Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.

My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.

It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,

but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.

And because the team has such a diverse

range of skills and strengths, we have trained journalists, people who love digging through

archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice. So if

you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories

from all around the UK.

Hello and thank you for downloading the more or less podcast. We're the programme that

looks at the numbers in the news and I'm Charlotte MacDonald.

What a year you've been. We've had baby hippos going viral, M-Pox going really viral,

and martial law that lasted less time than it would take to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But what we've really interested in are the numbers that describe what kind of world we're in right now.

So we've gathered some of our more or less regulars to explain the numbers that stood out

most to them this year. Our first number comes from India.

Hi, I'm Rukmini S. I'm the founder and director of Data for India, a public platform that tries to advance the understanding of India through the data.

My number is two.

Not the biggest number, but size doesn't equate impact.

The number two is India's total fertility rate,

which is the number of children that an average woman can be expected to have in her lifetime.

For regular listeners, you'll know we talk about fertility rate a lot.

...