The Population of India:
Finding solutions to population explosion

he population of India is as diverse as they come but while India encompasses just 2.4 percent of the world’s land area, it holds more than 15 percent of the global population. Only China supports a bigger population. Nearly 40 percent of Indians are below the age of 15 years old. Approximately 70 percent of the people reside in over 550,000 villages, and what’s left in over 200 towns and cities.

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Throughout the 20th century, India has been in the center of a demographic shift. At the start of the century, famine, periodic epidemics and endemic disease held the death rate high enough to stabilize the high birth rate.

Amid 1911 through to 1920, the birth and death rates were basically the same: around 48 births and 48 deaths per 1,000 population.

Right: Typical city scene in India
population of India, typical city scene

The mounting effect of remedial and preventative medicine resulted in the gradual drop in the death rate. By the mid '90s, the approximate birth rate had declined to 28 per 1,000, and the approximated death rate had declined to 10 per 1,000. The rise in the Indian population in the years amid 1950 and 1970 was focused on new irrigation projects, areas dependent on refugee resettlement, and locations of urban development. Early on in the 1990s, the rise in population was the most remarkable in the cities of central and southern India. 

Below: Yearly, monthly, Daily and hourly population of India increase.

Population of India increase, every minute, every day, every month

The future population of India

It is predicted that the population of India will surpass the population in China by 2025. In the past numerous years, fertility control policies in India have been unsuccessful in endorsing a sustainable answer to the issue of overpopulation. So what has happened here? Presently the sex ration is 960 females for every 1,000 men. This is a marker that the UN states reveals the lower status of women in India, who are more likely to be disadvantaged when it comes to education, food and health services. The standing of female sterilization shows another problem in the Indian population control schemes. By aiming at women rather than men, the government unintentionally decides on the more risky ways of birth control. The population of India in itself is not the issue. Rather, it is the inadequacies in basic education and deprived economic conditions that are the root problem. Population has stayed an issue because education carries on to be a problem in the country.

population of India, crowds

Quality of life

The rapid rate of rise of population has impacted the quality of life of the people in India. Experts believe that if the population continues to rise at the same rate, it will devastate the country. If the people do not realize the problem and solutions are not implemented, the population explosion could result in fighting over food and water, riots, etc. A number of propositions are being widely discussed, such as certain clauses in the law penalizing a 2nd child, special benefits for underprivileged families who have one child, and so on. The overpopulation in India affects other aspects of the country as well. Due to the rise in population more grasslands and forests are being utilized for human occupation.

The urgent call for India is to generate ideal provisions for recognition of the need for alleviating the population problem and how it is a vital component of human welfare and progress. The answer lies in the expansion of education and awareness, and in the empowerment of women. Birth control programs should also be merged with medical and public health centers to make them well known among the masses.

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