Official: Indian population exceeds a billion

Policy makers in India are assessing provisional figures from the new census, which confirms that the country now has a population of more than one billion.

The census shows that although the population has risen, the rate of growth has slowed, literacy is on the rise and the ratio between women and men has narrowed slightly.

The BBC South Asia correspondent says the figures are not even across the country, but where the gap between male and female populations is acute, it's generally put down to the neglect of girl children and selective abortion of females.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service