India has completed its customary counting of citizens and there are 1210.19 million  of them. This is a increase of 181 million from the last census done in 2001. The growth has reduced for the first time in nine decades. The last growth rate reduction was observed in 1911-1921. The growth rate of females is more than that of males. Quite a few things to cheer about.

India which has been worrying about male-female sex ratio has a reasonable good news. For every 1000 males there are 940 females. An improvement from the previous figure of 933. A favorable news for the country which made ‘knowing the sex of the child’ illegal. Is this improvement necessarily from the ban imposed? Could be. Unless we have a freakonomics kind of data, it is hard to comment. Kerala, Diu & Daman and Puducherry have a sex ratio which is favorable to the females.

Uttar Pradesh continues to be India’s most populous state with 199 million population. Maharastra is the second most populous with 112 million people. Favorite comparison across the web is this : UP + Maharashtra has more population than the United States. That’s just two of the Indian states. Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are other populous states of India.

The biggest surprise, at least to me, was the jump in the literacy rates. From 64.83% in 2011, the literacy rate has jumped to 74.04%, a 9.21 percentage point jump. That’s incredible. Sure there will be margin of errors in all surveys but a 9 percentage point jump in literacy is incredible. Female literacy rate shown a literacy growth rate of 49%. Would this mean the citizens will make some educated decisions and vote in some really nice leaders?

Source : PIB