Mention two factors responsible for population explosion in India.

1. A SHARP FALL IN THE DEATH RATE, brought about by advances in medicine, vaccination, better sanitation and a more reliable food supply, while the birth rate has remained high.
2. EARLY MARRIAGE and ILLITERACY — early marriage lengthens the child-bearing period, and lack of awareness of family planning, together with the preference for a male child, keeps family size large.

Two factors, one mark each.

THE FIRST IS THE ESSENTIAL ONE and should always be given: a population explosion is caused not by people having MORE children than before, but by FEWER of them dying. Births stayed high while deaths fell sharply, and the widening gap between the two is the growth.

That is why population programmes work on the BIRTH rate — nobody wishes to raise the death rate.

Other acceptable factors: poverty, where children are seen as earning hands; the joint family system, which spreads the cost of raising them; and high infant mortality, which encourages parents to have more children expecting to lose some.