India first in total military age manpower

[LETHALFORCE]

http://www.globalfirepower.com/manpower-reaching-military-age-annually.asp

 

[EnlightenedMonk]

Good news for us... This means that in the coming 10 to 15 years, we will have more youngsters and hence this is good for India, not just militarily, but also as far as the economy is concerned.

It'll be driven more by youngsters than oldies.... Nice !!!

 

[Payeng]

Not only in the next 10-15 years but also at present we have it and should continue atleast for 20 more years, from economical POV we have got two plus point (atleast) they are youth population and a large English speaking work force/population, from military POV it is also a good indicator as we get more quality Army of soldiers. What I am concerned is India should contribute more for UNPKF and create a greater reputation and show of responsiblity in the world.

 

[EnlightenedMonk]

I agree with you Payeng. For your satisfaction let me rephrase that to say that "India will continue to have youth for atleast the next 10-15 years if not more"...

I think here is where China's one child policy will actually hurt it. If you see the age charts of the two countries, I'd say that a lot of Chinese are over their 40s or 50s and hence in the next 10 years, they'll have an older population and hence less youth.

But in our case, we'll have predominant populations in their 20s and 30s. This is a great engine for driving our economy past China.

And, militarily of course, this will help us a lot, but the problem is that we must effectively funnel the students toward the military as a career option. The army has a shortage of officers etc and this doesn't augur too well because most of the kids want to become an "Engineer".

So, we must also actively open the military option to them and let them actively pursue it.

And, as far as showing our responsibility in the world stage is concerned, we've already done that and are continuing to do it. A case that can be referred to is the patrolling of the Gulf of Aden. We were among the first Asian nations (even before China) to do it and we played the media card very well. Even the Western press was all praises for us when we captured the pirates and sank their ships...

So, the future's bright... very bright !!!

 

[A M J]

There is nothing to party about guys.

This also means more mouths to be fed. How?? We have no idea.

Those 220 million people also include those who barely get enough to fill thei tummies.

We need to control our exploding population. Young populace is good. But from where are we going to provide jobs to all. That means Un-Employment. And as we all know, "Khaali dimag, Shaitaan ka ghar".

So either we get our house in order to feed all, or, stop the ticking time bomb from exploding. Better we do them both.

 

[EnlightenedMonk]

There is nothing to party about guys.

This also means more mouths to be fed. How?? We have no idea.

Those 220 million people also include those who barely get enough to fill thei tummies.

We need to control our exploding population. Young populace is good. But from where are we going to provide jobs to all. That means Un-Employment. And as we all know, "Khaali dimag, Shaitaan ka ghar".

So either we get our house in order to feed all, or, stop the ticking time bomb from exploding. Better we do them both.

Thank you for throwing caution to the wind AMJ. This is a serious concern and I believe that as in the US, such kids can be given opportunities in the armed forces rather than just sit around doing nothing....

If my knowledge serves me right, kids who cannot afford to goto college or "high school" generally prefer to goto the "Marines" and they are well taken care of (maybe somebody can confirm this for me)

We should also make such a support structure in our country so that such kids can be taken into the armed forces. We have a long way to go as far as this is concerned, but this should be considered a very serious option indeed...

 

[RAM]

Indian ARMY-Every house in this village boasts of an armyman

MADURAI: If the thought of an armyman typically ratchets up the image of a burly north Indian, a trip down south might take you by surprise.
The playground in Perumalthevanpatti, a hamlet about eight km from Srivilliputtur in the Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu, doesn’t have swings, slides and see-saws; instead boys work out on ropes and bars to build up their bodies, get fit and enter the army. For, most youths in the village dream of entering the Indian army as jawans and working their way up the ranks. Every family in this village has at least one son in the army, and young girls only wish to marry men from the armed forces.

It is said the seeds of patriotism were sown in this little village with just 750 houses by a young man, Perumal, who left home to join the army in 1952. He rose to the rank of a Major and when he came back home in 1962, stories about his travels and experiences spread among his friends, relatives and neighbours, most of whom practised agriculture and reared cattle. The joy of serving the country soon spread. Since then, say villagers, at least four young men have been joining the army every year.

Perumal’s son, Major P Thirumal, too, is now serving on the India-Pakistan border in Kashmir. Men from here have served in various regiments in the Kargil war and were part of the peace-keeping force sent to Sri Lanka, says ex-serviceman Parasuram, who lost his left leg and hand when he stepped on a mine in Sri Lanka. At present, 375 people from this village are serving in the army. And there are 522 ex-servicemen, who are working as watchmen and drivers in the government transport service.

