India is the second most populous country in the world only after China with 1.3 billion people. According to estimates it is well on its way to overtake China as the leader in population by 2050. Overpopulation is always seen as a problem because it leads to a host of problems. First of all there is a need to provide basic amenities to everyone. Secondly, there is a need to provide adequate infrastructure for the proper functioning of the overpopulated society and finally, there is a need to provide jobs to everyone.
Achieving the above objectives is no mean feat. It is already so hard to keep 50 people in a room happy, let alone 1.3 billion people across the country with diverse backgrounds. As such, this humongous population is considered a big liability both by the government and citizens alike. Yet, the need of the hour is not to sulk over this fact but to explore how this mass of human resource can be harnessed.
When we talk about using a country’s population as an asset, we are talking about the working age population. India is a young country. More than 50% of the population is under the age of 25. This can be tapped for the all round social and economic growth of nation. The mere existence of so many people opens up the need for grains to feed them, clothes to clothe them and housing to shelter them. Hence, these industries can be used to employ a significant portion of the population. Besides this, in the current globalized world there is a need for various services such as telecommunications, internet, banking, finance, advertising, luxury services etc. These industries can employ a significant portion of the population too.
The most salient feature of the service industry is its low use of tangible raw materials and high use of human capital. As such it can be used to export services to different nations while employing people from our own country. Some examples being Airtel and Reliance telecom networks in Africa and the Indian IT industry which serves as an outsourcing hub for most of the companies in US, UK etc.
Besides the service industry, human labour can also be used as an export. India has supplied the largest number of emigrants to the world. Pick up any country and you will find a community of Indians living there. Ever heard of a country named Djibouti? There is a high chance that you haven’t, yet, that is exactly where Dhirubhai Ambani used to trade in his younger years before he founded Reliance. This just motivates entrepreneurs to ply their trade anywhere in the world with pride and dignity.
Now that it has been established what needs to be done for the population to be used as an asset, an even bigger and more profound question awaits, how do we do it. First of all, educations needs to be sure. It needs to be made sure that the enrollment rates are high and dropout rates are at a minimum. Also, it needs to be realized that not everyone can become a doctor or an engineer or a scientist. There should be community centers to assure the youth what they are good at and encourage them to learn that specialization. The government needs to step up and ensure employment to these people not only in India but also on contracts abroad. The wages should be adequate and standard of living should also be maintained.
In conclusion it can be said that the demand created by a large population only ensures a better economic growth for the country but besides there needs to be a focus on employment generation in diversified fields if indeed the population is to be used as an asset.
I live in a country with less than 10M inhabitants and the capital city of cc 2M inhabitants. I can not even imagine socialising in such a huge community with such immerse issues to tackle.
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In that case, consider yourself lucky. 😀 In fact, here in India we already have at least 5 cities with 10 M+ population. Cities with 2M population are considered “small”.
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Once I was travelling on train and I met some Mexican people. When I told them the same information, they started to laugh (but nicely and politely) as they have cities much larger than my country.
We can be lucky or miserable. Imagine the outlooks of such a small economy. Our only prospect is to ally with strong powers and to steadily fighting for our independance, which is an uphill battle evidently.
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Well a less population means lesser administrative problems, more equitable distribution of resources, better communal feeling and better prospects for everyone so it is not so bad afterall. Anyway I am curious to know which country you’re from. I bet your country too has a thriving Indian community.
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I am from Hungary, in the European Union. Actually, we are witnessing an increasing community of people born in very versatile countries.
I have to admit, that even our average salary is significantly and shamefully influenced by more powerful states as we are dependent on the subsidies of the EU. Actually we work for a significantly lower wage for western countries but I think we are not the only one to do so. If the country is a modern colony, it is hard to find those resources which should be distributed in an equitable way.
We do not really have any companies owned by only Hungarian people, except for a few entities in the agriculture and food industry.
You can imagine how much the tax policy is affected by foreign entities when actually they own the profit-making firms here.
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Just sounds like you guys got the short end of the stick on capitalism. Exploitation by large firms aside, I like to believe that on an average, the standard of living is still pretty decent there, I’m quite sure you wouldn’t have overcrowding trains like that.
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As I am in direct contact with mostly West-European countries I tend to compare my living standard to theirs with a disappointing balance.
I am sure that our problems can not even be compared to those of such a huge population. However, the other extremity is problematic, as well.
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Agreed. If you ever are in a mood for an international vacation, do visit India, it’ll be worth it, I’m sure it will help you know more about extremities of life. As for me, I’d definitely want to visit Hungary some day, the charm being that despite being in Europe, why don’t people talk about it that much, maybe I should visit and check.
