News Digest

Population rise slows, literacy grows,
NEW DELHI: At 1.21 billion, India`s population is almost equal to the combined population of USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan. This also means India has added another Brazil to its population in the last 10 years despite population growth slowing down. Mainland China`s population is 1.35 billion.

Census 2011`s provisional data, released on Thursday, affirms the India growth story — population growth slowing down and the number of literates growing, especially female literates

Census sounds alarm
NEW DELHI: The showpiece of a resurgent India, Delhi, is also steeped in a mediaeval mindset. The provisional Census data released on Thursday shows that the child sex ratio for the age group of 0 to 6 years has marginally declined from 868 girls per 1000 boys in 2001 to 866 girls per 1000 boys in 2011.

MCI to crack down on doc-firm nexus
NEW DELHI: Pharmaceutical companies may soon be officially allowed to sponsor medical conferences. However, they cannot pay the expenses of individual doctors — like travel, room and board — for conferences.

Also, the money that companies would pay for the event has to be given directly to the conference secretariat.

Northeast district: Most densely populated, poor infra
NEW DELHI: It's a small Delhi district but has a population density more than thrice that of the capital. Consequently, Northeast Delhi is also the most densely populated district in the country.

Northeast Delhi came into existence in 1997 as a revenue district. The latest census has pegged its population density at 37,346 per sq km as against 11,297 per sq km of the capital itself. It comprises of areas like Shahdara, Sadatput, Sonia Vihar, New Usmanpur, Wecome, Seelampur, Mandoli, Nand Nagri, Zafrabad, Mustafabad, Maujpur, Khajuri Khaas, Dilshad Garden and Seemapuri.

Welcome slowdown: Foot off the population accelerator
NEW DELHI: For the first time since Independence, India added fewer people to its population in the decade just ended than in the previous one. While decadal population growth rates have consistently been declining since the 1960s, the absolute addition in each decade was always higher than in the previous decade. That has now changed.

India added 181 million people to its population between 2001 and 2011 against 182 million in the preceding decade. However, even 181 million equals the total population of Brazil, the world's fifth most populous country.