Headcount: Memoirs of a Demographer

01 August 2010

Ashish Bose

Penguin Viking

224 pages, Rs 450

The acronym ‘BIMARU states’ was widely used in the mid-1980s to refer to the population issues of India’s four largest states—Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Ashish Bose, the man who coined this much-discussed term, is the pioneer of demographic studies in the country. In Headcount, the demographer sets the record straight on BIMARU, and in the process, presents his unique view of modern India. A deeply compassionate and readable memoir by one of the most important social scientists of modern India.

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