Population Explosion in India

INTRODUCTION:

For the European developed countries like Spain and Italy, where the population is decreasing, this might be considered as a boon. However, for the developing countries like India, population explosion is a curse and is damaging to the development of the country and it’s society. The developing countries already facing a lack in their resources, and with the rapidly increasing population, the resources available per person are reduced further, leading to increased poverty, malnutrition, and other large population-related problems. The literal meaning of population is “the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region” (Webster’s dictionary), and the literal meaning of population explosion is “a pyramiding of numbers of a biological population” (Webster’s dictionary).As the number of people in a pyramid increases, so do the Robles related to the increased population. The main factors affecting the population change are the birth rate, death rate and migration. The birth rate is the ratio between births and individuals in a specified population and time (Miller, 253). The death rate is the ratio between the number of deaths and individuals in a specified population and time (Miller, 253). Migration is the number of people moving in (immigration) or out (emigration) of a country, place or locality. The population change is calculated by the formula:
Population change = (Births + Immigration) – (Deaths + Emigration) The recent increase in the world population has been caused due to the following major reasons:
1. The increase in birth rates due to medical improvements
2. The decrease in death rates due to better medical facilities and advancements in the field of medicine.
3. Immigration to better developed countries due to several reasons like better job opportunities, war, and natural causes like hurricanes, earthquakes, and so forth.
REASONS FOR INCREASE IN POPULATION:
I. BIRTH RATE
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b. DEATH RATE:
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II. MIGRATION: In countries like the United States (U.S.), immigration plays an important role in the population increase. However, in countries like India, immigration plays a very small role in the population change. Although people from neighboring countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal, migrate to India; at the same time Indians migrate to other countries like the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. During the 1971 war between India and Pakistan over Bangladesh, the immigration rate increased tremendously. However, currently the migration in India is –0.08 migrants per 1000 population (AskJeeves.com, Internet), and is decreasing further. This is definitely good for India. This way, the population might eventually come close to being under control and more people may get better job opportunities and further education. For example, the students in my university from India, like myself, have better chances for job opportunities and better education outside India than we would have had in India.

a. EFFECTS OF POPULATION EXPLOSION: The current rate of population growth in India is 1.58% and the total fertility rate is 3.11.Although the total fertility rate has decreased, due to the increase in the total number of women between the ages of 15 and 44 (reproductive ages), the total number of births has increased. This has lead to the current enormous population size of approximately 1 billion. This has greatly hampered the development of the Indian economy. The amount of resources that could have been available to one person a few years ago now need to be shared between two people, which is not sufficient for either of them. The population increase has lead to air and water pollution, unemployment, poverty, lack of educational resources, and even malnourished women and children.
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AVAILABLE MEASURES TO CONTROL POPULATION The government of India has been organizing several programs for limiting the population increase and has been spending millions of dollars on controlling the birth rate. Some of the programs have been successful, and the rate of increase has also reduced, but has still to reach the sustainable rate. The major factors affecting the population increase of India are the rapidly increasing birth rate and decreasing death rates. We can follow strict birth control measures like China to decrease the birth rate, but we cannot go and decrease our technological advancements to decrease the death rate. Thus, our main emphasis falls on decreasing the birth rate. These organizations aim to promote family planning as a basic human right and the norm of a two-child family on a voluntary basis, to achieve a balance between the population size and resources, and to provide education and services to all.however, the success of the family planning program in India depends on several factors like literacy, religion and the region where the couple live.
PROBLEMS WITH IMPLEMENTING MEASURES TO CONTROL POPUALTION: The success of family planning greatly depends on women and their status. Thus, it is imperative for the women to be educated so that they can decide on the number of children they want and be aware of the available birth control measures. Also, in a country like India, it is important for the women to have equal rights in the decision about the number of children to be produced. Women also need to get educated about the impacts of having so many children on their own bodies and the impacts on their children. In addition, not only the young ones, but also the older women need to be educated so that they can teach the right family planning to their own daughters.
India, being a diverse country, has people from all religions and of different family backgrounds. As mentioned earlier, in Islam, children are considered to be a gift of God, and thus Muslims do not believe in birth control measures. Also, among the Catholics, abortion is considered a sin. Thus, the people from such sects of the society do not follow family planning. CONCLUSION AND PERSONAL OPINION: Considering the above factors, it is obvious that in India, the success of family planning programs depends on too many factors, making it a more complex operation than usual. However, this does not change the fact that birth control is extremely important in order to improve the life of the future generations in India in terms of better availability of resources and a better and clean world. Unless, we want our future generations to live the life of barbarians, it is imperative that we control the population explosion and thus control the usage of the available resources. We can start by educating the women of India in the basics of family planning. This can simply be done if just one educated person takes it into her/his stride to teach one other person – “Each one, teach one.” If population increase leads us back in time to the Stone Age, then what is the advantage of years of technological advancements and our hard work? Can we really enjoy a newborn in our lives when we know that we would not be able to give our child the basic necessities of life? Being a parent, is that not our responsibility to wish for the best for our future generations? Then is population explosion a boon or a curse for India? I would have to agree with the latter answer, because I wish for all the possible facilities to be readily available for my childrenI want my future generations to see and have the world as it was meant to be, and not what we have made it into.