Every year, the World Population Day is observed on 11th of July [1] to highlight global population issues. According to the Population Reference Bureau [2], increasing population is bound to have more implications in the developing nations than the developed ones. India is likely to be the most populous country of the world by 2050. With a population of 1171 million (mid-2009), India currently ranks next to China among the most populated nations of the world. This year, the world's population stands at 6.8 billion (India alone accounts for 17.22% of the world's population) with an 83 million rise from 2008.
A serious concern is that India’s population is projected to reach 1444.5 million by mid-2025 and 1748 million by mid-2050, with a change of 49% between 2009 and 2050. Population of China is projected to reach 1437 million by 2050 from the present 1331 million. United States, with its third largest population of 306.8 million (mid-2009) would remain the third most populated nation of 439 million people by mid-2050. The population density in India accounts to 356 per sq km, whereas in China it is 139 per sq km and in US 32 per sq km. In India, the birth rate is 23 as compared to 12 in China and 14 in US. Deaths per 1000 individuals are 7 in India and China alike, and 8 in US. The total fertility rate, i.e. the average number of children born to a woman, in India is 2.70. Considering that the growth rates remain the same, these figures clearly indicate that India will overtake China in the next four decades.
Increasing population could have consequences on migration [3], food security [4], scarcity of freshwater [5], etc. The gross per capita water availability [6] in India will decline to about 1140 cubic metres per year by 2050, reducing the availability of water per person by 38% from that in 2001. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, India is a ‘low-income, food deficit’ country, having 50% of the world’s hungry and about 20% of the population is undernourished [7]. The human development index [7] is as low as 0.619. Will population growth contribute greater to CO2 emissions and hence climate change is yet to be answered because the relationship between climate change and population growth is complex and indirect [5]. Though India does not rank first in the list of the highest CO2 emitters (2006), the fact to feel despair over is that it already is the fourth largest emitter, next to Russia which follows China and US at the top [2], and its emission rates are increasing at twice the global rate [8]. Rising temperatures can, in turn, have an effect on the population though, as shown by a study [9] carried out by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to this study, mortality – particularly in rural India – is affected by rising temperatures, due to ‘fewer opportunities for adaptation.’
The question that clearly arises from the aforementioned statistics is whether India is prepared to support a huge population with basic amenities like shelter, water, food, education and healthcare for all.
References
http://www.unfpa.org/wpd/2009/en/ 2009 World Population Data Sheet, Population Reference Bureau, August 2009. Zuckerman, B., and Jefferson, D., Human population and the environmental crisis, Jones and Barlett Publishers, Boston, MA, 1996, p. 83. Gahukar, R. T., Food security: challenges of climate change and bioenergy, Current Science,96, 2009, p. 26. UNFPA State of World Population 2009, Facing a changing world: women, population and climate, 2009. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, 2007, p. 481. http://www.wfp.org/countries/india Bidwai, P., The climate impasse, Frontline, 28 August 2009, p. 110. http://www.prb.org/Articles/2009/climatechangepolicyseminar.aspx
I am a science communicator.
