>The Indian population will rise to 1.6b by 2050.

india will run out of resources(and water) before population hits a peak. depopulation is a statistical guarantee. reducing population voluntarily is the only way to assure a reasonable stock of the gene pool before the country completely runs out of resources and scarcity escalates into wars of depopulation(historically, it has been proven that war always follows drought or famine on a larger scale..from genghis khan to african tribes to vikings to the last syrian war, if you can collect enough data sets about world famine/droughts/scarcities, wars always follow.)

now..how to go about it. its a multi pronged approach:

1. stop incentivising children. what does this mean? instead of punitive measures or coercive one child policy, the state should incentivise responsible procreation and reward the child free. like an UBI for those who dont contribute to population growth.

2. provide free preservation of genetic material(sperm/eggs/dna) in a gene pool databank for posterity. this may not mean anything. it may amount to something. the idea that a 'legacy' might have a chance in a better world through frozen dna is a perk. it is a small cost and a nice gesture to reward selfless action for the nation. also: who knows what we might need in 300-500 years later.

3. go back to village or rural economies. by this, i dont mean that indians should start turning back time wrt sci and tech. what i mean is that people should go back village size communities. these have to be self governing and self sustaining units that can manage their own resources.

4. diversity is a double edged sword. i am not talking about social diversity, but diversity of resource expenditure and resource scarcity. there are too many people in india and to a certain extent, more cohesion and homogeneous living/way of life will give smaller communities more agency over how they manage local resources.

example: a meat eating population has a different resource expenditure pattern than a vegetarian/dairy inclusive one. rural communities differ from urban community's needs. droughty areas have different management starategies than those with monsoons.

5. it's very easy wrt water. dig more ponds and save rain water. protect watersheds and prevent ag/industrial runoffs. adopt 'nile valley' model of digging canals. take whatever you grow indoors into hydroponic systems. india still gets a lot of rain during the monsoons. development of rural areas and relieving the pressure in urban density will help. but only if there is a limit on the number of people per resource budgeted zone.

6. more importantly..before the depopulation occurs due to scarcity of resources, there is a real danger for india. if the wet bulb temperatures[1]rise as predicted, the heat and humidity will kill people in their sleep. they'd go to bed and die in their sleep.[2]

[..]He and his colleagues previously looked at how heat waves would evolve with warming in the Middle East and found that region will likely be home to the highest wet-bulb temperatures the world will see. (Bandar Mahshahr in Iran hit a wet-bulb temperature of nearly 95°F during a 2015 heat wave, which translates to a heat index of about 163°F (73°C).) But South Asia poses the bigger concern in terms of threats to people, as it is home to one fifth of the world’s population and is an area of deep poverty.

“That combination is what makes, what shapes this acute vulnerability,” Eltahir said.

Eltahir and his colleagues found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, parts of eastern India and Bangladesh will exceed the 95°F threshold by century’s end and most of South Asia will approach that threshold.

If emissions are substantially curtailed and global temperature rise meets the 2°C (3.6°F) limit agreed to in the Paris accord, no place in South Asia would exceed 95°F, though wet-bulb temperatures over 88°F would be widespread. Such temperatures can still be deadly, especially to already vulnerable populations like the elderly.[..]

[1]https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/climate-change...

[2]https://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-heat-india-most-...