Country Comments

India has over three times as many citizens than what the country’s renewable resources can sustain, and it is adding over thirteen million more residents a year. This continued rapid population growth threatens the destruction of natural habitats and contributes to land degradation, soil erosion, air pollution and declining water tables. Population Connection reported in September 2019 that more than half the nation is dealing with high to extreme water stress which results in 200,000 deaths a year.

The Journal Nature in 2017 cited India as one of the ten worst countries for biodiversity loss with a huge number of endangered species. To improve human health and biodiversity reducing consumption for the average Indian who lives on less than $2000 US dollars a year is not very realistic.

In 2019 President Modi seeing this predicament called for-family-planning-to-fight-overpopulation. Continued attention to gender equality, women’s empowerment and girl’s education will additionally slow the fertility rate which has been gradually declining from three children per mother in 2005 to almost replacement level today.