Most youngsters have just one aim—to enroll in the army after class X. "It’s not that we don’t want to become scholars, doctors and engineers, but the thought that we should serve the nation from the front is engraved in our minds and that is what we want to do," says B Gokulkannan (37), who has a brother and an uncle in the army and dreams of joining up himself.

Young girls too regard men serving in the armed forces as the most eligible for marriage. "That is the only condition we lay down before marriage," says 22-year-old Lakshmi Meenal. Kavitha (32) who married R Balaji three months ago is awaiting his return from the J&K border.

As soon as aggression or hostilities break out in any part of the country, the women queue up outside the Arulmigu Mariamman temple in the village and offer prayers. "We place holy ash in a small piece of cloth and tie it up. The knot is undone when the men return home," says Rajammal (70).

Many of the elderly are war veterans who have harrowing, hair-raising stories to tell. Like 71-year-old R Gopal who fought in the Indo-China and the Pakistan and Bangladesh wars. "Towards the end of the Chinese war, we were told to try and escape, so 19 of us trekked up and down the Himalayas for 10 days surviving only on tea," he says. Only seven finally reached the military camp in Ladakh, and three of them had to have their legs amputated due to extreme cold weather. He is a recipient of the long service award as he served in the military for 21 years from 1956 to 1977.

But despite the courage and patriotism, the government has turned a blind eye on these villagers. "Children have to go to till Srivilliputtur or Rajapalayam for school and pensioners make a 10-km journey for their pension. If we had a good school, our children could go for higher education," says Gokulkannan

courtesy-TMI

 

[Koji]

How do you guys know this is due to increased number of youths? The Chinese Army have been undergoing huge efforts to decrease the number of soldiers to streamline their military. To be more exact, they are cutting 700,000 troops. The reason? Less troops equals more money to spend on them and easier organization.

""After several years there will have to be more reductions so we can continue improving weapons and creating crack troops," Xu told Reuters. "The land forces will remain dominant, but the navy and air force will rise as a proportion of the PLA."

EXCLUSIVE: China air, naval boost risks raising tension | Reuters

 

[tarunraju]

There is nothing to party about guys.

This also means more mouths to be fed. How?? We have no idea.

You didn't understand the implication of this statistic at all. It means that we are making more military-capable people anually, than anyone. If (the big if), in the midst of a [really] big war, the government decides to draft, we will have greater ability to pool in troops than any other country in the world.

(another factor of course is equiping all those troops, but that's another statistic).

On a side note the graph also shows how our untapped human resources are greater than that of China. If you're military-capable, surely you're capable to work in a factory, in the fields, or get a job according to your qualification.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Monk I agree with you the armed forces should be promoted by the government as a good alternative for the poor youth, there is a skills and experience that goes with the services and India can have a program where people coming from armed services non career servicemen should be given first preferrence for government jobs. The rising youth population will be a benefit to the nation

BBC NEWS | South Asia | India's demographic dividend

India's demographic dividend

Nowadays no meeting on India seems complete without a reference to the coming "demographic dividend".
What really is this demographic dividend? The basic idea is straightforward enough. In the year 2004 India had a population of 1,080 million, of whom 672 million people were in the age-group 15 to 64 years. This is usually treated as the "working age population".
Since outside of this age group very few people work, it is reasonable to think of the remainder, that is, 408 million people, as the "dependent population". A nation's "dependency ratio" is the ratio of the dependent population to the working-age population. In the case of India this turns out to be 0.6. On this score India does not look too different from many other developing countries. Bangladesh's dependency ratio is 0.7, Pakistan's 0.8, Brazil's 0.5. What is different about India is the prediction that it will see a sharp decline in this ratio over the next 30 years or so. This is what constitutes the demographic dividend for India. India's fertility rate - that is, the average number of children a woman expects to have in her life time - used to be 3.8 in 1990. This has fallen to 2.9 and is expected to fall further. Since women had high fertility earlier we now have a sizeable number of people in the age-group 0-15 years.

Benefits of demography

But since fertility is falling, some 10 or 15 years down the road, this bulge of young people would have moved into the working-age category. And, since, at that time, the relative number of children will be small (thanks to the lowered fertility), India's dependency ratio would be lower. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan; and, by 2030, India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4.

