India, July 17 -- With fertility falling below the replacement level and states like Andhra Pradesh offering cash incentives for a third child, India is confronting a very different reality - how to manage an ageing society, a shrinking workforce and a shifting political balance before it becomes old without becoming rich

At Independence, India had only 360 million people, and the population was multiplying fast, with a total fertility rate (TFR) of about 6. Today, the population has swelled to 1.45 billion, but the average TFR is down to only 1.9, below the replacement level of 2.1. The TFR also shows wide regional variations: from 1.2 in Delhi and 1.3 in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal to 3.0 in Bihar, 2.9 in Meghalaya, 2.4 in UP, and 2.3 i...