Context:
- During the Monsoon session, a few Members of Parliament tabled a draft before President Ram Nath Kovind, demanding a population control bill.
- If the bill would get passed in Parliament along with a two-child policy to be introduced in India.
WHAT IS A TWO-CHILD POLICY?
Two-child policy, famously known as ‘hum do humare do’ is a term which has been frequently used in public via advertisements on trucks or on public walls.
The term is not new to Indians, especially.
A two-child policy is a government-imposed limit of two children allowed per family, with the perks of government subsidies given only to the first two children.
- It has previously been used in Vietnam
- Since 2016, it has been implemented in China, replacing its previous one-child policy
TWO SIDES OF THE POPULATION IN INDIA
With inflation on an all-time-high in India, families nowadays are getting smaller as they aren’t even able to feed a single child.
However, there are still families in rural areas in India where a woman is treated as a machine for producing children. A machine which has to produce a number of girls till the time a boy is not born, resulting in no family planning whatsoever.
WHAT DOES POPULATION CONTROL ACT SAY?
INDIA’S POPULATION TO RISE HIGHER IN THE FUTURE
As per the East Asia Forum report, in 2050, India’s population is projected to be 1.69 billion which will be higher than that of China.
The population of China is estimated to be 1.31 billion in the same year.
DEMAND FOR WATER AND FOOD TO RISE
- In India, the global demand for water in 2050 is projected to be more than 50 per cent of what it was in 2000.
- According to the same report, the demand for food will double in the year 2050 and even if India manages to feed its expanding population, its growth may not be ecologically sustainable.
HEAVILY CRITICIZED ONE-CHILD POLICY IN CHINA
Though China’s one-child policy has been criticized as against human dignity and rights, it has improved and controlled the nation’s population by a possible 400 million people as per the report of East India Forum.
However, in the 2015 report by IB Times, the policy was scrapped over government concerns of the country’s ageing population that could slow economic growth.
- It is estimated by 2050 nearly 440 million people in China will be over 60 years of age.
To combat this, the ruling party of China had abandoned the one-child policy and allowed couples in the country to have up to two children.
WORLD’S POPULATION AS OF NOW
As per the latest estimates of United Nations Population Division, the current population of the world is over 7.6 million as of July 2018.
Elaborated by Worldometers, five most populous countries and their population are as follows:
| 1 | China | 1,415,045,928 |
| 2 | India | 1,354,051,854 |
| 3 | United States | 326,766,748 |
| 4 | Indonesia | 266,794,980 |
| 5 | Brazil | 210,867,954 |
Now, the question that arises in front of India is that will it be able to control its population and not exceed China’s as estimated?
Because if this won’t happen, there will be no resources left, and the growing population’s demand will increase to the next level, resulting in increasing death rates increasing in the country.
Source: India Today