DUSHANBE, November 1, 2011, Asia-Plus – A baby born in India has been declared the world”s seven billionth person by child rights group Plan International.
The BBC reports baby Nargis was born on October 31 at 07:25 local time (01:55GMT) in Mall village in India”s Uttar Pradesh state.
Plan International says Nargis has been chosen symbolically as it is not possible to know where exactly the seven billionth baby is born.
The United Nations estimated that on Monday October 31, the world”s population would reach seven billion.
However, the UN itself has decided not to identify a specific child as the seven billionth person. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, told a news conference marking the occasion that the milestone was not about one newborn baby but about the entire “human family”.
In addition to baby Nargis in India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Cambodia have all identified seven billionth babies.
Every minute, 51 babies are born in India, 11 of them in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.
Nargis was born to Vinita and Ajay Kumar on Monday morning in a small government-run hospital in Mall village, nearly 50 kilometers from the state capital, Lucknow, a Plan International official told the BBC.
The daughter of a poor farmer, Nargis was chosen as the seventh billionth baby to focus attention on the ills of female foeticide and India”s skewed sex ratio, the organization said.
The person chosen by the UN as the world”s symbolic six billionth person, Adnan Mevic, is now 12 years old. He was photographed in hospital in 1999 with the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. His family are living in relatively poor conditions in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and have expressed disappointment that since they were visited by Mr. Annan, they have heard nothing more from the UN. It is thought that this could be one reason why the UN has decided not to name a seven billionth child.
