Was Thanos the real hero?

Over population has always been a topic of debate for a long time. In fact, during my school days in one of the subjects, it was mentioned as a critical area to be focused on coming years. Population has always been a ticking time bomb that has been largely unprioritized. I would use the term specifically as unprioritized because even though it has been touched upon briefly time and again, it has never been addressed on a war footing, simply because, it is not an issue that can be managed without raising ethical, cultural, and religious ramifications. People world over have always been divided in opinion over birth control. While there are increasing instances of fertility clinics and orphanages and people displaced due to natural/man-made calamities, the rate of increase in population has been so high that, it has outgrown and is rapidly overcompensating for any deficit that can be claimed by such disasters. No way I am stating that wiping out entire populations as a reasonable response for this alarming situation. Though the title may raise such point, by querying the action of a comic character whose mission was to destroy half of the population across universe, what is the answer to this real and critical risk? On the day of composing this post, there were 2 news items that made such a sad start to this day – one on South Korea, where as part of Halloween parties, over 100 people got killed in a stampede. The other being, a bridge collapse in Gujrat where again more than 100 fatalities and several scores of people missing. Either of them could be argued as a case of mismanagement of authorities, lapse in taking proper queue control actions etc. Even though greed of minting money by allowing more than the possible capacity of occupancy might be the primary reason, one cannot ignore the fact that every habitable space, tourist spots or recreational areas are being suffocated due to over population. Previously on specific holidays like Kaanum Pongal or Deepavali or New Year’s Eve used to draw huge crowds to Marina. Nowadays, it is hard to find a sitting space even on regular weekends. It is an undeniable fact that over population has already put tremendous stress on the limited natural resources and with ever increasing numbers, chances are high that whatever warning levels that were marked as the red line few decades ago, might already been breached. Every nation is feeling the stress of burgeoning populations with each blaming the other for crowding their otherwise pristine locales. On one hand, there are wars and other disasters that is shifting lakhs of people across the globe and other hand, nations are stone walling themselves from such moving populace in fear of providing support for them, over and above their already loaded countrymen. Can this catastrophe be stopped in a single day? Like Thanos, can it be cured by a snap of finger? Is it even advisable for young nations like India that are potentially harvesting the benefits of having a middle-aged population whereas nations like Japan may not share the same thought process about their geriatric generations? This scenario that is looming larger on our immediate next generation raises more questions than answers and none of the solutions in sight are popular. It is high time, governments rolled up their sleeves and started addressing this elephant in the room, literally and figuratively occupying the bulk of resources, to safeguard and protect what is appearing to be a bleak future for our kids. Forget about water wars, the next world war could be about free air to breathe and it may happen sooner than thought.