India’s diamond

THE headline may lead you to think that this is about the diamond jubilee last year of India’s independence, or the forthcoming one of the Republic. This is not about either of these milestones, nor about the famous Kohinoor. It is about two other diamonds that, looking ahead, are likely to have a huge influence on the country and people.

The first diamond is the demographic profile by age, an issue we have noted in earlier editions of this column. The country, as a whole, has transitioned to a total fertility rate (TFR) of less than 2.1, which is the benchmark for the so-called replacement rate. It indicates a flattening of the rate-of-growth curve, with population increase now driven only by past momentum. Projections indicate that the population should stabilize in about two decades and begin to fall thereafter. At the start of the next century, by one estimate, the population may be at almost exactly what it was in the year 2000, namely, one billion.

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