India to be world's most populous nation by 2050'

India will overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2050, according to a new French study which predicts the global population to surge to 9.7 billion people by the middle of the century.

The overall world population is projected to rise to 9.7 billion in 2050 from the current level of 7.1 billion, the report said.

Currently, the world's most populous countries are China with 1.3 billion people; followed by India (1.2 billion); the US (316.2 million); Indonesia (248.5 million) and Brazil (195.5 million).

The study backs the population predictions by the UN and the World Bank.

In June, a UN study predicted the global population to swell to 9.6 billion in 2050.

"The world population has risen seven-fold over the last two hundred years and is expected to reach 10 or 11 billion by the end of the twenty-first century," according to the report by Gilles Pison, senior researcher at the French institute.

According to the report, the projected population of other countries in the world by 2050 (in millions) will be: Nigeria (444), US (400), Indonesia (366), Pakistan (363), Brazil (227), Bangladesh (202), Congo (182), Ethiopia (178), Philippines (152), Mexico (150), Russia (132), Tanzania (129), Egypt (126), Uganda (114), Vietnam (109), Iran (99), Japan (97), Kenya (97), Turkey (93), Iraq (83), UK (79), Germany (76), France (72), Sudan(69), Niger(66), South Africa (64), Mozambique (63) and Colombia