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This is an fantastic post….so thoughtful, well-reasoned, articulate, and idealistic…just the thing for a world in need of dreamers and thinkers…thanks for sharing 🙂
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I like your perspective on the large human resource India has. As to the service economy not using a lot of raw resources, it will still take a massive amount of raw resources to build enough homes and grow enough food to sustain your population. Have you considered a way to trade human services for raw resources in an equitable way? I say equitable because here in the USA the corporations are rarely equitable for us little people.
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That indeed is a very fair point, but once established, the operational costs of farming and house maintenance is relatively low. India has very fertile land (that’s the exact reason for such a high population) so being self sufficient in food is not a big problem. Coming to the other point raised by you, after opening up our economy to the world in 1991, we too have been bit by the capitalism bug. Now the poor become poorer and the rich become richer with the middle class stuck in between, so no, I don’t think there is a way yet, perhaps better corporate regulations would help.
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But we can’t reffer it as an asset !
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why not
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Because as you said india is a young country with 25 year most of population! So it can grow .
And as time is changing india is overcoming its negative points and trying to keep pace with demands like production; economy ; space etc .
Womens are independent and all are earning a ransome amount for survival and there is a lot of space for a family .
Ya if we stop productions from China we can improve middle class.
Hence proved.
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Good night sweet dreams😇
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It cant be an asset
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Sorry it can be an asset
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😂😂
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Lol sorry
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I didn’t read the passage carefully
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you need to pay more attention miss.
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Ya sorry😅loooooooooooooooooooollllllllll😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
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Im really really sorry brother
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That’s okay sister.
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Am I right?
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Yeah, sure. but you’re missing the point here. The point is to use the potential as an asset, it would definitely involve weeding out the archaic traits and will require time and effort but it can be done.
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Hmm
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But somewhere its liability too .
You will get my point if you see village people and some old fashioned.
And some boys too
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Im really really sorry
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Population is asset, but at a limit.
There can be control problems when population is too high. Due to it, today unemployment is also rising in india.
But your post was so good👌 and it makes sense.
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That’s true but as citizens, isn’t it our duty to try and curb this problem? What’s the harm in trying.
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U r right!!
Its our responsibility to solve this problem as this problem. 👍
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Thanks
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Who gave me this?
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No one.
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What no one?
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No one gave you anything.
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Oh okay
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Such a great post!👍🏻
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Again, well written – I truly do enjoy your pieces.
Although I understand your point entirely, and I also agree with it to an extent, India has the most population living below the poverty line ($1.90 a day). Meaning as much as you’d like not many are able to go to school, and university/college. That being said those that can afford such choose to move to other countries – you noted that in your piece. It’s two edged as the brain drain eventually leaves the country without critical and high skilled individuals.
But putting that to one side, if majority of the 50% employable people do not go to school that means there’s a surplus of low skilled workers in an eventually limited market causing a shortage of jobs which becomes a breeding ground for exploitation by major cooperations.
I still really do believe large populations drain government resources especially if majority of the population are living in poverty.
Vigorous investment in education by offering free education but especially at university/college levels would work but short term it means that the country would go through a tough time so its more of a sacrifice for the greater good but how long would it be before the people revolt?
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The population living under the poverty line is significant, but not by any means “most”. That being said, those who are below that line can still get to school, there are a lot of amnesties and scholarships available to poor students so the point here isn’t that there aren’t resources to send them to school but to make them realize the importance of education. What happens in poor families is that the parents send their children to work instead of school to support the family which again leads to the problem of child labour. So proper motivation needs to be set, the parents need to be assured that their ward will get a decent income after school.
As far as free education at college level is concerned, again there are scholarships, coupled with the fact that university fees for non technical subjects is generally low here makes them quite accessible, but then again the issue of unwillingness of parents comes into picture.
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Hi 😊
My apologies, I did not get a notification that you had replied – forgive my late reply.
Again, I hear your point but have you heard of the phrase “too poor to pay for college, too rich to pay for financial aid” ? It is a direct response to student aids that you mentioned. Yes you get a bursary, yes it offers to pay but only a fraction of what you’re supposed to fork out – tipping the scales of those who are accepted into school vs those that actually attend. Again you’re correct in saying they can still go to school but look at the level at which they stop due to financial restrictions? At the end of the day you have an influx of the same skills in the job market that makes that industry limited in who to accept of which again leads to a breeding ground for exploitation.
I agree with you to an extent but you need to think about it holistically as well. Choosing to merely motivate people to go to school doesn’t justify how a big population is beneficial to a country. I previously said that perhaps in the long run it could be beneficial but the time span between then and now is guaranteed to cause a revolt.
