Every sixth person in the world now officially calls India home in spite of the country's sharpest slow-down in the population growth rate since India's independence.

A preliminary tally of the Census of India 2001, confirms that India's population has crossed the one billion-person mark, making it the second country in the world to top a billion, after China.

At midnight on March 1, 2001, India's population stood at 1,027,015,247, despite a 2.5% decrease in India's population growth rate during the last decade from nearly 24% in 1981-1991 to the current rate of 21.3% for 1991-2001.

The results reveal that India has added about 181 million people to its population between 1991-2001, more than the estimated population of Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world.

New population control measures that fit into India's social and political system must be taken or else demographic experts fear that India's population may surpass China's before 2025.