This can confer many benefits.

First is the direct benefit of there being a rise in the relative number of bread-winners.
Moreover, with fewer children being born, more women will now join the work force; so this can give a further fillip to the bread-winner ratio. A more indirect but vital benefit for the economy is the effect this can have on savings.

More women can work with fewer children being born

Human beings save most during the working years of their lives. When they are children, they clearly consume more than they earn, and the situation is the same during old age. Hence, a decline in the nation's dependency ratio is usually associated with a rise in the average savings rate. India's savings rate as a percentage of GDP has been rising since 2003. It now stands at 33% which is comparable to the Asian super-performers, all of whom save at above 30%, with China saving at an astonishing near 40% rate. This savings growth is driven by improvements in the government's fiscal health and a sharp rise in corporate savings.

But even if these factors disappear, the decline in the dependency ratio should enable India to hold its savings and investment rate above the 30% mark for the next 25 years.

Striking example

This theory of demographic advantage has been challenged by some as just that - theory. One way of evaluating this in reality is to look at the actual experience of other nations. The most striking example of economic growth being spurred by demography is the case of Ireland. Ireland's legalisation of contraception in 1979 caused a decline in the birth rate, from 22 (per 1000 population) in 1980 to 13 in 1994. This caused a rapid decline in the dependency ratio. The phenomenal economic boom in Ireland thereafter, earning it the sobriquet "Celtic Tiger", is very likely founded in this fertility decline. (I am disinclined to concede ground to the competing view that it was caused by Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland in 1979).

India's fertility rate has fallen

One has seen a similar sequence of changes in demographics and the economy in Japan in the 1950s and China in the 1980s.
But even if this happened in some places, will it happen in India? My expectation is that India will get benefit from higher savings and investment rates and this will continue to fire India's high growth rate. Beyond that much will depend on how the nation performs on primary and secondary education (to make sure that the larger working-age population conferred by the demographic dividend are an educated lot) and the manufacturing sector (which is needed to create job opportunities for the larger labour force).

What is important to remember is that the demographic dividend is a population bulge in the working-age category.

Like a kill in a python's stomach it will eventually move up, causing a rise in the old-age dependency ratio some three to four decades from now. That is, every demographic dividend comes with an accompanying "demographic echo". It is in the nation's interest to reap as much as possible from the dividend so that it is robust enough not stymied later by the echo.

 

[sky]

Monk I agree with you the armed forces should be promoted by the government as a good alternative for the poor youth, there is a skills and experience that goes with the services and India can have a program where people coming from armed services non career servicemen should be given first preferrence for government jobs. The rising youth population will be a benefit to the nation

BBC NEWS | South Asia | India's demographic dividend

India's demographic dividend

Nowadays no meeting on India seems complete without a reference to the coming "demographic dividend".
What really is this demographic dividend? The basic idea is straightforward enough. In the year 2004 India had a population of 1,080 million, of whom 672 million people were in the age-group 15 to 64 years. This is usually treated as the "working age population".
Since outside of this age group very few people work, it is reasonable to think of the remainder, that is, 408 million people, as the "dependent population". A nation's "dependency ratio" is the ratio of the dependent population to the working-age population. In the case of India this turns out to be 0.6. On this score India does not look too different from many other developing countries. Bangladesh's dependency ratio is 0.7, Pakistan's 0.8, Brazil's 0.5. What is different about India is the prediction that it will see a sharp decline in this ratio over the next 30 years or so. This is what constitutes the demographic dividend for India. India's fertility rate - that is, the average number of children a woman expects to have in her life time - used to be 3.8 in 1990. This has fallen to 2.9 and is expected to fall further. Since women had high fertility earlier we now have a sizeable number of people in the age-group 0-15 years.

Benefits of demography

But since fertility is falling, some 10 or 15 years down the road, this bulge of young people would have moved into the working-age category. And, since, at that time, the relative number of children will be small (thanks to the lowered fertility), India's dependency ratio would be lower. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan; and, by 2030, India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4.

This can confer many benefits.

First is the direct benefit of there being a rise in the relative number of bread-winners.
Moreover, with fewer children being born, more women will now join the work force; so this can give a further fillip to the bread-winner ratio. A more indirect but vital benefit for the economy is the effect this can have on savings.

