Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has once again brought the delimitation conversation to the fore.
On Friday, at the Amaravati Summit on World Population Day, he said his government would soon launch a policy to encourage people to have more children, citing concerns that South India’s low birth rate could affect its representation in Parliament.
“We will launch a robust policy on population growth soon. Population is our strongest economic resource. The world is increasingly reliant on countries with large populations,” he said.
This is not the first time the TDP leader and NDA ally has spoken about the proposed population growth policy. In October 2024, he had warned against the effects of Andhra’s ageing population and said his government was contemplating legislation to incentivise families to have more children.
Another chief minister of a South Indian state, Tamil Nadu’s M K Stalin, has urged people to have more children as higher population is a criterion to get more MPs after delimitation.
Naidu said on Friday: “To avoid a human resource crisis in the future, the fertility rate in the state must rise. Joint families are disappearing. There’s growing concern about the declining population in South India. While Parliament seats may increase in the future, southern states could see reduced representation.”
The Chief Minister expressed concern that declining population growth would hamper economic growth.
Acknowledging the impact of the rising cost of living, he said the government will introduce a plan to incentivise couples. Among the proposals on the cards is to increase the amount of PDS rice given to beneficiary families from 25 kg per month to 50 kg per month if the family size increases. Another proposal to encourage female government employees is to have child care centers to set up in government offices.
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What to make of the Thackeray reunion
As former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray walked onto a stage in Mumbai’s Worli last week and embraced his estranged cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj, a loud cheer went up. The Thackeray brothers sat side by side after a gap of 20 years to celebrate the BJP-led Mahayuti government scrapping the move to introduce Hindi as a third language in primary schools, with everyone wondering how this turn of events will shape state politics.
Beyond the immediate politics, the coming together of the cousins poses larger questions, writes Contributing Editor Neerja Chowdhury in her latest column.
She writes: “The Thackeray cousins resisted the “imposition” of Hindi to protect Marathi asmita (pride). But, the irony is that the actions of MNS workers on the ground — they assaulted a shop owner in Thane for not speaking in Marathi — show they are insisting on ‘imposing’ Marathi on all who live in the state. The Maharashtra of 2025 is not the state it was in the 1960s, 70s or 80s, where the identity politics that the cousins are espousing worked.”
Amit Shah in Kerala
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will reach Thiruvananthapuram on Friday night to inaugurate the new BJP State Committee Office and launch the party’s campaign for the forthcoming local body elections.
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Shah is expected to land at Thiruvananthapuram airport around 10 pm, where he will be received by BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar and other senior leaders, an official statement said.
The formal inauguration of the state office will take place at 11 am on Saturday.
The inauguration will be followed by a large ward-level leadership meeting.
Later in the afternoon, Shah will take part in a closed-door BJP state leadership meeting.
— With PTI inputs