India is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation by the middle of this year, with almost 3 million more people, UN estimates showed yesterday.
India’s population would be 1.4286 billion compared with China’s 1.4257 billion at mid-year, the UN Population Fund’s State of World Population report showed.
China’s population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed earlier this year.
Photo: Bloomberg
The report also estimated that the global population would hit 8.045 billion by the same date.
India has no recent official data on how many people it has, because it has not conducted a census since 2011.
India’s once-in-a-decade census was due to be held in 2021, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The census is now bogged down by logistical hurdles and political reluctance, making it unlikely the massive exercise would begin anytime soon.
Critics say the government is deliberately delaying the census to hide data on contentious issues, such as unemployment, ahead of national elections next year.
India’s population has grown by more than 1 billion people since 1950, when the UN began gathering population data, the Pew Research Center has said.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
From post offices and parks to stations and even the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s vending machines are ubiquitous, but with the rapid pace of inflation cooling demand for their drinks, operators are being forced to rethink the business. Last month beverage giant DyDo Group Holdings announced it would remove about 20,000 vending machines — about 7 percent of their stock nationwide — by January next year, to “reconstruct a profitable network.” Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage, based in Nagoya, also said last month it would sell its 40,000-machine operation to Osaka-based Lifedrink Co. “The strength of the vending machine
A grieving mother has ended her life at a clinic in Switzerland four years after the death of her only child. Wendy Duffy, 56, a physically healthy woman, died at the Pegasos clinic in Basel after struggling to cope with the death of her 23-year-old son, Marcus. The former care worker, from the West Midlands, England, had previously attempted to take her own life. The case comes as assisted dying would not become law in England and Wales after proposed legislation, branded “hopelessly flawed” by opponents, ran out of time. Ruedi Habegger, the founder of Pegasos, described Duffy’s death as
RSS