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India has a lot of problems, and in comparison to them, COVID is fairly minor. For example about 200,000 people have died so far in India with COVID, but over

India has a lot of problems, and in comparison to them, COVID is fairly minor. For example about 200,000 people have died so far in India with COVID, but over 1 million are estimated to die each year from the effects of air pollution: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/absolute-number-of-deaths-from-ambient-particulate-air-pollution?tab=chart&country=IND https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/absolute-number-of-deaths... India's fundamental problem is that it is overpopulated - stretching all of the natural resources of the country, and increasing density leading to viruses like COVID transmitting more easily. The country needs a one child policy, or to put serious money back into Vasalgel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_under_guidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm...

srean 5y ago
> The country needs a one child policy That's going to be a disaster, its dawning on China that this was a mistake. You end up with a demographics that skewed towards the old, and that brings its own problems. India is not a problem that can be solved in an HN comment
- coolspot 5y ago
  Overpopulation is what drives many problems worldwide: hunger, global warming, resource exhaustion, wildlife extinction, etc.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Are you suggesting we nuke a billion people in the third world to stop overpopulation? Even as a joke, that’s sickening
    - coolspot 5y ago
      Not only overpopulation, it can also permanently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by approx. 20% !
    - dublin 5y ago
      Well, that's pretty much what Bill Gates and his GAVI are doing, just with their "vaccines" instead of nukes. (Gates' comment that vaccines will result in reducing global population by 15% (about a billion) cannot be really be interpreted other than as advocacy for vaccine-initiated genocide.) Genocide is so much easier with vaccines than with nukes - and you don't have the radiation problem to deal with.
      - afavour 5y ago
        This nonsense? Again? I'd really have thought the average Hacker News reader was better than this. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-de...
      - FredPret 5y ago
        Preventing a potential pregnancy is the same to you as nuking an existing person? ...yikes
      - canadianfella 5y ago
        Can you explain how vaccines are genocide please?
unmole 5y ago
> India's fundamental problem is that it is overpopulated This is utter nonsense. Taiwan, Korea, Isreal and the Netherlands all have higher population densities. India's TFR is less than 2.2 with the majority of the states at sub-replacement levels. Rising living standards result in slowing population growth. This is something that Malthusians wilfully ignore. India faces a multitude of challenges. I will not pretend to know the answer for any of them. But, I do know that pointing to overpopulation as the root of all evil not helpful in the least.
- N1H1L 5y ago
  Yeah. This is the standard too many people are bad 60s rhetoric. The reality is that China and Japan are barreling towards a too many old people crises, as is India. I come from Bengal, and my state, and city specifically have had a TFR below 1.8 for twenty years now. Combine that with out migration and we already have a problem there.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    This is not a problem, it is a challenge to be managed. The world is on track to peak at 10 billion people near 2100. It is not a bad thing total fertility rate continues to decline far below replacement rate. Yes, you're going to burn a few more percentage points of GDP during a window of time on caring for the elderly vs other progress producing activities, but such is the cost of reaching a population equilibrium with sustainable resource consumption.
  - mc32 5y ago
    How long would India be able to keep up TFR with low-density high-TFR places? If people become more affluent and demand more and consume more, at some point minor events become catastrophic. It's not sustainable, unless we start populating other planets (not likely any time soon). Managing an old population is another issue and an issue everyone will have to come to terms with and manage at some point.
    - N1H1L 5y ago
seahckr 5y ago
India's population "problem" if it can be called that is in only 3-4 states out of 28 - Uttar Pradesh (230M), Bihar (120M), Maharashtra (120M). Most states in India have population densities comparable to countries in Europe.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Why do you suppose that European population density is sustainable all over the world? Presumably the sustainable population density is going to vary with climate and geography? I ask as someone who doesn't know much on this subject and wants to learn more.
  - manquer 5y ago
