I Have taken over as Editor-in-Chief of a prestigious quarterly Journal, MAN AND DEVELOPMENT, published by Center for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh. This Journal is received in 70 countries. This years three issues have been published. Every issue carries Editors note. These notes deal with policy issues. I am producing below my note in the last issue for benefit my facebook friends: From Editors Desk: Population explosion is staring at the face of the world. From a level of 7.8 billion persons today the world population is variously estimated to increase between 9 billion to 11 billion persons by the year 2050. Of the reserve estimates of 9 billion, 7.8 billion persons will be in the less developed countries. According to the United Nations estimates world population is increasing at the rate of 74 million persons per annum. The exploding population is leading to the lack of adequate number of gainful employment opportunities and eroding the productive resource base, especially in the less developed countries. As a consequence, the lack of food security and access to food has become the order of the day. Nutritional security, especially for the vulnerable sections of the societies including children, old persons and pregnant as well as lactating mothers has become a far cry. Demand for housing and shelters has led to the encroachment on productive lands and production base is declining fast thereby. Environment degradation, air pollution and expanding slums are becoming order of the day. Shrinking resource base is leading to the disputes, conflicts and even civil wars between the sections of the human society. Yet, the world leadership is sitting almost mute on the problem, except some inert actions like observing the ritual of population day annually. India and China are the two most populated countries of the world. In the year 2012 the estimated population in India was 1.237 billion persons compared with 1.351 billion persons in China. Since China has been in population control mode with only one child norm per family for decades, its growth rate has come down significantly compared with India. Unfortunately, Indian leadership has been paying lip service to the problem with ineffective programmes of the like of family planning. The consequence is that by the year 2050, when the population of the world is expected to get stabilized, India will be the most populated country in the word. With a growth rate of 2 percent even, the population of India will increase to the level of 1.523 billion persons overtaking China with a population of 1.393 billion persons. This amounts to 24.4 percent increase in the Indian population compared with only 3.9 percent increase in the Chinese population. The Indian subcontinent is, thus, in a dire state and is heading for serious social unrest due to growing unemployment, lack of gainful earning opportunities and amenities of life. Shortage of food and nutrition, lack of housing facilities, shortage of water and power, socially engulfing pollution, increasing the number of expanding slums and encroachment on productive resources of land and water, congestion in cities and towns and lack of matching infrastructure are emerging as issues of serious concern. If the population explosion is not tackled seriously with grit and required political will it will inevitably lead to social unrest in the society. Further, it is not only the increase in the total population of the country, more so is the deteriorating quality of population in its totality which should of more serious concern to the policy makers of the country. The educated and well to do families that can feed, educate and bring up children under conducive family environment, are limiting themselves to one or two children only. Yet the poor, who cannot adequately feed and do not have the wherewithal to educate or bring up their wards properly with even minimally required life necessities, feel least concerned and are not limiting the number of children in their families. This is leading to the continuous decline in the overall quality and value system of the society, resulting in stark poverty, unhealthy competition in every sphere of life, corruption and break down in provision of social services. Under these circumstances and fast developing population onslaught, India needs definitive population control policies in place of inert and ineffective family planning programmes whatever these are. Unfortunately budget lines and concerns of the governments in India are almost silent on this very serious problem staring at the face of the nation. Is anyone listening?
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:12:29 +0000
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