India’s population rise slows, literacy rate up

But Census 2011 Shows Alarming Fall In Sex Ratio

At 1.21 billion, India’s population is almost equal to the combined population of USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan. This also means India has added another Brazil to its population in the last 10 years despite population growth slowing down.

Mainland China’s population is 1.35 billion. Census 2011’s provisional data, affirms the India growth story — population growth slowing down and the number of literates growing, especially female literates. The census is the sole data base in India that the government uses to formulate its policies.
  

The Census also reaffirms another fact — a fact so disturbing that it could cast a shadow on the positive developments: Girls seem to have no place in India’s growth story. The data shows that the sex ratio for children below 6 years has dropped from 927 to a dismal 914 girls for every 1,000 boys. The gender bias yet again draws attention to a lingering societal flaw that economic growth is not being able to correct.
   

India’s literacy rate has gone up to 74% nationwide for people aged 7 and older, from 64.8% ten years ago. Offsetting the general gender bias is the fact that of the 217 million literates added, 110 million are women, outnumbering men.

Improved medical technology, education and improvement in quality of life in the last decade has resulted in the overall gender ratio improving from 933 women for 1,000 men to 940. The female population has risen by 18.1% and has reached 586.5 million.

Overall, there has been a decline in the number of children under the age of 6, down 5 million since 2001 to 158.8 million in 2011. During this time, India’s population has increased by more than 181 million. The proportion of children between 0 and 6 to total population is indicative of a fall or rise in fertility.

AREA OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

POPULATION

Population increases by more than 181 million, or 17.6%, from 1.03 billion to 1.21b between 2001 & 2011. Male population rises 17.2% to 624 million, female by 18.1% to 899.5m.

2001-2011 is the first decade (with the exception of 1911-1921) when population has grown less than in previous decade
UP (199.6m) is the most populous state in the country, followed by Maharashtra, (112.4m)
and Bihar (103.8m), West Bengal (91.3m) and AP (84.7m)

The total number of children in the age-group 0-6 years is 158.8m, a decline of 5m, or 3.1%, since 2001; -2.4% for males and –3.8% for female
Number of persons per sq km has risen by 17.5% to 382 from 325

OVERALL SEX RATIO

National sex ratio rises to 940 (females for every 1000 males) in 2011 from 933 in 2001. Shown improvement since 1991 and is the highest since Census 1971.

Three major states (J&K, Bihar & Gujarat) have shown decline in sex ratio as compared to 2001

Kerala with 1,084 has the highest sex ratio followed by Puducherry with 1,038;

CHILD SEX RATIO

Child sex rati

o (0-6 years) has worsened to 914 in 2011 from 927 in 2001. Decline unabated since 1961 Census
Mizoram has the highest ratio of 971 followed by Meghalaya with 970

Haryana is at the bottom with 830 followed by Punjab with 846

LITERACY

Literacy rate has gone up to 74% from 65% For males it has risen to 82% from 75%, for females to 65% from 54% Percentage growth in literacy during 2001-2011 is 38.8; for males 32%, females 49%.