According to data that was made public by the United Nations on Wednesday, India is on track to surpass China as the most populated nation in the entire world. By midway through this year, India will have approximately 3 million more citizens than its neighboring country, China.
According to the “State of World Population Report” during this year, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that India’s population would reach 1.4286 billion by the middle of the year, while China’s population is anticipated to reach 1.4257 billion. India’s number is estimated to be 2.9 million less than China’s.
According to the figures presented in an analysis that represents information that was accessible up to February, the United States of America comes in at an insignificant third place, with a population estimate of 340 million residents as in the month of June.
The United Nations’ (UN) prior population estimates were used by population experts to anticipate that India’s population would overtake China’s this month; however, the most recent report from the world body did not identify a date.
Officials from the United Nations Population Fund have stated that it is not possible to determine a date because of the ambiguity over the statistics from India and China.
This is owing to the fact that India’s most recent census occurred in 2011, and the country’s next census, which was scheduled to take place in 2021, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although China and India will each account for over a third of the predicted 8.04 billion world population, growth in population in both countries has been declining, with the population growth of China slowing significantly more quickly than India’s.
A historic turn that is likely to usher in a long era of decrease in citizenship numbers, with enormous repercussions for both China’s economy and the rest of the globe, occurred in China last year when its population dropped for the very first time in the past six decades.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that population benefits were dependent not only on the number but also on excellence.
It’s necessary to have a large population, but it’s also important to have talented people…Wang told journalists on Wednesday that China has been taking proactive steps to deal with the country’s rapidly aging population.
The population premium has not vanished, as our Premier Li Qiang noted earlier in this discussion. She stated that there is a great incentive for development and that our skilled dividend is experiencing tremendous growth.
There was not any official comment on the information from India, and a federal minister stated that it was not mentioned at a meeting of the cabinet that was conducted on Wednesday.
According to figures provided by the government, India’s yearly growth in population has been an average of 1.2% through 2011, which is a decrease from the 1.7% growth rate seen in the preceding decade.
According to a public opinion study conducted by UNFPA in preparation for the 2023 report, the most generally expressed opinion in India, Nigeria, Egypt, and Brazil was that each country’s population was too huge and the rates of fertility remained too high.
According to Andrea Wojnar, who serves as the agency’s spokesperson in India, the findings of the study in India indicate that fears regarding the country’s growing population have permeated a significant section of the general public.
Nevertheless, worrying or being alarmed about population numbers is not warranted. If individual freedoms and options are to be respected, then rather than being perceived as a threat, they should be interpreted as a symbol of growth, development, and goals.
Poonam Muttreja, a representative of the nonprofit organization Population Foundation of India, stated that India had tackled the issue of population growth in a number of ways that were effective.
Equally important, she stated in a statement, is preventing young girls and women from being coerced into unplanned marriages and pregnancies.
