New Delhi, July 12 – Today, July 11, is World Population Day. On World Population Day (Friday, July 11 2014), the United Nations has called for investments in support of the largest-ever generation of youth.
According to the Uniterd Nations, today’s 1.8 billion young people are shaping social and economic realities, challenging norms and values, and building the foundation of the world’s future. Yet too many young people continue to fight poverty, inequality and human rights violations that stops them from reaching their personal and collective potential, it has said.
According to the UN, as the world population edged to 7 billion people in 2011 (up from 2.5 billion in 1950), it has had profound implications for development. A world of 7 billion was both a challenge and an opportunity with implications on sustainability, urbanization, access to health services and youth empowerment.
But the question is what is the significance of World Population Day?
In 1989, in its decision 89/46, the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme recommended that, “in order to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues in the context of overall development plans and programmes and the need to find solutions for these issues, 11 July should be observed by the international community as World Population Day.”
Facts about World Population Day:
As of January 1, 2014 , the world’s population was estimated to be 7,137,661,030, and increases by 2.3 people every second.
The total number of people who has ever lived has been estimated by the Population Bureau to be around 108 billion.
Vatican City (800) and Nauru (9,378) are the states with the lowest populations.
30% of the world’s population generally eat with chopsticks.
More than one in three people are Chinese or Indian.
China, India, USA, Indonesia, Pakistan and Brazil account for half the world’s people.
Risks:
According to International Business Times, here are risks of overpopulation:
A. Every day, 25,000 people die of malnutrition and hunger-related diseases – 18,000 are under the age 5.
B. One billion people face water crisis.
C. After 2020, world oil production may start declining.
D. As population and the number of factories and cars go up, so will asthma cases endangering lives at a faster rate.
E. Currently, the ozone layer is being destroyed at a rate of about 4 per cent per decade.
F. Overcrowding will lead to problems with hygiene, congestion, tension, the spread of infectious diseases and conflicts such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
-INDIA TODAY
