It's Official: India’s Population Tops One Billion

[Guest guest]

This article by Neelesh Misra of the Associated Press (AP) actually

ran back on May 11, 2002, on the ABC News site. I never heard about

it at the time, but for some reason Hindu Press International (HPI)

sent out a news release about it yesterday. Since the article touches

upon important issues of population crunch and attitudes toward women

in India, and I think it's still very much worth reading:

 

ONE MORE: INDIA'S POPULATION TOPS ONE BILLION

 

NEW DELHI, India — With the birth of a baby girl named Astha --

"Faith" in Hindi -- India's population officially hit one billion

today, an event marked with fanfare and concern over the nation's too-

rapid growth.

 

Astha was born to Anjana and Ashok Arora at 5:05 a.m. this morning,

putting India in an exclusive club with China as the only nations

with populations exceeding 1 billion.

 

Just nine hours old and wailing, Astha was wheeled out with her sari-

clad mother before government ministers and a horde of journalists at

Safdarjang Hospital in the Indian capital. She weighed six pounds 13

ounces at birth, doctors said.

 

"I feel fine," said the mother, Anjana, weak and overwhelmed by the

chaotic reception. "I'm happy," said Ashok Arora, who works in an

automotive spare parts shop for a salary of US $50 per month.

 

"Don't crush the baby," Sumitra Mahajan, the minister for women and

child welfare, screamed into her microphone as nearly 200 journalists

swarmed over the mother's bed. Hospital guards climbed onto a nearby

bed and beat back the journalists with wooden truncheons.

 

PRESSING FOR SMALLER FAMILIES

 

The government staged the "one billionth baby" milestone as part of a

public campaign pressing Indians to have smaller families and rein in

the country's spiraling population growth.

 

Every measure of progress India has made since independence in 1948

has been swamped by the swelling population: Food production has

tripled, yet many people go hungry; literacy has increased, but so

has the overall number of illiterate people.

 

With an estimated 42,000 births per day in India, it was impossible

to know exactly where the billionth baby would be born.

 

The government picked May 11 as the date — calling it "a moment of

celebration, a moment to ponder." Health Ministry officials, with the

concurrence of the U.N. Population Fund, decreed that a baby girl

born this morning in the 1,500-bed Safdarjang Hospital would

symbolically mark the milestone. Twenty-four babies were born in

Safdarjang between midnight and noon.

 

The choice of a baby girl reflects another part of the government's

attempts to change Indians' family attitudes: promoting fair

treatment for infant girls to overcome traditional biases in favor of

boys.

 

The last national census in 1991 said there were 927 women for every

1,000 men in India. Health experts said that reflected a trend in

rural and poor areas that gives boys preferential treatment in food

and health care. Infanticide of baby girls remains a problem.

 

HARDLY CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

 

The billionth birth was hardly cause for celebration. Since its

independence from Britain in 1948, India has tried to curb its

exploding population with little success. When it became a nation,

India had 300 million people.

 

"We welcome Astha, but we should also be thinking whether she would

get an opportunity for education and health like millions of other

children," said Mahajan, the government minister. "Will we be able to

get her the resources and the opportunities necessary for her future?

This is what we have to think about."

 

Beginning this morning, a recording by the state-owned telephone

company told anyone who picked up the phone to dial in New

Delhi, "Our population has now reached one billion. Let's have small

families for a stronger India."

 

Projections say that if India does not curtail population growth it

will surpass China as the world's most populous nation in 50 years

with 1.5 billion people.

 

Efforts to encourage family planning among the poor suffered a

setback in the 1970s when the government sponsored a mass

sterilization campaign, in which poor people were duped or paid to

undergo vasectomies and tubectomies.

 

The emphasis has changed in the last decade toward educating women,

raising their status and providing better health care. Nongovernment

organizations tour rural areas distributing condoms and discussing

birth control, but sex education is not taught in the schools.

 

Source:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/indiababy000511.html