India overtaking China population by 42om in 2050

There is good news and bad news on the population versus prosperity front. This two-sided front is in fact a single entity where each part is anti-thetical to the other. The less population a nation or a community has the richer its members. Parsees, for instance, are India's smallest and richest community in India. Perhaps the Jains come next, though a fair way down the line. Whatever the crackpots from various communities -- there have been rather too many over the last few months on the Indian scene -- may say about every woman producing three, four or ten children to strengthen their community, the stark reality is that treating women as baby producing factories is not only insulting, it is the surest path to poverty and misery for every child, family and the community. But first the good news. India’s total fertility rate (TFR), the number of children per woman, slipped to 2.3 in 2013 from 2.4 in 2012, according to a report published in December last year just two months ago. Though an only 0.1 point decline, yet it is welcome. The positive trend is based on the Sample Registration System of the Registrar General of India. . The bad news is that the country is still struggling to achieve the much-awaited goal of reaching the TFR of 2.1 per cent, the replacement level. More alarmingly the population of India is likely to be around 162 crores (1620m) by 2050 when that of China will be about 138 crores (1380m), according to World Population Prospects( revised estimates for 2012). The 1983 National Health Policy target of achieving the total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 children per woman , which is also considered the replacement level, by the year 2000 was missed by a long chalk. Again the National Population Policy target set in 2000 of achieving 2.1 TFR by 2010 was missed. Sadly, the 2010 national TFR stood at 2.5, according to the Registrar General of India. The long term objective of the 2000 National Population policy was to achieve a stable (zero net growth) stable population by 2045. At the current rate we are pushing the stabilisation target to 2060. That need not be so. We have the medical and monetary wherewithal and we can shorten our target rather than wait till 2045 or for another half century till 2060. Our family planning strategy needs to be more focused than ever before. For the best part of last 40 years we have been obsessed with sterilization -- operating upon persons who have already produced three, four or more children , when the damage is done and objective of a small family already defeated. The birth control pill, which is the easiest and least complicated contraceptive to use and which has been available worldwide for more than 60 years, has been the most popular and effective contraceptive all across Europe and other parts of the developed world. So successful indeed that desire for a smaller family and fewer children has made couples to forego cash and holiday incentives offered by certain governments. Even in countries like Germany and Russia which are witnessing negative or zero population growth there are very few takers of such incentives offered by the state. In poorer countries like Romania and Hungary too, young couples tend to go for smaller but prosperous families, ignoring traditional Catholic religious reservations. The cafeteria approach looks good in terms of free choice but in reality it doesn’t play out so fair and free. The cash incentives to motivators and acceptors of other forms of contraceptives, especially sterilisation in various forms, act as a powerful factor in the cafeteria. Sterilisations can be easily counted and monies collected by motivators and acceptors. But pills popped in at home can’t be verified and cash handouts difficult to pick. Consequently the pill seems to have fallen off the cafeteria shelves as only about three percent women in the 15-45 age group are taking to the pill, unaware of the advantages of the pill. Over 90 per cent child bearing women in India are barely aware of the pill’s benefits like regularising of periods, bleeding control, lesser ovarian problems and, above all, spacing out pregnancies for better mother and child health. Researchers say the pill can even cut the risk of developing breast, ovarian and womb cancer. They even go on to recommend the pill for nuns too for reasons of health rather than as a conrtraceptive because it reduces overall mortality and mortality due to ovarian and uterine cancer. In India, medical or paramedical advice on the easy-to-use pill for controlling family size and better family welfare could be most well timed and effective after the first or second child birth. Our long obsession with sterilisation operations -- vasectomy, no scalpel vasectomy, tubectomy, IUD -- in spite of the numerical surges running into lakhs over the last few years has failed to stem the explosive growth in the Hindi heartland of the country. And it must be underlined that the success of the southern states and some northern states cannot be attributed to sterilisation programmes. Rather it is due to factors like higher female education rate, mid-day school meals, and availability of home entertainment in the evening, thanks to the distribution of free television sets by some the ruling parties. Sterilisations are the biggest gimmick. Collection of cash handouts by NGOs, individual motivators and volunteers who undergo such operations is the main attraction of most participants in this elaborate game. Even doctors who perform these operations are in this somewhat lucrative loop. All this money would be worth investing if it could move us to nearer to the population control target. An overwhelming majority of such operations are performed on women who have already given birth to three , four or more children and have reached the menopause stage. Men, notoriously, account for a mere five percent of total number of sterilisation operations, according to the available surveys published in the quarterly journal of the National Institute of Health and family Welfare . Reports of botched up sterilization operations at ad hoc camps have been galore year after year. Only three months ago 13 women died after surgical sterilisation at a camp in Chhattisgarh. The exact cause of their deaths remains unidentified and culprits – doctors or medicine suppliers -- not yet nailed. In January this year 73 women were operated upon in four sort hours at a sterilisation camp in Varanasi. by a single doctor at a primary health centre in Chiraigaon. N violation of guidelines which prescribe no more than 30 surgeries per day by one doctor. Lack of adequate facilities at the camp meant that the poor women were asked to recoup on the floor before being discharged. The solution is not to discontinue sterilisations but to make sure that rogue doctors , spurious drug suppliers and hygiene violators are jailed. Camps at ill-equipped centres should be banned. While sterilization camps give a bad name to the operation and hogs headlines, other instruments of family planning remain neglected. The pill which has been available worldwide for over 60 years has been grossly neglected in India. It has proved its worth in Europe and the Americas and many other countries where population has stabilised, thereby affording prosperity to average family. Before the Pill only rich could give a decent life to their families and children while the masses remained poor. After the Pill the poor could also have taste prosperity because of small size families. Over the past six decades the Pill has acquired a versatility – daily, ‘Saheli’ style weekly and other varieties. All that is needed is to make it popular and available at all levels. It is the cheapest and most easy contraceptive and it is time India wakes up to it. Tailpiece. Father of the birth control Pill, Carl Djerassi, the chemist who led a research team in Mexico City that in 1951 developed ‘norethinderone,’ the key component of the pill, died of cancer at his home in San Francisco earlier this year in February at the age of 91. .............................................................................................................