Source: The Mercury, 7 April, 2001, p.17 Source: The Mercury, 7 April, 2001, p.17
New York IT took the 15-member European Union the whole of last year to increase its population by 343,000 people but India took just a week to have the same increase, the a UN population report said yesterday. By 2050, India's population is expected to be 1.6 billion and China's 1.5 billion. For now, China is the world's most populous country with 1.3 billion people, while India has 1 billion. The UN said the world population, now 6.1 billion, is expected to be between 7.9 and 10.9 billion by 2050. Half of that would be in just six countries: India, China Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia. By 2050 one of five countries will have a population smaller than today, including Japan and Germany with a projected 14 per cent loss, Italy and Hungary with a 25 per cent loss, and Russia and the Ukraine with projected losses of 28 to 40 per cent. Largely due to immigration, Canada, Australia and the US are expected to have increases of 33 to 40 per cent. The increases in developing countries will place growing strains on limited resources such as water, the UN said. By 2050, about 90 per cent of the world's people would live in developing countries, compared to 80 per cent at present. Joseph Chamie, director of the UN department of economic and social affairs, rejected theories that the AIDS epidemic would reduce the population in Africa. It was expected to grow from 794 million to 2 billion people by 2050. DPA
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