Tiger population up by 750 in 4 years to 2,976 - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Tiger population up by 750 in 4 years to 2,976.

Geographical area of forest cover has increased by 17,374 sq. km., he says

Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday said in the Rajya Sabha that tiger population in the country has increased by 750 in the last four years to 2,976.
Earlier, the country's tiger count was 2,226, he said during the Question Hour in the Upper House.
"Now the tiger count is 2,976. We must be proud of our whole ecological system. Tigers have increased by 750 in last four years ," Javadekar said in reply to a supplementary question.

He said lions, tigers, elephants and rhinos are India's assets and if reports of any deaths from viruses surface, special investigations are conducted to ascertain facts.
In reply to another supplementary question, the Minister said the country's Northeast has a peculiar problem of Jhum cultivation but has forest cover of over 75 per cent in all states.
Jhum cultivation is the process of growing crops by first clearing the land of trees and vegetation and burning them thereafter.
About the decline of the forest cover in certain areas there, he said there will be a new survey of 2019-20 by the end of this month.
The minister said that while a meeting of forest officials of the Northeast was convened, Himachal Pradesh has also framed an ambitious five-year plan to protect its forests.
Javadekar said the country's geographical area of forest cover has increased by 17,374 sq km between assessments of 2007 and 2017.
"However, within the above ten year period, forest cover increased by 6,788 square km between assessments 2015 and 2017 itself," he said.
The top three states which have increased the forest cover include West Bengal, undivided Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
He said the total forest cover of the country, as per the current assessment, is 7.08 lakh sq km which is 21.54 per cent of the geographical area.
The tree cover of the country is estimated to be 93.81 sq km which is 2.85 per cent of the geogrpaphical area, he said.


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Tiger population up by 750 in 4 years to 2,976.

India to cross China's population by 2027: United Nations - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India to cross China's population by 2027: United Nations.

UN report says India is expected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050. Previous UN projections had estimated that India will surpass China as the world's most populous country as early as 2022.

India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country in the next eight years. As per a United Nations report, released on Monday, India is expected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050 and remain the most populated country through the end of the current century.

"India is expected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050, while the population of Nigeria is projected to grow by 200 million. Together, these two countries could account for 23 per cent of the global population increase to 2050," the report has said.
Previous UN projections had estimated that India will surpass China as the world's most populous country as early as 2022.
The 2017 world population report, released by the UN two years ago, had estimated that the population of India will surpass that of China's by around 2024.
China, with 1.43 billion people in 2019, and India, with 1.37 billion, have long been the two most populous countries of the world, comprising 19 and 18 per cent, respectively, of the global total in 2019. They are followed by the United States of America.
WORLD POPULATION TO INCREASE BY 2 BILLION IN 30 YEARS
The UN report 'The World Population Prospects 2019' added that the world's population is expected to increase by two billion people in the next 30 years -- from 7.7 billion currently to 9.7 billion in 2050.
The report said more than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in just nine countries, led by India and followed by Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Egypt and the US.
POPULATION GROWING OLDER
The report also confirmed that the world's population is growing older due to increasing life expectancy and falling fertility levels, and that the number of countries experiencing a reduction in population size is growing.
By 2050, one in six people in the world will be over age 65 (16 per cent), up from one in 11 in 2019 (9 per cent). The number of persons aged 80 years or over is projected to triple, from 143 million in 2019 to 426 million in 2050.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Liu Zhenmin said the report offers a roadmap indicating where to target action and interventions.
"Many of the fastest growing populations are in the poorest countries, where population growth brings additional challenges in the effort to eradicate poverty, achieve greater equality, combat hunger and malnutrition and strengthen the coverage and quality of health and education systems to ensure that no one is left behind."
A growing number of countries are experiencing a reduction in population size. Since 2010, 27 countries or areas have experienced a reduction of one per cent or more in the size of their populations, caused by sustained low levels of fertility.
In China, the population is projected to decrease by 31.4 million, or around 2.2 per cent, between 2019 and 2050. (Source: The Indian Express)


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India to cross China's population by 2027: United Nations.

India’s population grew at 1.2 % average annual rate between 2010 and 2019: UN report - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India’s population grew at 1.2 % average annual rate between 2010 and 2019: UN report.

India’s population in 2019 stood at 1.36 billion, growing from 942.2 million in 1994 and 541.5 million in 1969.

India’s population grew at an average annual rate of 1.2 per cent between 2010 and 2019 to 1.36 billion, more than double the annual growth rate of China, according to a report by the United Nations Population Fund.