    Warmer tropical climates can support more population generally. More crops are possible, lesser infra required etc. Suitable is a question of idealogy and choices , one is cultural and other is ecological. Whether you are comfortable living in a 700sq foot apartment or you need a sprawling 10 acre property is really about culture, europe is okay with smaller cars, more public transport , dense cities , US is not . Sustainable density really then, Looking at the crazy limits in the bay area is funny to me, but perhaps it is right for people here they don't want higher density housing. --- Earth itself quite capable of supporting multiple ten of billions but it would come at the expense of reduced bio diviserty Most people would think that is bad, but there is case that it isn't . Earth has gone through multiple extinction events before us, however this is chance for life to become multi planetary for the first time, for life itself it is probably worth the risk. Theoretically ofcourse we all cooperate and work in sync, we could achieve that without destroying the planet. However we aren't wired that way , evolution is not efficient.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      >Earth has gone through multiple extinction events before us, however this is chance for life to become multi planetary for the first time, for life itself it is probably worth the risk. If you can live on Mars you can live on Earth, the problem is that nobody wants to live on Mars or a Mars like Earth. You are also underestimating the time it takes to colonize Mars. There aren't any plans right now, all we get is more rovers. Nobody is sending space manufacturing equipment to Mars nor is anyone sending an autonomous outpost ahead of time ready for people to move into it. As it is right now, if we were to send people to Mars we would send them there to die there. If you are going to talk about Elon Musk, I'm going to remind you that he planned a Mars mission for 2018, he can't be trusted with anything.
Mediterraneo10 5y ago
> India's fundamental problem is that it is overpopulated In the early millennium, while traveling for several months in India and being shocked at the situation in states like Uttar Pradesh, I would occasionally ask Indians I met if overpopulation was not seen as a problem. The response was often that India’s mighty population is what will let it throw its weight around globally in the 21st century, and claims that India is overpopulated are a Chinese or Pakistani (or both) plot. I wonder if this belief has only strengthened with the more nationalist government in recent years, and the even greater tension with China.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  Indonesians don't mind saying "too many people", as most of their population of 270+ million lives on the island of Java. However they have other very large islands (Sumatra, and part of Borneo) that could be settled, so it's not an insurmountable problem. China's and India's large populations are their Achilles heels - they need vast quantities of food and water, yet China imports 50% of some food items, and India relies on Himalayan headwaters that China is diverting.
- manquer 5y ago
  They are not wrong in saying human capital benefits India the most in this century. However it will come with great pain for the vast majority. India is politically reverse of the US. More populated states like UP have more representatives, they are usually conservative (nationalist/right wing) in politics, lesser education, lesser efforts in family planning etc. There has not been redistricting called delimitation commission in India since 1976 on some of these population growth concerns, it is currently scheduled for 2026. The TFR in most parts of india is below 2 these days, but the most populous states are still growing , that make the national average. It is hard to win an national election even today without UP.
Yaa101 5y ago
The country has only one problem, the fascist caste system where rich castes feel entitled to scam, rape, squeeze and murder poor castes. All problems of that country boils down to this.
- reactspa 5y ago
  Many urban Indians have no idea how bad the caste situation is. I'm a Northerner of a so-called upper caste (but not a Brahmin). I had to move to Chennai (a Southern city) for a year. I was shocked when apartment-hunting there. At every "to let" apartment visit, I would soon be asked if I were a Brahmin. Then the person would let me know they were a Brahmin, and that they would only rent to Brahmins. Nope, didn't get a decent apartment in that city. It seems all the nice property there is cornered by Brahmins.
  - crowf 5y ago
    Somewhat unrelated, but how does someone know what cast you are from? If you move to a new place where no one knows you, can you just say that you are from the best caste?
    - sateesh 5y ago
      Oh there are proxy questions and ways to figure that out, what is your full name, and the most widely used one is, "Are you a non-vegetarian ?". Almost unfailingly most of the landlords put these questions before renting out.
      - crowf 5y ago
        I didn't realize that castes had different rules regarding meat eating. Thanks for informing me.
  - rramadass 5y ago
    Absolutely not believable, at best an isolated anecdote. Urban India is the one place where "casteism" is almost irrelevant. Like everywhere else it is economic conditions that drive everything. More specifically, it is in Southern India where "upper-caste Brahmins" are at the receiving end due to the long lived "Dravidian" movement.
mandeepj 5y ago
> For example about 200,000 people have died so far in India with COVID, but over 1 million are estimated to die each year from the effects of air pollution: You are utterly dumb, numb and emotionless. I guess you belong to the same class of people - who are chanting after each gun shooting - "guns don't kill people". Air pollution is not killing 5000+ people everyday in India, but COVID is.
rramadass 5y ago
This is a very simple reductionist argument and thus untrue. The real reasons are far more complex and involve the interactions between lack of resources, poor infrastructure, geographical spread, uncontrollable diversity, overpopulation and of course History.
belatw 5y ago
Maybe they should just kill all the poor people and eat them?

