Aastha Arora: Where is India's billionth baby now?

Aastha Arora arrived successful the satellite amidst overmuch fanfare.

Within hours of her commencement astatine 05:05 connected 10 May 2000 successful Delhi's Safdarjung hospital, the new-born was presented to the satellite arsenic India's "one billionth citizen".

Government ministers were photographed cradling the infant, wrapped successful a brushed pinkish blanket.

Aastha's commencement propelled India into an exclusive nine wherever it joined China, the lone different state with much than a cardinal people.

At an lawsuit held to observe the milestone, the United Nations Population Fund's India typical Micheal Vlassoff described Aastha arsenic a "very peculiar and precise unique" baby. Officials besides pointed retired that her commencement was a aftermath up telephone to rethink ways to power India's burgeoning population.

But the celebrations implicit the commencement made planetary headlines and, for days aft that, journalists made a beeline for her location successful Najafgarh, a congested little mediate people colony successful southwest Delhi.

I excessively was a portion of the BBC squad that visited her location to spot India's youngest personage and talk to Anjana Arora, her mother.

More than 2 decades later, I revisited them to find retired wherever "the peculiar baby" was present and however she was faring.

The 22-year-old who opened the doorway for maine connected a caller Sunday greeting told maine that she stopped feeling peculiar a agelong clip backmost and alleged that galore promises politicians made astatine her commencement weren't fulfilled.

The crushed she could lone spot maine connected a Sunday is due to the fact that it's the lone disconnected time she has from enactment - she precocious started moving arsenic a caregiver astatine a backstage hospital.

"I wanted to survey subject and go a doctor, but my parents couldn't spend to nonstop maine to a backstage schoolhouse truthful I had to compromise and bid arsenic a nurse," she tells me.

Aastha shows maine a folder of paper clippings compiled by her parents connected her beingness - it's from these that she learnt astir the circumstances of her commencement and the frenzy accompanying it.

The attraction continued for immoderate clip aft her birth. According to 1 report, she was invited to inaugurate a website, jointly started by the Indian wellness ministry and the UNFPA, erstwhile she was 11 months old.

A week aft her archetypal birthday, a time retired with her household successful the metropolis of Ajmer was covered by a section work which wrote astir however she "enjoyed tearing her five-year-old brother's substance books and homework assignments".

Aastha says she herself archetypal became alert of her peculiar presumption erstwhile she started school.

"I was astir apt 4 oregon 5 years aged erstwhile I archetypal heard the connection billionth babe connected the UN colonisation day, erstwhile a camera unit landed up astatine my school," she says. "For a kid it was a large happening to look connected TV and I loved the attention."

The media attraction besides translated into immoderate tangible payment for her.

Her father, who worked arsenic a salesman successful a shop, earned a small implicit $50 a period and was struggling to wage the schoolhouse interest of his 2 children.

"Every twelvemonth erstwhile journalists visited to bash a communicative connected me, it besides meant escaped publicity for the school, truthful they waived disconnected my interest aft the 2nd standard," she says.

In school, Aastha flourished - she was bully successful academics, took portion successful debates and creation shows, and was appointed the schoolhouse assembly prefect. When she was 16, the schoolhouse awarded her the "graceful idiosyncratic award".

But contempt her fantabulous scores, the family's fiscal crunch forced her to power to a authorities schoolhouse successful 11th standard.

"I was precise unhappy successful the caller schoolhouse and it showed successful my grades," she says, adding that it was the extremity of her imagination to go a doctor.

Even though her parents were poor, her parent says that for a portion aft Aastha's birth, each imagination seemed achievable.

The household person nary documents to backmost their claims, but they accidental that Sumitra Mahajan - past curate for women and kid improvement - had promised their girl "free education, escaped healthcare and escaped railway passage" erstwhile she'd visited them successful the hospital.

Mrs Arora says that connected different sojourn to their location a fewer months aboriginal with the past country MP Sahib Singh Verma, they had assured them that they would assistance find a authorities occupation for her father.

"We tried reaching retired of her bureau galore times aft that but we were ever told that she was away," she added.

The household accidental the lone fiscal assistance they received came from the UNFPA which acceptable up a money of 200,000 rupees ($2,425; £2,118) which the household could usage for Aastha's assemblage acquisition erstwhile she turned 18. The fund, which had grown into 700,000 rupees, helped wage for portion of her nursing course.

Mr Verma died successful 2007, but I called Ms Mahajan, who retired from progressive authorities successful 2019 aft serving arsenic the Speaker of the Indian parliament, to inquire her astir the family's claims.

Ms Mahajan said she didn't retrieve what - if immoderate - promises were made to the household but the money promised by the UNFPA.

"I had visited the household not successful my idiosyncratic capableness but arsenic the minister," she said. "I was not a curate for agelong aft that though I was successful Delhi, and I was progressive successful politics. But the household ne'er contacted me. If they had written to me, I would person decidedly helped," she told me, adding that "even today, if they scope out, I'll effort and assistance them".

The solemnisation implicit the billionth babe was besides meant to beryllium a clip for sober reflection, to present a connection to the citizens that this accelerated maturation successful colonisation was unsustainable, that the swelling numbers would marque it hard for the authorities to present basal services and rise surviving standards.

In caller years, Aastha excessively has weighed successful connected the taxable - astatine nationalist forums she's described India's immense colonisation arsenic "a problem".

"India indispensable bash thing to power its population," she told me, adding that "it's our taste penchant for sons that's got america here".

"People support having daughters until they person a lad due to the fact that they judge that a antheral kid would transportation their sanction forward."

The government, she says, indispensable enactment to alteration the mindsets.

In 2000, erstwhile Aastha was born, authorities projections showed that India could overtake China to go the world's astir populous state by 2045.

"There is already excessively overmuch contention for everything, excessively galore radical warring for the aforesaid places successful schools and colleges and for the aforesaid jobs," says Aastha.

"I was the billionth baby, soon we could person the 2 billionth baby," she adds. "I anticipation we ne'er scope that milestone."