The United Nations estimates India will overtake China as the world’s most crowded place in 2023. Their combined headcount will account for nearly 3 billion of the 8 billion people on the planet by next year. India’s population of 1.41 billion is a shade lower than China’s 1.42 billion, according to the UN.
But in 2050 the country will log 1.66 billion people and dwarf its giant Asian neighbour, which will fall behind with a shrunken headcount of 1.31 billion, it said in an announcement on World Population Day.
The UN report renewed calls for population control in India, where last year around 67,000 babies were born a day compared to 27,397 in China, which has a GDP six times larger than that of its smaller neighbour.
India overtaking China as the world’s most populous nation by 2031 comes eight years later than the UN’s prediction made on World Population Day.
204 million Muslims are the single largest religious minority in India.
Credit: rfi