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That’s true. These consequences are inevitable, but you have to realize that the higher the risk, the higher the reward. It’s not easy to please the entire population, but things could be kept in check. I agree that it is myopic on my part to only motivate people to study as a solution to the problem, but at least it’s a start. While a simple high school diploma would only fetch you jobs requiring unskilled labour, but what you can do is study a vocational course to gain some skills and get into the skilled job market. It is not easy for the entire population to do so, but what else should be done? Basically, my point is we should do something instead of nothing.
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And we can finally agree on something, it’s better to do something than nothing.
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Large population is an asset today but it won’t be the same after some years.
Its a painful fact that the large part of population which is considered to be young today will become aged, old and an absolute liability not contributing anything to the national income.
This is the very problem China is facing in contemporary scenario and is one of the serious forthcoming negative impact of having such a huge population.
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The current population will get old but not before producing offsprings of their own. Indian women are one of the most fertile type of women in the entire world so even if everyone goes by the “hum do hamare do” slogan, the young demography will be maintained. The reason countries like China, Japan and the US have such a large old age population is because their modern age people are having lesser and lesser kids.
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But everybody, specially the affluent sections of the society don’t seem to follow the “hum do humare do” slogan.
And if we have a look at the demographic scenario we will find that the birth rates are decreasing and the death rates are decreasing as well.
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You tell me, what percentage of the population is actually affluent?
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I wrote everybody and appended the affluent sections🙂.
If the country is facing a downward trend in birth rates then you can also make out that it is not limited to just affluent sections.
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I get your point, but I believe that there’d still be a majority of young (or middle aged) population. Demography can’t drastically change in a matter of 50-60 years. Suppose today the median age is 25, further then it’ll only be 32-33 because the sample size we’re working with here is 1.3 billion, so for a large change in average, an even larger change in absolute numbers will have to come about, which is unlikely, but yet, your point is one to ponder about, and if it were to happen the way you are saying it would, then yeah we need to think something to curb that problem.
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Glad you got the point🙂.
I just wanted to draw your attention towards this aspect of indian population.
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Loved every word..
Pls check out..
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Great insight! It is nice to read about other countries and their cultures . One’s own country and culture is something to be proud of!
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I am proud of being an Indian and this post revived the feeling. Thank you so much for showing everyone the another side of the coin. Every word really makes complete sense. But what about the natural resources that are limited & non-renewable? More the people, more the consumption. What’s your take and what can we do?
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I am proud of being an Indian & this post revived the feel. Thank you for showing everyone the another side of the coin. Every word really makes sense. But what about the natural resources that are limited & non-renewable? More the people, more the consumption. What’s your take in this? And can we do to protect the limited resources?
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We can promote non conventional energy sources such as wind, solar etc. Research shows that so far only 2% of the solar energy available to India has been successfully harnessed. Besides this also, in aspects other than energy we need to promote and research more about non conventional and new methods.
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Congratulations .I have nominated you for get to know me tag award 😊
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This write-up is as introspective” as interesting! Your perspective is commendable.. Cheers, Charu
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Very true. It is how we mould the population. If it is moulded in a proper way, we will become an unstoppable nation.
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Thanku for unique blogger award nominations!
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All we need to do is to consider ourselves strong enough to be productive and some measures should be taken by the government even.
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As a life sciences person, it is hard for me to think past the number of people. However, this article made a lot of sense.
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Well written article
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Indeed the shinning gem you are my friend, I really liked appreciate and hail🙌 to the approach of converting the problems into
solutions, one of it is establishing community centres to encourage and motivate youth..
Keep writing Cadbury ‘s gems?
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Thanks. I am not associated with Cadbury in any way.
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Oh that was a bad one🙈where do I hide.. Im sure you aren’t, you are truly a shinning gem and precious one too. Keep writing friend, so much to learn from you:)
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Hehe thanks for the appreciation Jayshree, means a lot to me. 🙂
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What do I call you gems??
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You can call me whatever you please. 🙂
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Your name please, I like to talk to ppl taking their names
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I haven’t given out my name on my blog yet. Although if you’d like to know about me you can email me at theshiningggem@outlook.com
I’ll tell you over there, just not here.
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Oh god really
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Itnaa mehnattttt baap re😀😀
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Yes yes, bear with me if you can. No compulsion.
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Why you choose that? You answer here or der?
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there
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It says addres nt found, check ur id gems
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Oh I’m so sorry, I added an extra g. How silly of me. 😀
Actually it is:
theshininggem@outlook.com
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Im gonna kill you now!!!!
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🙄
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I mailed you
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I have to mail you realy?
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absoultely love india, tweet me sometime bout it x
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