Development is best contraceptive: 2-child policy won't help India's Vikas

Are urgent and aggressive steps to control population required for India?

This month, the Supreme Court rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) which asked the court to make it mandatory for Indian parents to only have two children. The court said this was a policy matter, and not for them to intervene.

The rejected PIL was not alone. At least five other similar PILs had suddenly sprung up in the court this month, asking for a “two-child policy” in India. The PILs stem from the basic idea that overpopulation is responsible for the problems of resource shortage, environmental degradation, unemployment, poverty and disease.

These clichéd claims of the PIL amount to