srean 5y ago

> The country needs a one child policy That's going to be a disaster, its dawning on China that this was a mistake. You end up with a demographics that skewed towards the old, and that brings its own problems. India is not a problem that can be solved in an HN comment

coolspot 5y ago
Overpopulation is what drives many problems worldwide: hunger, global warming, resource exhaustion, wildlife extinction, etc.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Are you suggesting we nuke a billion people in the third world to stop overpopulation? Even as a joke, that’s sickening
  - coolspot 5y ago
    Not only overpopulation, it can also permanently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by approx. 20% !
  - dublin 5y ago
    Well, that's pretty much what Bill Gates and his GAVI are doing, just with their "vaccines" instead of nukes. (Gates' comment that vaccines will result in reducing global population by 15% (about a billion) cannot be really be interpreted other than as advocacy for vaccine-initiated genocide.) Genocide is so much easier with vaccines than with nukes - and you don't have the radiation problem to deal with.
    - afavour 5y ago
      This nonsense? Again? I'd really have thought the average Hacker News reader was better than this. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-de...
    - FredPret 5y ago
      Preventing a potential pregnancy is the same to you as nuking an existing person? ...yikes
    - canadianfella 5y ago
      Can you explain how vaccines are genocide please?

unmole 5y ago

> India's fundamental problem is that it is overpopulated This is utter nonsense. Taiwan, Korea, Isreal and the Netherlands all have higher population densities. India's TFR is less than 2.2 with the majority of the states at sub-replacement levels. Rising living standards result in slowing population growth. This is something that Malthusians wilfully ignore. India faces a multitude of challenges. I will not pretend to know the answer for any of them. But, I do know that pointing to overpopulation as the root of all evil not helpful in the least.

N1H1L 5y ago
Yeah. This is the standard too many people are bad 60s rhetoric. The reality is that China and Japan are barreling towards a too many old people crises, as is India. I come from Bengal, and my state, and city specifically have had a TFR below 1.8 for twenty years now. Combine that with out migration and we already have a problem there.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  This is not a problem, it is a challenge to be managed. The world is on track to peak at 10 billion people near 2100. It is not a bad thing total fertility rate continues to decline far below replacement rate. Yes, you're going to burn a few more percentage points of GDP during a window of time on caring for the elderly vs other progress producing activities, but such is the cost of reaching a population equilibrium with sustainable resource consumption.
- mc32 5y ago
  How long would India be able to keep up TFR with low-density high-TFR places? If people become more affluent and demand more and consume more, at some point minor events become catastrophic. It's not sustainable, unless we start populating other planets (not likely any time soon). Managing an old population is another issue and an issue everyone will have to come to terms with and manage at some point.
  - N1H1L 5y ago

seahckr 5y ago

India's population "problem" if it can be called that is in only 3-4 states out of 28 - Uttar Pradesh (230M), Bihar (120M), Maharashtra (120M). Most states in India have population densities comparable to countries in Europe.

throwaway894345 5y ago
Why do you suppose that European population density is sustainable all over the world? Presumably the sustainable population density is going to vary with climate and geography? I ask as someone who doesn't know much on this subject and wants to learn more.
- manquer 5y ago
  Warmer tropical climates can support more population generally. More crops are possible, lesser infra required etc. Suitable is a question of idealogy and choices , one is cultural and other is ecological. Whether you are comfortable living in a 700sq foot apartment or you need a sprawling 10 acre property is really about culture, europe is okay with smaller cars, more public transport , dense cities , US is not . Sustainable density really then, Looking at the crazy limits in the bay area is funny to me, but perhaps it is right for people here they don't want higher density housing. --- Earth itself quite capable of supporting multiple ten of billions but it would come at the expense of reduced bio diviserty Most people would think that is bad, but there is case that it isn't . Earth has gone through multiple extinction events before us, however this is chance for life to become multi planetary for the first time, for life itself it is probably worth the risk. Theoretically ofcourse we all cooperate and work in sync, we could achieve that without destroying the planet. However we aren't wired that way , evolution is not efficient.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    >Earth has gone through multiple extinction events before us, however this is chance for life to become multi planetary for the first time, for life itself it is probably worth the risk. If you can live on Mars you can live on Earth, the problem is that nobody wants to live on Mars or a Mars like Earth. You are also underestimating the time it takes to colonize Mars. There aren't any plans right now, all we get is more rovers. Nobody is sending space manufacturing equipment to Mars nor is anyone sending an autonomous outpost ahead of time ready for people to move into it. As it is right now, if we were to send people to Mars we would send them there to die there. If you are going to talk about Elon Musk, I'm going to remind you that he planned a Mars mission for 2018, he can't be trusted with anything.

