Regional diversity and population distribution in India: empirics and theoretical approach

Abstract

Purpose: development of empirical methods and theoretical foundations for the analysis of the variations of regional population heterogeneity in India.

Discussion: based on different quantitative estimations of diversity, we pay the main attention to the problem of regional confessional heterogeneity disparities in India. Calculating and comparing several diversity indices of regional heterogeneity we reveal the property of grouping the regions in some clusters which demonstrate rather different properties. The latter, in turn, can be explained with a simple probabilistic model of popuplation distribution.

Result: we introduce and examing a quantitative computational model that matches the revealed empirical evidence of rank distributions for different diversity indices which measure confessional heterogeneity of the states and territories of India. The obtained results are expected to provide a new foundation for further study of heterogeneity in the context of social and economic development.