What is the relevance of holding a World Population Day?

          Do you know the number of human beings in the world now? It comes to around 7.7 billion in total!

          In 1989, the governing council of the United Nations Development Programme established the World Population Day as July 11 in order to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.

          July 11 was formerly observed as the Day of ‘Five Billion’ and it had generated considerable interest among people across the world then. Population explosion is a reality. According to statistics, the world population increases by 100 million every 14 months. The explosion in population can result in a range of evils such as poverty, unemployment and corruption.

          The World Population Day attempts to raise awareness about the implications of rising world population. The theme of the celebrations last year was ‘Family Planning is a Human Right’.

          The 50th anniversary of affirming family planning as a human right in the 1968 International Conference on Human Rights was celebrated. The celebration included awareness campaigns regarding the right of women and girls.

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