Mediterraneo10 5y ago

> India's fundamental problem is that it is overpopulated In the early millennium, while traveling for several months in India and being shocked at the situation in states like Uttar Pradesh, I would occasionally ask Indians I met if overpopulation was not seen as a problem. The response was often that India’s mighty population is what will let it throw its weight around globally in the 21st century, and claims that India is overpopulated are a Chinese or Pakistani (or both) plot. I wonder if this belief has only strengthened with the more nationalist government in recent years, and the even greater tension with China.

redis_mlc 5y ago
Indonesians don't mind saying "too many people", as most of their population of 270+ million lives on the island of Java. However they have other very large islands (Sumatra, and part of Borneo) that could be settled, so it's not an insurmountable problem. China's and India's large populations are their Achilles heels - they need vast quantities of food and water, yet China imports 50% of some food items, and India relies on Himalayan headwaters that China is diverting.
manquer 5y ago
They are not wrong in saying human capital benefits India the most in this century. However it will come with great pain for the vast majority. India is politically reverse of the US. More populated states like UP have more representatives, they are usually conservative (nationalist/right wing) in politics, lesser education, lesser efforts in family planning etc. There has not been redistricting called delimitation commission in India since 1976 on some of these population growth concerns, it is currently scheduled for 2026. The TFR in most parts of india is below 2 these days, but the most populous states are still growing , that make the national average. It is hard to win an national election even today without UP.

Yaa101 5y ago

The country has only one problem, the fascist caste system where rich castes feel entitled to scam, rape, squeeze and murder poor castes. All problems of that country boils down to this.

reactspa 5y ago
Many urban Indians have no idea how bad the caste situation is. I'm a Northerner of a so-called upper caste (but not a Brahmin). I had to move to Chennai (a Southern city) for a year. I was shocked when apartment-hunting there. At every "to let" apartment visit, I would soon be asked if I were a Brahmin. Then the person would let me know they were a Brahmin, and that they would only rent to Brahmins. Nope, didn't get a decent apartment in that city. It seems all the nice property there is cornered by Brahmins.
- crowf 5y ago
  Somewhat unrelated, but how does someone know what cast you are from? If you move to a new place where no one knows you, can you just say that you are from the best caste?
  - sateesh 5y ago
    Oh there are proxy questions and ways to figure that out, what is your full name, and the most widely used one is, "Are you a non-vegetarian ?". Almost unfailingly most of the landlords put these questions before renting out.
    - crowf 5y ago
      I didn't realize that castes had different rules regarding meat eating. Thanks for informing me.
- rramadass 5y ago
  Absolutely not believable, at best an isolated anecdote. Urban India is the one place where "casteism" is almost irrelevant. Like everywhere else it is economic conditions that drive everything. More specifically, it is in Southern India where "upper-caste Brahmins" are at the receiving end due to the long lived "Dravidian" movement.

mandeepj 5y ago

> For example about 200,000 people have died so far in India with COVID, but over 1 million are estimated to die each year from the effects of air pollution: You are utterly dumb, numb and emotionless. I guess you belong to the same class of people - who are chanting after each gun shooting - "guns don't kill people". Air pollution is not killing 5000+ people everyday in India, but COVID is.

rramadass 5y ago

This is a very simple reductionist argument and thus untrue. The real reasons are far more complex and involve the interactions between lack of resources, poor infrastructure, geographical spread, uncontrollable diversity, overpopulation and of course History.

belatw 5y ago

Maybe they should just kill all the poor people and eat them?