More women can work with fewer children being born

Human beings save most during the working years of their lives. When they are children, they clearly consume more than they earn, and the situation is the same during old age. Hence, a decline in the nation's dependency ratio is usually associated with a rise in the average savings rate. India's savings rate as a percentage of GDP has been rising since 2003. It now stands at 33% which is comparable to the Asian super-performers, all of whom save at above 30%, with China saving at an astonishing near 40% rate. This savings growth is driven by improvements in the government's fiscal health and a sharp rise in corporate savings.

But even if these factors disappear, the decline in the dependency ratio should enable India to hold its savings and investment rate above the 30% mark for the next 25 years.

Striking example

This theory of demographic advantage has been challenged by some as just that - theory. One way of evaluating this in reality is to look at the actual experience of other nations. The most striking example of economic growth being spurred by demography is the case of Ireland. Ireland's legalisation of contraception in 1979 caused a decline in the birth rate, from 22 (per 1000 population) in 1980 to 13 in 1994. This caused a rapid decline in the dependency ratio. The phenomenal economic boom in Ireland thereafter, earning it the sobriquet "Celtic Tiger", is very likely founded in this fertility decline. (I am disinclined to concede ground to the competing view that it was caused by Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland in 1979).

India's fertility rate has fallen

One has seen a similar sequence of changes in demographics and the economy in Japan in the 1950s and China in the 1980s.
But even if this happened in some places, will it happen in India? My expectation is that India will get benefit from higher savings and investment rates and this will continue to fire India's high growth rate. Beyond that much will depend on how the nation performs on primary and secondary education (to make sure that the larger working-age population conferred by the demographic dividend are an educated lot) and the manufacturing sector (which is needed to create job opportunities for the larger labour force).

What is important to remember is that the demographic dividend is a population bulge in the working-age category.

Like a kill in a python's stomach it will eventually move up, causing a rise in the old-age dependency ratio some three to four decades from now. That is, every demographic dividend comes with an accompanying "demographic echo". It is in the nation's interest to reap as much as possible from the dividend so that it is robust enough not stymied later by the echo.

just one small point,most irish people i speak to seem to think the irish boom was started by the EU grant's they were given.Ireland is a very small country of only a few million people,they have been granted billions of dollors in grant's from the EU Ireland has also taken advantage of the big rise in tourisum they receive,from within the EU.

 

[bengalraider]

so India has 220 million youth today i.e India has a youth bulge , a situation where nearly a quarter of the population is young and restless. professor Samuel Huntington in his book"clash of civilizations talks about youth bulges". When Iran had a youth bulge it resulted in the Islamic revolution, when Russia had one the Bolshevik's took over, when Cuba had one Castro came to power. youth bulges have been associated with revolutions and large scale changes in governance. a youth bulge is a boon but also a curse if not handled correctly. many questions remain unanswered
how many of these youngsters can look forward to a bright future and a stable job?
if this issue is not handled and these young men and women do not get jobs when they grow up they could turn to crime and worse to terror.

What is the Religion these people follow?(at the risk of igniting controversy)
more Muslim youth could leads to discontent among Hindu right wing organisations leading to rising domestic violence levels

What is the economic background of these youth?
i.e will the parents of these people be able to give them good health and education or will they add to india's teeming poor.

from a paper funded by the world bank entitled
The Devil in the Demographics: The Effect of Youth Bulges on Domestic Armed Conflict, 1950-2000

The study finds robust support for the hypothesis that youth bulges increase the risk of domestic armed conflict, and especially so under conditions of economic stagnation. Moreover, the lack of support for the youth bulge hypothesis in recent World Bank studies is found to arise from a serious weakness in the youth bulge measure employed by World Bank researchers. The author finds no evidence for the claim made by Samuel P. Huntington that youth bulges above a certain ‘critical level’ make countries especially prone to conflict. The study, however, provides evidence that the combination of youth bulges and poor economic performance can be explosive. This is bad news for regions that currently exhibit both features, often in coexistence with intermediary and unstable political regimes, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world.

Link: The Devil in the Demographics: The Effect of Youth Bulges on Domestic Armed Conflict, 1950-2000 - PRIO

 

[LETHALFORCE]

These youths need to revolt if it is needed from these old fossil political mindset, they are the future and they need to shape the nation that suits their needs, the old corrupt politicians did nothing except get rich rob the country blind and throw the nation in a ditch.