Friday Factly 17 July 2020

General Studies-1

Population:

• As the Economic Survey (2018-19) fertility has been declining everywhere and in every community, although rates of decline vary.
• The national fertility rate is estimated to be 2.2 in 2016 is projected to reach replacement rate around 2021.
• However, some states have fertility rates higher than the replacement fertility level. In particular, the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have substantially higher fertility rates at 2.74 and 3.41 respectively, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) 2015-16.
• In the 1990s, the fertility rate was higher in UP than in Bihar, but it has declined faster in UP. The Economic Survey (2018-19) has estimated that fertility will reach the replacement level in UP by 2021 and in Bihar by 2031
• India’s population growth rate has declined in every census since 1981.

World Population trend:

• It took hundreds of thousands of years for the world population to grow to 1 billion – then in just another 200 years or so, it grew sevenfold. In 2011, the global population reached the 7 billion mark, and today, it stands at about 7.7 billion, and it’s expected to grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.
• This dramatic growth has been driven largely by increasing numbers of people surviving to reproductive age, and has been accompanied by major changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanization and accelerating migration. These trends will have far-reaching implications for generations to come.
• The recent past has seen enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; by 2015, total fertility for the world had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman. Meanwhile, average global lifespans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years in 2019.
• In addition, the world is seeing high levels of urbanization and accelerating migration. 2007 was the first year in which more people lived in urban areas than in rural areas, and by 2050 about 66 per cent of the world population will be living in cities.

Urbanization:

• According to the United Nations (2018), India’s rural population will begin to decline in absolute numbers from about 2027 onwards, whereafter population growth in India will wholly be an urban story.

Transgender:

• According to the 2011 Census, the Transgender population in the country was around 4.88 lakh, though experts say it is much higher.

Population:

• A new analysis published in The Lancet has projected that the world population will peak much earlier than previously estimated. It projects the peak at 9.73 billion in 2064, which is 36 years earlier than the 11 billion peak projected for 2100 by last year’s UN report World Population Prospects. For 2100, the new report projects a decline to 8.79 billion from the 2064 peak.
• In the study, the global TFR is predicted to steadily decline from 2.37 in 2017 to 1.66 in 2100. The TFR is projected to fall below 2.1 in 183 countries. In 23 countries including Japan, Thailand, Italy and Spain, it is projected to shrink by more than 50%.

India’s population projection as per Lancet report

• India’s TFR was already below 2.1 in 2019. The TFR is projected to have a continue a steep decline until about 2040, reaching 1.29 in 2100.
• The number of working-age adults (20–64 years) in India is projected to fall from around 748 million in 2017 to around 578 million in 2100. However, this will be the largest working-age population in the world by 2100. In the mid-2020s, India is expected to surpass China’s workforce population (950 million in 2017, and 357 million in 2100).
• From 2017 to 2100, India is projected to rise up the list of countries with the largest GDP, from 7th to 3rd.
• India is projected to have the second largest net immigration in 2100, with an estimated half a million more people immigrating to India in 2100 than emigrating out.
• Among the 10 countries with the largest populations in 2017 or 2100, India is projected to have one of the lowest life expectancies (79.3 years in 2100, up from 69.1 in 2017). 

General Studies-2

Education:

• The education sector has been acutely affected by Covid-19, and the UNESCO reported that the lockdown impacted over 300 million students.

Police:

• At 158, India’s police to population ratio (police staff per 1,00,000 citizens) is one of the worst in the world. It lags well behind its neighbours.
• The National Crime Records Bureau records 853 custodial deaths between 2010 to 2018 — 70 of them in 2018 alone. At 1,636, the National Human Rights Commission puts the death figure much higher.
• In 2018, it stood at 383.5 per 1, 00, 000 population. By contrast, the crime rate in the US was over 2,500 per 1, 00,000.

Criminalization of Politics:

• According to the Association of Democratic Reforms, 30 per cent in 2009, 34 per cent in 2014 and 43 per cent in 2019. The present UP Assembly has 36 per cent or 143 MLAs with criminal cases against them.

Police:

• The “Status of Policing in India Report 2019” points out that 70 police stations across 20 states do not have wireless facilities and 214 police stations do not have a telephone. More than 40 per cent of police stations in the country cannot avail the help of forensic technology. Police 

General Studies-3

Urea:

• India imported a record 11 million tonnes (mt) of urea, valued at $ 2.89 billion, in 2019-20. China’s share in that was over 2.9 mt, worth $ 854.56 million. Although lower than the high of 6.4 mt ($ 1.98 billion) in 2014-15, it was above the 0.8 mt ($ 235.74 million) for 2017-18

Internet Data:

• The consumption of mobile and broadband data in rural India under the BharatNet scheme more than doubled in the three months from April to June compared to the preceding three months from January to March 2020.
• Data consumption under BharatNet across the country in the April-June quarter was 5.52 lakh gigabyte (GB) as compared to 2.47 lakh GB in January-March. BharatNet is the central government project to provide high-speed broadband to all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country.
• Data consumption in rural areas of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, where the highest numbers of migrants and blue-collar workers returned from the big cities following the nationwide lockdown, increased between three and five times on average in the April-June period as compared to January-March
• Overall, rural areas accounted for 83.3 per cent of the total 6.58 lakh GB data consumed under BharatNet across India during April-June.
• In rural Jharkhand, mobile and broadband data consumption under BharatNet in April-June was 1,547.06 GB, more than 10 times the 146.69 GB consumed in January-March. For rural Bihar, these numbers were 17,868.11 GB and 7,635.25 GB respectively. Rural areas of UP and Uttarakhand consumed 3.1 lakh GB and 79,389.50 GB of data respectively under BharatNet between April and June.
• As of February, rural India had 51.9 crore subscribers to wireless and wireline services and a teledensity — the number of connections per 100 population — of 58.61, according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data.
• Although growing, rural data consumption is a small fraction of India’s total data consumption, which was 68.2 crore GB — or 682 petabyte — in 2019. There are an estimated 22.7 crore active Internet users in rural India — 10 per cent more than in the urban areas.

Cyber-attacks:

There has been a 260 per cent increase in cyber-attacks since the lockdown began.