Flourish, or else.

"While India continues to be the most populous country, with an estimated 1.46 billion people in 2025, the country's total fertility rate (TRF) has fallen to 1.9, below the replacement level of 2.1, according to a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)." ET. This is an estimate because this government postponed the census which was due in 2021. The first census was held in 1872 and has been held every 10 years since (wikipedia), regardless of any emergency affecting the nation. At long last, the government has declared that "the Census-2027 with caste enumeration would be undertaken in two phases across the country, by October 1, 2026 in snow-bound and hilly areas like Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and by March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country." BS. According to a report by the World Bank, "the proportion of people living on less than $2.15 a day, which is the international benchmark for extreme poverty, fell sharply from 16.2% in 2011-12 to just 2.3% in 2022-23," lifting 171 million people out of extreme poverty." pib.gov.in. However, "With the World Bank raising its threshold poverty line to $3 a day from the earlier $2.15 a day, the extreme poverty for India declines sharply to 5.3% in 2022-23." TIE. "India remains the world's fastest-growing major economy," with its GDP growing 6.5% in FY 25, down from 9.2% in FY 24. ET. And yet, "While incomes have risen, they have not translated into improved well-being when access to essential public goods such as healthcare, education, transportation and digital infrastructure remains unequal." "Only 19% of households in UP and 21.5% in Bihar have access to clean cooking fuel," wrote Prof Deepanshu Mohan & Aditi Desai. "India will become the fourth largest economy in the world, surpassing Japan, according to the latest World Economic Outlook April 2025 edition of the International Monetary Fund." TOI. "But behind our headline-grabbing figures lies a troubling reality: stagnant wages, biting inflation, insufficient jobs and growing inequality." "Retail pioneer Kishore Biyani categorizes the India population into three groups: India 1 (about 120 million people who can afford domestic help), India 2, (about 300 million domestic helpers, drivers and delivery workers), and India 3 (nearly a billion people earning less than $3 a day). India 2 is under severe stress and barely growing, wrote Ravi Venkatesh. There is a big difference between the sexes. "Among unmarried girls and women, the participation rate in learning or studying is quite high (73%), even higher than such males (58%). However, this does not translate into a higher participation rate in employment post-marriage (25% for women, against 82% for men)," wrote Pragya Srivastava. Curiously, a new survey - the Global Flourishing Study (GFS) - shows that women in India flourish more than men, the employed flourish more than the unemployed but students flourish more than the employed, and, unlike in other countries, "People who have never been married flourish the most among different sections," wrote Abhishek Jha. That anyone thrives at all is astonishing when we live in constant dread of our government, wrote Partha Sinha. "As Ashish Nandy observed, colonial power in India wasn't dismantled - it was domesticated. The Viceroy became the Collector. The Queen's English morphed into affidavit Hindi. But the emotional structure of dread stayed perfectly intact." When you live in dread you must flourish. Or else.