multiple households and she was unsure how long each round of duty would take.

Photo of the Census enumerator mascot, Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India (representative census-duty image)

California-based fashion label JW PEI has renamed a garment after facing online backlash for marketing what critics called a saree as a Western-style ‘draped maxi dress.’

The item was originally listed as the ‘Botanical Embellished Draped Overlay Maxi Dress,’ priced at around $229, roughly Rs 21,900 to Rs 26,000.

The controversy was raised by Indian beauty entrepreneur Arshia Moorjani, who questioned why a garment so clearly resembling a traditional saree was being marketed without acknowledging its origin.

Following the backlash, JW PEI changed the product listing to ‘Botanical Embellished Saree-Inspired Gown,’ with the updated description now stating the design is ‘inspired by the traditional South Asian saree.’

The garment in question was a navy blue pre-draped saree-style piece with a floral embroidered blouse, featuring the tight waist pleats and structured pallu characteristic of the Nivi drape, India’s most widely recognised saree style.

Social media users pointed out the pattern of Indian garments being rebranded for Western markets, drawing comparisons to earlier controversies involving dupattas marketed as ‘Scandinavian scarves’ and Prada’s Kolhapuri-inspired sandals.

This is not the first time a global fashion label has faced criticism over how it describes traditional South Asian garments, with similar rebranding disputes recurring periodically as Indian-inspired silhouettes gain traction in Western fast fashion.

The brand’s revised product listing now explicitly credits the design’s roots, a change commentators noted came only after the criticism gained visibility online rather than being part of the original marketing.

The garment in question was a navy blue pre-draped saree-style piece with a floral embroidered blouse, featuring the tight waist pleats and structured pallu characteristic of the Nivi drape, India’s most widely recognised saree style.

Social media users pointed out the pattern of Indian garments being rebranded for Western markets, drawing comparisons to earlier controversies involving dupattas marketed as ‘Scandinavian scarves’ and Prada’s Kolhapuri-inspired sandals.

Photo by Wikimedia contributor, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

A student has built a free platform called Bribes.fyi that lets citizens anonymously report being asked for bribes at government offices.

The website was created by Aryan Nishad, a B.Tech student at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology in Delhi, who used AI-assisted coding to build it.

Users can submit a report in about a minute by filling in basic details of the incident, after which it is published anonymously with identifying details removed.

The platform has gathered 616 reports from 251 cities since going live on July 2, with police departments accounting for the largest share at 337 entries.

Reports are organised by department, city and state, giving the public a searchable view of where bribery complaints are most commonly reported.

The site has gone viral on social media in recent days, with many users praising the simple, anonymous design as a practical tool for surfacing corruption patterns.

Reports on the platform are organised by department, city and state, giving users a public view of where corruption complaints are most frequently reported.

The platform does not verify individual claims before publishing them, relying instead on aggregate, anonymised data to surface patterns rather than pursue individual cases.

The idea follows a broader tradition of crowdsourced anti-corruption reporting tools that have surfaced periodically in India over the years, though Bribes.fyi has stood out for the speed with which it was built and its rapid early adoption.

The platform’s low-friction, minute-long reporting process is widely seen as a key reason for its quick early adoption compared to more formal complaint mechanisms.

Nishad, a B.Tech student at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology in Delhi, used AI-assisted coding to build the platform from scratch.

The website went live on July 2 and has since gathered 616 reports from 251 cities across the country.

Police departments account for the highest number of reports on the platform so far, with 337 entries alone.

Photo by Tirza van Dijk, Wikimedia Commons, CC0