The gigantic population certainly helps, they have four times the sample size as the US.

Then there’s the mix of medical care that’s good enough to keep these deathly ill infants alive but not good enough to fix them and an abundance of cell phones to capture it.

Places that are even more impoverished might not keep such an unlucky infant alive long enough to document it. Places that are wealthier will fix it surgically.

Indian people are living in the midst of risk factors for birth defects, e.g., universality of marriage, high fertility, large number of unplanned pregnancies, poor coverage of antenatal care, poor maternal nutritional status, high consanguineous marriages rate, and high carrier rate for hemoglobinopathies. Lack of prenatal/antenatal care is a huge reason. 70 percent of birth defects are preventable through community genetic services!

Yes, one part of it is due to the sheer size of the population leading to larger total numbers (even if incidence rate is equal to other parts of the world).

Another part of it is the fact that some religions there venerate children with certain visible deformities - they take it as a sign of being blessed/touched by the gods. This means that these children are showcased prominently, rather than being cloistered away for sake of pity or shame. So, even if the numbers are comparable to other parts of the world, they are more visible or more often encountered.

Malnutrition and pollution from places like Bhopal disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster have an impact not only on the individual, but also their children.

Unsafe living conditions play a big factor, with India having a very poor waste management system and rampant pollution of rivers like the Ganges, where many people still get their drinking water.

Unsafe living conditions play a big factor, with India having a very poor waste management system and rampant pollution of rivers like the Ganges, where many people still get their drinking water.

Great response, also pollutants.

There is some good answers here but something I'm not seeing is that, frankly, you're not studying the statistical likelihood of deformities in a population. You're seeing pictures or news articles or social media posts and social media has a bias for trying to get the most clicks through outrage or shock or awe or sex, whatever. So how you came to see those instances aren't representative of what's happening in reality.

What does universality of marriage mean? Googling it says it's essentially marrying outside of your own culture - if I'm reading it right. Wouldn't that be the opposite of inbreeding? Which is what you don't want to happen?

Half the world population lives in south east Asia. So there's a lot lot lot of chances for rare things to happen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle#:~:text=The%20Valeriepieris%20circle%20is%20a,than%20half%20the%20world's%20population.

If you read it as "universality of marriage" is the risk factor, a lack of it would be the risk in this case.

In simple terms. Inbreeding.

Also it is the most populous country on Earth, so obviously for any type of person you can imagine, a lot of them will be from India.

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