# In Focus-Parley | Should India incentivise bigger families? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-focus-by-the-hindu-421346/in-focus-parley-should-india-incentivise-bigger-families Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-focus-by-the-hindu-421346/in-focus-parley-should-india-incentivise-bigger-families.md Podcast: [In Focus by The Hindu](https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-focus-by-the-hindu-421346) Published: 2026-06-11T16:22:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/THGU3794362714.mp3 Audio file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/THGU3794362714.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-focus-by-the-hindu-421346/episodes/in-focus-parley-should-india-incentivise-bigger-families Duration seconds: 2161 ## Resource For decades, Indian policymakers have encouraged population control, with the familiar slogan of ‘Hum Do, Humare Do’ (We two, our two). However, the recent drop in India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) — the average number of children a woman would have in her lifetime — has now dropped to 1.9, below the replacement rate of 2.1, with southern States seeing their TFR drop to 1.3. Last month, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu announced cash incentives of ₹30,000 and ₹40,000 to women having their third and fourth child respectively, in a bid to reverse that trend. Several other southern States have indicated that they also see the benefits of boosting population growth, though not through a cash payout. Should India incentivise bigger families? Guest: Aparajita Chattopadhyay and Neelanjan Sarkar Host: Priscilla Jebaraj Producer: Sharmada Venkatasubramian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-focus-by-the-hindu-421346/episodes/in-focus-parley-should-india-incentivise-bigger-families/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-focus-by-the-hindu-421346/in-focus-parley-should-india-incentivise-bigger-families.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.