Pungiwalla
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India Copes with a Population Explosion
N E W D E L H I, Oct. 11 — Near the center of the Indian capital stands a population clock that relentlessly ticks away. It tracks the 33 births a minute, 2,000 an hour, 48,000 a day, which calculates to nearly 12 million every year. That is roughly the size of Australia. For some in India, this popular milestone is cause for celebration. As a current political slogan puts it: “Nothing’s impossible when 1 billion Indians work together.” The reality of a billion in India is something else. “It’s a cause for very serious concern,” says population expert Ashish Bose. Bose says India has enough food for now, but each birth eats deeper into the country’s shrinking cropland and consumes more of its dwindling water supply. Each illness threatens to swamp the health care system, while millions of unemployed already flood the cities in search of work. India’s Complex ChallengeSlowing the population growth, says Bose, will be a greater challenge than anything India has ever faced. “It is as complex as producing a nuclear bomb,” says Bose, “Or shooting off a missile.” Complex because the cultural roots of population growth in India run so deep. “God said ‘Go forth and produce’ and we just went ahead and did exactly that,” says Author Shobha De. De says Indians are aware of the need for birth control, but too many remain ignorant of contraception methods or are unwilling to discuss them. This is also a land still bound to ancient customs, such as producing a son. “The pressure to produce the son is so predominant,” says De, “that a lot of families have more children than they actually want or can afford.” Three hundred million live in extreme poverty while half the populations is still illiterate. More people is exactly what India does not need to celebrate. “There’s very little to celebrate unless we can provide for our people, and at this point, India cannot,” says De. “I think of it more as a tragedy than something to be proud of.” In the meantime, that relentless population clock just keeps on ticking and ticking.
PATNA: The population explosion has created an alarming situation in Bihar, crippling the state's economy and also straining the natural resources of the state.
The existing educational, health, transport facilities are overstrained and unable to cope with the pressure and are proving to be inadequate to meet the basic needs of the people. And the hapless people are at the receiving end of all these problems, says Abhimanyu Singh, a retired IAS officer and the state coordinator for the Centre for Policy Research.
Expressing concern over the state of affairs, he observes that north Bihar is the most densely populated region in India. If no conscious effort is made to check the explosion by the year 2020, the population of the state will grow by 50 per cent. This will add another four crore to the existing population of Bihar (8.28 crore after bifurcation), w
N E W D E L H I, Oct. 11 — Near the center of the Indian capital stands a population clock that relentlessly ticks away. It tracks the 33 births a minute, 2,000 an hour, 48,000 a day, which calculates to nearly 12 million every year. That is roughly the size of Australia. For some in India, this popular milestone is cause for celebration. As a current political slogan puts it: “Nothing’s impossible when 1 billion Indians work together.” The reality of a billion in India is something else. “It’s a cause for very serious concern,” says population expert Ashish Bose. Bose says India has enough food for now, but each birth eats deeper into the country’s shrinking cropland and consumes more of its dwindling water supply. Each illness threatens to swamp the health care system, while millions of unemployed already flood the cities in search of work. India’s Complex ChallengeSlowing the population growth, says Bose, will be a greater challenge than anything India has ever faced. “It is as complex as producing a nuclear bomb,” says Bose, “Or shooting off a missile.” Complex because the cultural roots of population growth in India run so deep. “God said ‘Go forth and produce’ and we just went ahead and did exactly that,” says Author Shobha De. De says Indians are aware of the need for birth control, but too many remain ignorant of contraception methods or are unwilling to discuss them. This is also a land still bound to ancient customs, such as producing a son. “The pressure to produce the son is so predominant,” says De, “that a lot of families have more children than they actually want or can afford.” Three hundred million live in extreme poverty while half the populations is still illiterate. More people is exactly what India does not need to celebrate. “There’s very little to celebrate unless we can provide for our people, and at this point, India cannot,” says De. “I think of it more as a tragedy than something to be proud of.” In the meantime, that relentless population clock just keeps on ticking and ticking.
PATNA: The population explosion has created an alarming situation in Bihar, crippling the state's economy and also straining the natural resources of the state.
The existing educational, health, transport facilities are overstrained and unable to cope with the pressure and are proving to be inadequate to meet the basic needs of the people. And the hapless people are at the receiving end of all these problems, says Abhimanyu Singh, a retired IAS officer and the state coordinator for the Centre for Policy Research.
Expressing concern over the state of affairs, he observes that north Bihar is the most densely populated region in India. If no conscious effort is made to check the explosion by the year 2020, the population of the state will grow by 50 per cent. This will add another four crore to the existing population of Bihar (8.28 crore after bifurcation), w