Population and People

IN October will be born the six billionth child somewhere in the world; by 2050 India will be the most populous country; 4.8 billion people live in developing countries; there are 120 million people who have been classified as migrants. For decades population pundits have used the mesmerising impact of numbers as a pivot for their theses on the horrors of uncontrolled population growth. Notwithstanding the ideological arguments, the fact that the rapid increase in population is occurring in the poorest, resource-scarce countries with the lowest indices of development cannot but be a matter of concern for even those who do not subscribe to doomsday models of population explosion Although the UN document today blandly assures us that the International Council for Population Development