India’s Population Problems and Challenges to Sustainable Development Goals in Global Perspectives: A Ray of Hope

By : Salahuddin Qureshi

Page No: 1-23

Abstract
The growing global population is one of the biggest challenges to man and his environment of survival and sustenance. It is an alarming issue of social equality, selfsufficiency, and sustainability from local and regional to national levels. Population has been a major issue in India and more so in the latest context of its largest population in the world. The problem appears aggravated because, despite a decreasing population growth rate, India’s aggregate number has grown from 1210 million in the last census of 2011 to 1460 million by the end of 2024. There is a net increase of 250 million even with the slowing momentum of growth. It tends to undermine the attainment of sustainable development goals. There is a formidable challenge to the quality of life, social cohesion, and ecology. Some population theorists are of the view that the standard of living, quality of life, and consumption cultures are the result of technological innovations and market incentives. Other scholars question whether subsistence or commercial consumerism is the root cause of the ecological crisis. Whether environmental diversity better allowed to be maintained in subsistence cultures? The complex matter becomes a bit clear in the population growth differentials between the traditional subsistence and the modern commercial societies. Geographically evident is the population growth differential between the developing and the developed countries. The same is evident in India at inter-regional variation in the form of a north-south divide of population problem. Kerala despite a high man-land ratio has been a developed state in most variables of sustainability and human development index. While, now highest density, Bihar and largest populated Uttar Pradesh are struggling at the lower rung of development and sustainability resulting in trains of out-migrations. However, in the analysis of imminent environmental and demographic dangers, we often tend to highlight the sustainability problems of a growing population. We do not admit the growing resource availability indue measure. In its positive, equilibrated perspective population growth might promote production on the one hand and sustainable per capita income on the other. One of the important ways of monitoring population policies and planning lies in the improved performance in UN integrated Sustainable Development Goals. The first and foremost emphasis has been laid on raising the employment and purchasing power of the people in the form of No Poverty followed by Zero Hunger. The second is largely dependent on the first. These two are dependent on all the more erosive conditions of inflicted inflation in the absence of marketing controls particularly in the scarcity economies. As per the Sustainable Development Report (SDR) 2024, the world is way behind Agenda 2030 with only 17 percent of the targets on track. The report highlights a dire need to reduce social inequalities. India ranks 109 in the list of 167 reported countries. India’s immediate ray of hope is in the southern skies.

Author
Salahuddin Qureshi, (Retd.) Professor of Geography, Aligarh Muslim University, India. Presidential Address delivered at the 46th Indian Geography Congress of NAGI held at Department of Geography, Osmania University, Hyderabad on 27th December 2024.
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/ATNAGI.2025.45.01.1