Population Growth - Stabilization Holds the Key

• Five billion minds in 1987 had decided to establish World Population Day on July 11 and now, for more than 20 years, this day has become an occasion to mark the significance of population trends and related issues.
  
• The day has acquired significance as an annual event. In 2011, as the world population was expected to surpass 7 billion, UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) and its partners had launched a campaign called "7 Billion Actions" on this very day.
• Population stabilization: 

  1. It is not just about numbers but about balanced development. It has to be looked at in the context of wider socio-economic development. 
  2. Population stabilization is around the corner as there is enough evidence from everywhere to show that women do not desire many children. They only want their children to survive and do well and want the means of family planning and other reproductive health services made accessible to them. All this should happen without undermining in any way their sense of dignity and privacy.
  3. Population control agenda has taken its support from the people by offering incentives and disincentives.
  4. Enlightened political leaders and administrators have increasingly begun to recognize the importance of education, access to health care services, greater awareness and, most importantly, overall economic development that would all assist in achieving the much needed transition, leading to stabilization.
  5. Delayed marriage and suitable gap between two children should be highlighted as the possible solution for the growing population. While coercion is not acceptable for promoting family planning, there is need for universal acceptance of small family norms.
  6. The role of ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists) in educating the rural people were too deserves special mention in population stabilization.
  7. A change in the attitude of the service providers and bureaucracy is also suggested and is a must.
• Worldwide report ends with a warning note: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future".