Minority Community

A minority community is one which is less than 50% of the population.
Article 29 of the Constitution of India gives a minority the right to conserve its distinct language, script or culture.
Article 30 gives minorities based or language or religion the right to establish and administer educational institutions.
National Commission for Minorities recognises Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians as religious minorities. Bahais, Jews and tribal religious communities are not included. Linguistic minorities are not mentioned.
On 11/2/2019 Supreme Court bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna asked National Commission for Minorities to decide in three months whether Hindus in states where they are a minority should get benefits for minorities and should minority status be at state level rather than national level. This was in response to a petition dt. 17/11/2017 seeking minority status for Hindus in states where they are a minority.
As per 2011 census Hindus are minority in Arunachal Pradesh (29%), Jammu & Kashmir (28.44%), Lakshadweep (2.5%), Manipur (31.39%), Meghalaya (11.53%), Mizoram (2.75%), Nagaland (8.75%) and Punjab (38.40%).
Supreme Court should have asked Central Government to decide about the matter. It is the Government of India notification dt. 23/10/1993 notified Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians as religious minorities and notification dt. 27/1/2014 notified Jains as religious minority.
National Commission for Minorities can reply it has to be an executive decision by Government of India that can decide on minority status at state level.
In states where Hindus are a majority, Hindus who are a linguistic minority claim minority benefits. In Karnataka, Hindus who speak Kodava, Konkani, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Tulu have minority educational institutions.
At national level any linguistic community can claim to be minority because the number is less than 50%. In a state all religious or linguistic communities can be minorities. As per 2011 census all religious and linguistic communities and Arunachal Pradesh are minorities.