 In their paper, economists Sandhya Krishnan and Neeraj Hatekar conclude that 600 million people, or more than half of India's population, belong to the middle class.The Asian Development Bank estimates India's population to be at 1.28 billion with an average growth rate of 1.3% from 2010–2015.In 2014, 49.9% of the population aged 15 years and above were employed.