India as No. 1?

IT'S IN THE CARDS: India will soon supplant China as the world's most populous country. The question is whether India will also rise to challenge China as an economic powerhouse. At least since the unraveling of the Roman Empire, successive Chinese dynasties have ruled over more people than any other government. China had about 428 million people in 1912, when imperial rule ended; 542 million in 1949, when the Communists took power; 1.27 billion by the year 2000; and about 1.41 billion by mid-2017. The slowing growth rate is the direct result of the one-child policy, adopted in 1979 and ended in 2015. Meanwhile, India's population expanded from 356 million in 1950 to 1.05 billion in 2000 and to 1.31 billion in 2016. China's edge comes to just 7 percent, a mere 100 million people—about the population of the Philippines. And, given the reliability of short-term demographic forecasts, it's clear that India will surpass China’s total before 2025, perhaps as early as 2023. Meanwhile, it is fascinating to compare the two giga-states. Both countries selectively abort many girls, creating abnormal sex ratios at birth. The normal ratio is 1.06 males per one female, but India stands at 1.12, China at 1.15.