E-Paper
India to be most populous nation by 2050: US body
According to a census by US Dept of Commerce, India will surge ahead of China by the year 2050.
India, now the second most populous nation, is expected to outrank China with the largest population in 2050, according to the US Department of Commerce's Census Bureau.
India will outrank China with the largest population of around 1.6 billion in 2050. China's population then is estimated to be around 1.4 billion, the Census body said.
The global population has topped 6.5 billion, the population clock of the Census Bureau showed on Saturday.
The clock, which revises its estimates every five to 10 minutes, cleared the threshold at 7:19 pm on Saturday.
The department says if the population grows at the current pace, it will exceed 7 billion in 2013 and reach 9.2 billion in 2050.
In 2006, the population is estimated to grow around 74 million, or 1.14 per cent, from 2005, with 4.1 people being born every second and 1.8 people dying.
The population is estimated to grow for the next 50 years, although the pace of growth has been trending downward.
Japan, which last year saw a decline in population for the first time, will have an estimated population of just less than 100 million in 2050, dropping in population ranking to 17th place from the current 10th.
Population estimates slightly vary. The department said the global population topped 6 billion on June 1, 1999, while the United Nations estimated it passed the line on October 12 that year.
