The billion plus population: another dimension
Seal, K.C.; Talwar, P.P.
Economic and Political Weekly 29(36): 2344-2347
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 0012-9976 Document Number: 287092
The paper argues that in view of the crucial importance of the rate of population growth to India, in the overall programme of economic and social development, it is essential to accelerate the pace of decline of the population growth rate. The paper examines several of the arguments made in the book The inevitable billion plus ( V. Gowariker), including that the natural growth rate in 2001 will be 1.3%; that India's population will not reach the 100 000 000 mark this century, but may reach it a year or two later; India will reach the threshold of the net reproduction rate of unity within a decade from now; and finally that there is no possibility of India's population exceeding China's and therefore the prophecy of India's becoming the most populous nation in the world in the future should be rejected. Some of these predictions are rejected, and the paper concludes that basing alternative predictions on the extrapolations of trends in birth and death rates when they reach different levels is more realistic. The efforts of some states which have achieved lower rates will have to be replicated in those which have not.