Indias Overpopulation free essay sample

If population continues to grow at the estimated rate, such rapid growth in India between now and mid-century could lead to overpopulation and an uncertain future for the environment and the people living there. Overpopulation occurs when a populations density exceeds the capacity of the environment to supply the health requirements of an individual, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Environmentalists have long been concerned about the resources threatened by rapidly growing human populations, focusing on phenomenon such as deforestation, desertification, air pollution and global warming. But the worst-case scenario for people experiencing overpopulation, according to Lawrence Smith, president of the Population Institute, is a lack of fresh, clean water. The population growth estimates at more than 9 billion people by 2050. Nine billion is an exceptional amount of people, considering the worlds population only reached 1 billion in 1830. By 1999, the world population reached 6 billion, and in the relatively short time between 2007 and 2050, there could be roughly 2. We will write a custom essay sample on Indias Overpopulation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 4 billion more people on Earth needing clean water, space and other natural resources from their environment in order to survive. This is going to be a huge problem to our society and country as a whole. India is the second most populated country in the world. The government started a family planning program aimed at controlling the increasing population. However, so far, this has not been as successful as predicted. Thus, overpopulation is the greatest problem for India. There is a low literacy rate in India. As India is an agriculturist country, most of the people living in the rural part of India are farmers. These farmers have little or no education at all. They live in large families, sometimes in joint, where four or five children are common. Another misconception is a family with no sons, has no heir. This creates a competition between the woman and nature to see who wins in the race of making a male baby. In contrast to these villages are the cities where most of the people are educated enough to decide how many offspring they should have. However, thousands of people migrate daily from villages to cities in search of work making these cities overpopulated. Many of these villagers, without enough money to lead a successful city life, live in shanty slums, on pavements or on roads. Bombay, Bangalore, Calcutta, Madras, and New Delhi are some of the well known overpopulated cities. With around 170 million square miles of arable land, it has the potential to produce among the world’s highest crop yields. While whether or not this amount of food could sufficiently cover the needs of the population, two things are clear without dispute; millions of Indians’ fundamental biological needs are not met, and should the population continue to rise, it will not be possible to produce enough food to cover those needs, which could be a point of view from a Neo-Malthusian. A neo-Malthusian is a person who believes that the earths population will eventually die off because of an insufficient food surplus. All of these issues boil down to the simple idea that there are not enough goods to go around. Or, if there are enough goods to go around, then there is not enough government to dispense them. The second argument, that as population rises problems are worsened, is intuitive. But beyond this, growth rates are a big deal for a country with a huge population. It is a fact that India adds more people to the world each day than any other country, adding up to about 16 million people per year by one estimate. Each added person increases the number on the side of the ratio that should decrease if needs are going to be met. And this brings us to the heart of the problem. For no matter how small a population is, its government may be inadequate to suit its needs, and no matter how good a government is, if a population is to large, it does not matter how good distribution is. If birth rates exceed death rates, population is increasing. There are two ways to lower the growth rate; decrease births or increase deaths. Because development centralizes around ideas of improving quality of life, and because life is a central idea to development of countries, forcing a policy of causing death seems wrong. So the adaptable option would be to lower birth rates. This situation has gotten so out-of-hand that situations like forced sterilization/abortions are occurring more than ever at the time. p to 50 million girls and women are missing from India s population as a result of systematic gender discrimination in India. In most countries in the world, there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males. In India, there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the population. The accepted reason for such a disparity is the practice of female infanticide in India, prompted by the existence of a dowry system which requires the family to pay out a great deal of money when a female child is married. For a poor family, the birth of a girl child can signal the beginning of financial ruin and extreme hardship. However this anti-female bias is by no means limited to poor families. Much of the discrimination is to do with cultural beliefs and social normality’s. These methods of determining the sex of a child are becoming increasing available in rural areas of India, fuelling fears that the trend towards the abortion of female fetuses is on the increase. The situation in India shows that legalizing abortion not only does not ensure that it becomes accessible but also that it is an ineffective method for curtailing population growth. Legal abortion was introduced in 1971, when concern about burgeoning population growth became an issue for India. Although abortion is legal, it is estimated that four million Indian women a year still resort to illegal abortions because of social taboos, misconceptions about the law, and the lack of skilled practitioners and medical facilities. Giving or taking prenatal tests solely to determine the sex of the fetus is being criminalized by the Indian parliament. Female children are still widely considered to be a social and financial liability in a country where the dowry system is still a part of marriage. The prenatal tests have been used to detect female fetuses, which are then aborted. Under Indian law, ending a pregnancy only because a fetus is female has already been outlawed, although the practice is common. Poor women who cannot afford the cost of either prenatal testing or abortion often resort to female infanticide. Abortion became legal in India in 1971 in order to prevent overpopulation. However, this appears to have been unsuccessful as India now has 1. 1 billion people. In 1994, India outlawed the use of ultrasound machines to reveal fetus gender. If something doesn’t change quickly the earth will slowly suffer from the irresponsibility of India and some surrounding countries. Bibliography www. humangeography. com www. ask. com/indiaspopulation www. baruchgradvoice. com