Population explosion in India and birth control

The life expectancy of an individual increased after Indian independence, with the building of hospitals, educating people about health and immunisation programmes conducted by the government. This resulted in the population explosion, as the birth rate remained almost the same. Population explosion can lead to exhaustion of India’s economic and natural resources.

Exploitation of urban vs. rural areas

Urbanisation includes:

Increase in buildings for homes, offices, schools.

Increase in roads, highways, railway stations, airports, docks.

The increase in industries, reservoirs, power plants.

Some important terms:

Demography: This is the statistical study of the human population with special reference to size and density, distribution and other vital statistics.

Population density: This is the number of individuals per square kilometre at any given time.

Birth rate or natality: This is the number of births per 1000 people of population per year.

Death rate or mortality: This is the number of deaths per 1000 of population per year.

The growth rate of the population: This is the difference between birth rate and the death rate.

Contraception: The method by which pregnancy can be prevented.

Urbanisation: The trend of large populations of people moving to and living in cities for improvement of their economic conditions. Rising population puts heavy demand on natural resources