India’s population in 2019 stood at 1.36 billion, growing from 942.2 million in 1994 and 541.5 million in 1969.
India’s population grew at average annual rate of 1.2 per cent between 2010 and 2019, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency said in the State of World Population 2019 report.
In comparison, China’s population stood at 1.42 billion in 2019, growing from 1.23 billion in 1994 and 803.6 million in 1969.
According to the report, in India, total fertility rate per woman was 5.6 in 1969, dropping to 3.7 in 1994 and 2.3 in 2019.
India recorded an improvement in life expectancy at birth. The life expectancy at birth in 1969 was 47 years, growing to 60 years in 1994 and 69 years in 2019.
Giving a snapshot of India’s population composition in 2019, the report said 27 % of the country’s population was in the age bracket of 0-14 years and 10-24 years each, while 67 % of the country’s population was in the 15-64 age bracket.
Six per cent of the country’s population was of the age 65 and above.
Indicative of the improvement in the quality of India’s health care system, the report noted that Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in the country dropped from 488 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1994 to 174 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015.
The findings, relating to women aged between 15-49 years, were published for the first time as part of United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFP) State of World Population 2019 report.
The report includes, for the first time, data on women’s ability to make decisions over three key areas: sexual intercourse with their partner, contraception use and health care.
According to the analysis, the absence of reproductive and sexual rights has a major and negative repercussions on women’s education, income and safety, leaving them “unable to shape their own futures“.
Early marriage continues to present a major cultural obstacle to female empowerment and better reproductive rights, the UNFPA report said.
Despite these concerns, the UNFPA report highlights that “untold millions” have enjoyed healthier and more productive lives in the 50 years since the agency was founded, thanks to pressure from civil society and governments to dramatically reduce unintended pregnancies and maternal deaths.
Highlighting positive changes in the last half-century, the report shows that in 1969, the average number of births per woman was 4.8, compared with 2.9 in 1994, and 2.5 today.
Looking ahead to future challenges, the UN agency highlights the threat to women’s and girls’ reproductive rights posed by emergencies caused by conflict or climate disasters.
About 35 million women, girls and young people will need life-saving sexual and reproductive health services this year, as well as services to address gender-based violence, in humanitarian settings, it warns. (Source: The Hindu)


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India’s population grew at 1.2 % average annual rate between 2010 and 2019: UN report.

India's population growth rate highly overestimated: Study - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

India's population growth rate highly overestimated: Study.

India's population growth rate is highly overestimated by existing models, say scientists who suggest that accounting for the diversity and differences in the levels of education among people can help arrive at more accurate projections.

Accurate population projections could help India and its workforce catch up to more developed Asian countries with higher GDP per capita, researchers suggest.
"India is an extremely heterogeneous sub-continent. Simply because it is one nation, unlike composite Europe, it should not be treated as a uniform entity," said Wolfgang Lutz, the World Population programme director at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.
"The forecasts for India over the coming decades strongly depend on which sources of heterogeneity are explicitly included in the model," said Lutz.
By 2025, India is expected to surpass China as the world's most populous country due to higher fertility rates and a younger population.
However, India's population outlook depends heavily on the degree to which differences between regions within its population, or heterogeneity, are incorporated into population projection models.
To account for the diversity between different areas of India, researchers designed a study that pioneered a five-dimensional model of India's population differences that include rural or urban place of residence, state, age, sex, and level of education.
The model was then used to show the population projection changes within scenarios that combine different levels of these factors.
For example, a much higher population projection results from a model that combines data from individual states as compared to the overall national projection, since states with higher fertility rates eventually add up to a higher national population projection. If the projection is carried out while only explicitly accounting for age and sex, influential factors like higher education, associated with decreased fertility, are left out. Thus, a projection based on today's much higher fertility rate of uneducated and rural women predicts a drastically larger population in the future.
Since education level across all of India has increased over time, and is associated with a lower fertility rate, the same projection may predict a drastically smaller population when accounting for education and increasing urbanisation.
Combining both effects, the influence of education appears to dominate, resulting in a lower population projection.
Depending on the dimensions considered, when fertility, mortality, education and migration rates are frozen at the 2011 levels, stratification by education, states, or residence can result in population projections that span a huge range from 1.6 to 3.1 billion.
Where these rates change according to plausible model predictions, the population peaks between 1.65 to around 1.8 billion.
The difference between projections shows the critical importance of deciding which demographical measures to include in a projection model, and at what rates of change. (Source: India Today)


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India's population growth rate highly overestimated: Study.