India's population, which is 975.8 million at present, will reach the billion mark early in the new century and, growing at the rate of 1.6 per cent, will rise to 1.38 billion in 2025, according to projections by the United Nations Population Fund.The only other comparable country, China, which now has a population of 1.25 billion, growing at the rate of 0.9 per cent, will have 1.48 billion people by the same year.