he Population Growth Rate in India
            
            
             For many years concern has been voiced over the seemingly unchecked rate
             of population growth in India, but the most recent indications are that some
             success is being achieved in slowing the rate of population growth. The
             progress which has been achieved to date is still only of a modest nature and
             should not serve as premature cause for complacency. Moreover, a slowing of the
             rate of population growth is not incompatible with a dangerous population
             increase in a country like India which has so huge a population base to begin
             with. Nevertheless, the most recent signs do offer some occasion for adopting a
             certain degree of cautious optimism in regard to the problem.
             One important factor which is responsible for viewing the future with
             more optimism than may previously have been the case has been the increase in
             the size of the middle class, a tendency which has been promoted by the current
             tendency to ease restrictions on entrepreneurship and private investment. It is
             a well-known fact that as persons become more prosperous and better educated
             they begin to undertake measures designed to eliminate the size of their
             families. (The obvious exception would be families like the Kennedys who
             adhere to religious strictures against artificial birth control, but the major
             Indian religions have traditionally lacked such strictures.) Ironically, the
             state of Kerala which had long had a Communist-led government had for many years
             represented a population planning model because of its implementation of
             programs fostering education and the emancipation of women. The success of such
             programs has indicated that even the poorer classes can be induced to think in
             terms of population control and family planning through education, but increased
             affluence correspondingly increases the pressure for the limitation of family
             size, for parents who enjoy good life want to pass it on to th...