Is there a population explosion as Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted in his Independence Day speech?
India’s population grew by 17.64 percent between 2001 and 2011 to 1,210.9 million. This is faster than China’s 5.43 percent population growth during the same period. But, the last decade was also the first time after 1911-21 when India added fewer numbers than the previous decade. India’s population is increasing but at a slower pace.
The United Nations population division, in its report released in June, said India would overtake China to become the most populous country in 2027. In 2015, it had said this would happen in 2022. In 2017, it had placed the event in 2024.
“How can there be a population explosion when 24 state and union territories have total fertility rates (TFR) at or below the replacement level of 2.1?” asks Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Delhi-based Population Foundation of India (PFI). The organisation was set up in 1970 by enlightened philanthropists like JRD Tata and Bharat Ram to advance “human welfare through family planning”. Replacement-level fertility is the rate at which the population replaces itself from one generation to the next.
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