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From: jsingh@cive.ri.cmu.edu (J S Singh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: population,democracy.
Message-ID: <1008@cive.ri.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun, 28-Sep-86 22:44:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: cive.1008
Posted: Sun Sep 28 22:44:44 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 00:57:48 EDT
References: <407@gumby.WISC.EDU>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 25
Keywords: population,growth,solutions,democracy
Summary: Population Control

Singapore (a pseudo democracy) has had such good results with their
population control, they are now asking their citizens to have more
children if they can afford it.  To do what Singapore was able to do,
the government in India would then have to get involved with people's
personal lives even more than it is already, presuming this is
do-able given the 700 million population.  My contention is that
copying Singapore would be a step in the wrong direction.

India's population and the  rate at which it is growing is not really the
problem as it is that the wrong kind of people are reproducing-
people who add to the already burgeoning numbers of a group that are
proving to be a social burden.   The solution is to provide more
oppurtunity for the common man. Simply, we need lots of new cities where 
the population can spread out into.  More schools, more businesses, 
more chances.  The idea is that if the extra population is not a burden,
then it won't be such a bad thing for the country.  Once the 
standard of living rises significantly, people will automatically start
having less kids.

So instead of expending all this effort in stopping people from having
kids (and running into all sorts of religious problems), quite simply
a large increase in standard of living will take care of this problem.
But who am I to say? I am an expatriate ( = ex-patriot ?) after all.

Sanjiv