India now the world’s ‘most populous nation’

NEW DELHI: India may have already surpassed China as the world’s mostpopulous nation in a milestone that adds urgency for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create more jobs and ensure the country sustains its worldbeating growth.

The South Asian nation’s population stood at almost 1.417 billion as of end 2022, according to the World Population Review.

That’s a little over 5 million more than the 1.412 billion reported by China on Tuesday when authorities there announced the first decline since the 1960s.

India, where half the population is under the age of 30, is set to be the world’s fastest-growing major economy in the coming years. To make the most of the demographic dividend, Mr Modi needs to create jobs for the millions of people entering the workforce every year as the nation moves away from farm jobs.

The United Nations had expected the milestone to be reached later this year. As of Jan 18, India’s population had already climbed to 1.423 billion, according to WPR.

Another estimate by research platform Macrotrends puts the latest number for India at 1.428 billion. The country didn’t publish its once-ina-decade census data in 2021, after deferring population surveys due to pandemic disruptions.

The government’s move last year to restrict the tenure of soldiers in India’s armed forces to four years illustrated the strain on the administration to create jobs and pay for retirement benefits. Mr Modi, who is due to seek re-election by May 2024, has been pushing to improve the share of manufacturing in the economy to 25% from the current 14%.

“A broad-based growth agenda to drive jobs across sectors is essentially what is needed,” said Sonal Varma, an economist with Nomura Holdings Inc, noting that infrastructure projects and labour-intensive manufacturing can create those opportunities, in addition to services. “And we are seeing the early building blocks of that essentially being put in place.”

Despite India’s rapid economic growth pre-Covid and its relatively strong recovery from the pandemic, about 800 million people still rely on free food rations from the government, the largest programme of its kind in the world.

For now, Asia’s third-largest economy is self-sufficient in food production. It is the second-largest producer of rice, wheat and sugar.

As a market, India, with its growing middle-class, is the biggest consumer of sugar, while being the top importer of edible oils.