-TheIndiaForum.in ‘Overpopulation’ can no longer be a concern in India, as across states and across religious groups fertility has been falling in recent decades and approaching replacement level. Fears about a demographic shift between religious groups are not based on fact. India’s demographic trends have been viewed optimistically in recent years, compared to the second half of the 20th century when the discourse was about “overpopulation”. Undoubtedly, the country is now passing...

-Down to Earth State-led control of population might be criticised, but it will help us in the long run to stabilise the population growth in Uttar Pradesh Population is a hard reality. A state like Uttar Pradesh, which consists of 200 million people, needs to respond to this hard reality. That is why the Uttar Pradesh government led by Adityanath has proposed the UP population control bill 2021 recently. Governance in this drastically...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-The Hindu With better governance, northern States can bring their health systems on a par with southern States In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been vociferous demands to strengthen the country’s public health system. Many erudite articles have stressed the need to revamp the system quickly so that we are better prepared to handle such emergencies in the future. Once the present crisis is over, however, public health will...

Commenting on the recently released fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 17 states and five Union Territories (UTs) in an article published in The Indian Express (dated 6th January, 2021), Arvind Subramanian and his co-authors have stated that India has made progress on certain outcomes, including infant mortality rate (IMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and neonatal mortality rate (NNMR). Relying on various rounds of NFHS data,...