will be funded by India. Bhutan's nearest railway station is Hasimara. Demographics Bhutan had a population of people in . Bhutan has a median age of 24.8 years. There are 1,070 males to every 1,000 females. The literacy rate in Bhutan is 59.5 percent. Ethnic groups Bhutanese people primarily consist of the Ngalops and Sharchops, called the Western Bhutanese and Eastern Bhutanese respectively. Although the Sharchops are slightly larger in demographic size, the Ngalops dominate the political sphere, as the King and the political elite belong to this group. The Ngalops primarily consist of Bhutanese living in the western part of the country. Their culture is closely related to that of Tibet. Much the same could be said of the Sharchops, the largest group, who traditionally follow the Nyingmapa rather than the official Drukpa Kagyu form of Tibetan Buddhism. In modern times, with improved transportation infrastructure, there has been much intermarriage between these groups. The Lhotshampa, meaning "southerner Bhutanese", are a heterogeneous group of mostly Nepalese ancestry who have sought political and cultural recognition including equality in right to abode, language, and dress. Unofficial estimates claimed that they constituted 45% of the population in the 1988 census. Starting in the 1980s, Bhutan adopted a policy of "One Nation One People" to exert cultural (in language, dress and religion) and political dominance of the majority Drukpa people. The policy manifested in banning of teaching of Nepali language in schools and denial of citizenship to those who were not able to prove officially issued land holding title prior to 1950 specifically targeting ethnic Nepali-speaking minority groups ("Lhotshampa"), representing one-third of the population at the time. This resulted in widespread unrest and political demonstrations. In 1988, the Bhutanese authorities carried out a special census in southern Bhutan, region of high Lhotshampa population, resulting in mass denationalisation of Lhotshampas, followed by forcible deportation of 107,000 Lhotshampas, approximately one-sixth of the total population at the time. Those who had been granted citizenship by the 1958 Nationality Law were stripped of their citizenship. Members of Bhutanese police and army were involved in burning of Lhotshampa houses, land confiscation and other widespread human rights abuses including arrest, torture and rape of Lhotshampas involved in political protests. Following forcible deportation from Bhutan, Lhotshampas spent almost two decades in refugee camps in Nepal and were resettled in various western countries such as the United States between 2007 and 2012.