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India as a case study
• 2022: India expected to surpass China in terms of population
• Rapid demographic changes
• Declining total fertility rate (2.3) yet the picture is very different if broken down by the states, districts, religion, education and minority population
• Collage of problems of highly developed and still developing countries coexisting in one country sometimes 50 kms apart
• Context I am most familiar with and yet struggle to make sense of
Multi‐cultural context of India
• 29 states defined by language spoken and 7 union territories
• No national language, Hindi most spoken in terms of number, 22 scheduled languages,
English spoken or understood across the country
• Federal republic with many religions: Hinduism (79.8%), Islam (14.23%), Christianity (2.3%), Sikhism (1.72%), Buddhism (0.7%), Jainism (0.36%) and others (0.9%)
• Hindu society is further divided by various castes and sub‐castes
• Casts often correlate with socioeconomic strata due to access to education and opportunities towards improving life circumstances
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