Discovering the story behind Portraits of Population

What is Portraits of Population?

Aman shows me these, I don’t find them particularly interesting

2 weeks later

Why does Portraits of Population exist?

Just search on Google, right?

Now I am interested in figuring out the story

Time to read some government documents

but they tend to be extremely boring

Need some music to survive reading these documents

Need some music to survive reading these documents

So they acknowledge the average person has little interest in the census

What inspired them? Why in 1971?

World Population Year???

Now there are lots of results

Sadly no Wikipedia page for the conference itself

Luckily for me, I already had some context for this

One Child Policy in China also started in the 1970s

Now I had more keywords which I could use

  • United Nations
  • World Population Year
  • World Population Conference

Each search leads to more documents

Each document leads to more keywords

Population Education

Now there are results from so many sources

Document and categorize the most “interesting” documents

Go through the “interesting” documents

Find out about other key characters and events

Build a mental map of what’s going on

Soon there’s enough to write the first draft

First draft is citation and source heavy

Most of the documents read along the way were not relevant in the end

The journey was fun anyway

Luckily, many documents were indexed on Google

Did not need to figure out obscure sites

Not always that lucky

How to Google better?

Why not Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini?

1.44 million people in 1871????

AI is not as reliable for niche historical facts

Especially if the source documents weren’t even indexed on Google

It’s also generally bad for many things India related

Similarly, for many such topics that I am interested in

And if you do want to research a topic, you need to be able to verify the AI result was accurate

You first need to understand the context of the topic yourself

Finding relevant documents

1. Make your search as specific as possible

  • Choose the right keyword
  • Try variants of the keyword
  • Avoid SEO bait if possible (even I am figuring this out)

2. Use Google search operators

Where is Savar Parade Grounds???

2.1 Double quotes

2.1 Double quotes

Savar Parade Ground

vs.

“Savar Parade Ground”

2.1 Double quotes

Savar Parade Ground

vs.

“Savar Parade Ground”

What is the environmental impact of the largest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the US?

2.2 filetype:

2.2 filetype:

micron clay ny environmental approval

vs.

micron clay ny environmental approval filetype:pdf

2.2 filetype:

micron clay ny environmental approval

vs.

micron clay ny environmental approval filetype:pdf

Where to find articles about flooding in Bangalore between 2005 and 2010?

2.3 after: and before:

2.3 after: and before:

bangalore floods 2005 to 2010

vs.

bangalore floods after:2005 before:2010

2.3 after: and before:

bangalore floods 2005 to 2010

vs.

bangalore floods after:2005 before:2010

3. Found a source, but website is down?

You might find a backup of it on Wayback Machine

4. When Google can’t find it, or Non-indexed documents

4.1 archive.org

Government Tenders

Environmental Approvals

When the government publishes information, they often publish it on such portals

Over time, you might slowly discover portals relevant to your subject of interest

I do a lot of Bangalore related research, so eventually I became familiar with almost every Bangalore government department portal

Closing thoughts

Patience is key

90% chance a given document won’t be the source you need

But 90% chance it will help you find the direction forward

Keep an eye out for relevant information in every document:

  • Relevant keywords
  • Related context

Research can happen passively

You might have spent a day searching for something, and failing to find it

But you could wake up the next morning with the exact idea you needed

Demo of me doing “research”

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2026/May/14/upa-lokayukta-takes-up-case-of-apartment-construction-near-yelahanka-lake