India losing population battle

In the early 1950s in India, women gave birth to an average of six children.
The country faced a demographic time bomb and India was the first country to attempt to control population growth. Half a century later, the birth rate has been halved, but the massive population is still the number one problem facing India. With the population still increasing by a figure equal to the entire population of Australia every year, it is accepted India's attempts to stabilise it have already failed. Aasthah is nearly two and a half. She lives in the suburbs of Delhi with her parents and grandparents and she is very famous. When she was born in the year 2000, she became the official one billionth Indian. Despite government attempts to check India's population growth, since Aasthah was born, it has continued its inexorable climb to about I.05bn today. This has happened most rapidly in areas like the so-called Hindi Belt - the central, predominantly Hindi-speaking states. In the small town of Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, down an alleyway off the main street and behind some shops, is the home of Mohammed Omar and his wife, Aasiyah Begum. This couple has not taken the population control message to heart. They have 24 children. Population expert Usha Rai says India still lacks a coherent approach to holding back the population explosion and knowledge about basic birth control techniques is woeful.

Mariam Ahmad