World Population Day 2010: It is time to Fight for South Asia

Without any doubt, South Asia is the most densely populated region on earth. It has around 20% of world population and it is increasing. Hunger, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, unemployment are very natural and direct by products of excessive population in any country. South Asia is not an exception to this. World Population Day 2010 will be observed on 11 July.

India has nearly 1.1 billion people is in the course to slowly overtake China and emerge as the most populous country on earth. Pakistan has now 180 million people and Bangladesh has 160 million. For these 3 countries, excessive population is indeed the largest problem for the economy.

Things are not good for the 3 more countries (Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan) either. Bhutan and Maldives are not suffering from this problem yet.

The theme of World Population 2010 is ‘Everyone Counts’. UNFPA in its press release stated:

"Counting everyone is an integral part of ensuring that we take everyone into account. Good demographic data is critical for planning schools, health systems and public transportation, for designing policies based on future population projections, for monitoring the effectiveness of service delivery and much more."

It is time to really try for South Asia. United Nations Population Fund should allocate some more funds for rural areas of the region.

Excessive population in rural areas is a recipe for future disaster. The same goes for big cities too. There are millions of people living in slums and streets of big cities like Dhaka, Kolkata, Karachi, Mumbai etc. Most of them do not have access to clean water and electricity.

South Asian governments should also come forward and exchange ideas about population control. It is not too late but when it becomes too late then everyone will suffer.