With reference to Prof Emma's lecture today on Topic 7 and related readings, search for a

newspaper article that deals with the relevant aspects of Hinduism and Jainism. Discuss the
highlights of the article and lessons learned. Include the link of the newspaper article at the
bottom of your posting.
This article talks about how the religious make-up in India has shifted very little in terms of
its ratio over the past 70 years. Amidst the vast increase in population size from 361 million
to more than 1.2 billion over the past 60 years, the majority of the population being Hindu
has been largely unchanged. However, the Hindu share in the population dropped by 4% in
these 60 years, due to falling fertility rates across all religions, with Muslims having the
highest fertility rate of the major religions in India. Studies attribute this to the differing
median age women of different religions are giving birth at, rising levels of education and
wealth. Despite this, India still maintains one of the highest fertility rates in the world and is
projected to surpass China’s population by 2030. The country is also largely religious, with
the majority of citizens claiming membership to a religious group, a stark contrast to our
world today where globally, atheism is the third most common affiliation.
From this, we can study the effects of globalisation on a place like India today, such as
changing trends of education, wealth and birth rates, where there are more resources and
routes available to alternative lifestyles as compared to past traditional roots of raising big
families. Even in the findings of the study that claim how “few Indians don’t claim
membership of any religious group”, claiming religious affiliation may not necessarily tie in
with religious piety, given the embracing nature of commercialism that our world adopts
today. Perhaps this high affiliation to religion could be seen more so as a tradition from
centuries ago that one would find more natural to follow today, especially in a country where
the majority of followers of certain religions actually stay there. Religions such as Hinduism
and Sikhism find most of their followers part of the country and even part of a specific state.
Such strong connections between place of origin and religion can certainly have its effect of
the prominence of religious trends that we continue to see today.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58595040