Question

Give reasons

1. India is a overpopulated country.

2. Family planning programme is not successful.

3. The birth rate is declining slowly in India.

4. The death rate is declining rapidly in India.

5. India has a ‘masculine population’.

Answer 1

1. With the rising population in India, it would be correct to say that India is an overpopulated country. This can be verified from the fact that the density of population which is indicated by the number of people living per square kilometer is at a very high of 382 people /sq km in India. Also, other factors such as increasing life expectancy (66.8%), declining infant mortality rate (47) and low female literacy rate are playing a major role in contributing to the increasing population of the country. Thus, we can say that with 121.02 crores of population, India is indeed an overpopulated country.

2. Family planning program is one of the important measures that was initiated by the government of India to control the rising population in the country. Under this, it emphasised on having a small family and controlling the size of a family through the use of contraceptives and time spacing between consecutive births. However, this program was not successful due to many factors. Some of them being, lack of awareness among the people about family planning, traditional and religious believes of the people and inconsistent implementation of the government policies. Thus, all these resulted in the failure of the family planning programme.

3. Birth rate basically refers to the number of live births per 1,000 of the population per year. In India, it has been seen that the birth rate has been declining at a slow rate. This can be verified from the fact that the birth rate was 45.8 during the period 1891-1990 which later declined to only 40.0 in 1951-1960 and then to 20.97 in 2011. The major factors behind this slow decline in the birth rate are high poverty, illiteracy, poor status of women, early and universal marriage.

4. Death rate refers to the number of deaths per 1,000 people per year. In India, it is being witnessed that the death rate is declining rapidly since a long time. This can be derived from the fact that the death rate in 1891-1900 was 44.4 which later declined to 27.4 in 1941-1950 and finally to 7.48 in 2011. This continuous decline in the death rate has been due to various factors such as improvement in medical facilities, better education facilities, improved standard of living of people, etc.

5. The given statement, ‘India has a masculine population’ implies that there are more men in India as compared to women. This can be seen from the fact that there is an unfavorable sex ratio in India. In other words, the there are only around 914 females per 1000 males in India, according to 2011 census. The major reasons contributing to the declining female population are low literacy, religious beliefs in favour of male child, specific preference for male child, etc.