Is India 'Not' a country for the old?

Is India 'Not' a country for the old?

India needs to focus on providing the elderly for health, housing, and dignity.

When could we have a collective sigh of relief for the 87.6 million 60+ people in India? India is expected to be home to 300 million elderly people by 2050; it is time it paid heed to the problems of those who are as old, or even older, than the independent nation itself is today. Else the country will be faced with a large incidence of degenerative diseases, accompanied with serious gaps in the geriatric medical ecosystem, a changing joint family structure, the lack of ‘grey-friendliness’ in public spaces, transport, housing, and a virtually non-existing policy framework to tackle these issues.

Taking care of the elderly
With about 50% of the elderly being financially dependent on others, it is affordable housing, healthcare, and the psychological and social manifestations of ageing that we will struggle to respond to as a country with no social security and dismal elderly care facilities. What will be the combined impact of this trend on small, nuclear families, along with an improvement in lifestyle and an increase in degenerative diseases and life spans, especially for women? Where are we going to live as we grow old and who is going to take care of us?

Clearly Parliament had some of these issues in mind when it passed the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act in 2007. The model Act makes it obligatory for children or relatives to provide maintenance to senior citizens and parents. It also provides for the setting up of old age homes by State governments.

Despite this, however, it is a fact that most people in India would rather suffer than have the family name sullied by taking their own children to court for not providing for them. This need to maintain a façade is combined with a lack of knowledge of rights, the inherent inability of the elderly to approach a tribunal for recourse under the law, and poor implementation of the Act by various State governments.

So what happens to those who have been turned out from their homes, or have lost a partner, or just can’t manage to live on their own anymore, especially since the number of old age homes the Centre supports under the Integrated Programme for Older Persons (IPOP) has seen a decline from 269 homes in 2012-13 to a dismal 137 in 2014-15? The Centre has asked State governments to ensure that there are old-age homes whose functioning can be supported under IPOP, but since it is optional for the State governments to do so, the total number of old-age homes remains abysmally low.

Need for a pragmatic approach
While we hope that the Indian family continues to be stronger than in most countries and provides a caring environment for the elderly, it can’t be the basis for our ability to support the elderly. India needs to take a serious look at the needs of the elderly in a more pragmatic and holistic manner. For starters it could focus on the three key aspects of health, housing, and dignity.

Each of these is a large issue on its own, but it is important to first strengthen the health-care system. If 18% of the population is going to be 60+ by 2050, then it becomes almost crucial to encourage research in geriatric diseases, and push for building capacity in the geriatric departments across the primary and tertiary health-care systems. There also seems to be a growing informal industry of home care providers, which urgently needs regulation and mandated guidelines so that a large pool of certified and affordable trained home care givers can help provide basic support, prevent unnecessary hospital admissions, and keep the elderly in the familiar environs of their homes as far as possible.

Next, there needs to be a network of old age homes, both in the private and public sector. While the private sector has taken the lead in setting up some state-of-the-art facilities, most of these are priced well beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. State governments must be mandated to set up quality, affordable homes.

As traditionally supportive social structures are changing and the elderly are increasingly losing their ‘status’ as the family patriarchs, it is also time that we did our bit to help address the indignities and loneliness that this change is bringing. Businesses could look at harnessing the talent of elders by retaining or hiring older workers and offering flexible working hours for those who want to continue working after retirement. Industry will benefit by retaining their knowledge and experience and the elderly will continue to be financially independent and retain their sense of self-worth. At the community level we also need to increase the avenues for older people to participate in local issues, in resident associations, set up and manage spaces for community interaction, to leverage their experience as a resource, give them an opportunity to share their concerns, and o help them feel that they contribute socially and have a purpose in life.

The one big issue that doesn’t get enough attention today is that old people deserve dignity. Apart from ensuring appropriate medical help, there needs to be more awareness about common degenerative diseases like dementia so that family members, care-givers, and society at large are sensitised to incontinence, the momentary lack of comprehension, the hallucinations — all the painful behavioural, physical, emotional and mental struggles of those who suffer from these diseases.

In a country that still worships Bapuji, can't we hope for setting off a much-needed discussion on the painful issues that senior citizens face today?

Jobless Growth and Lifeless Growth

Jobless Growth and Lifeless Growth

Now we are in the situation of jobless growth. It means that number of costly cars etc on the roads is increasing, while the number of livelihoods is depleting and as a result the amount of poverty is increasing. Suppose that a factory is employing 10,000 people. It means that if each worker has a family of five, that fifty thousand people are depending on the factory for livelihood. The city of fifty thousand will need schools, colleges, hospitals, courts, lawyers, shops, markets..., easily another fifty thousand, that city being connected by transports of various types. Now suppose that a management, finance etc expert arrived at the factory, and succeeded in making the factory automatic, with computers automation etc thus employing only 500 people. That will be disaster to the city while the 500 employees may be going round in very costly cars.

What will happen if the banks to window dress, as the NPAs have devastated them are merged and gradually only computers do all the work. Suppose every undertaking employs mainly computers and reduces the number of employees. But when the fixed deposits are eliminated by the elimination of employment in the economy, after all computers cannot be fixed depositors and if the few remaining fixed depositors are chased away from the banks by the tax on fake income, banks too will close down.

We are forgetting that the employees are the market, the very justification for the existence of any establishment. When the markets vanish, economic depression which is the sum total of millions of individual mental depressions, becomes the main cultural facet. Then there will be the IS economy which we are seeing in Iraq, Syria etc,when most people live in solidified terror as the normal state of mind, with girls in the slave markets etc.

Jobless Growth is the symptom of a gigantic peril. The exact phrase is the ‘loot of jobs and livelihoods’, a horrible atrocity on the people.

The phrase ‘jobless growth ‘is very deceiving. It is the euphemism for a horrible atrocity.

It is simply not possible to design and direct the economy of 130 crore people. There can be only the devising of switches that help the growth of jobs and not the intolerable situation of costly cars on the road and starvation in many homes. The biggest employer is nature and environment only and not industries and occupations that destroy the forests, rivers, air and water. On the basis of the geography of a place—the water bodies, mountains, forests, topography and other natural features, jobs that increase in number shall be devised, leaving to nature the work of creating more livelihoods. Let nature be unshackled. Nature is the best planner and executor of its plan. Cutting away trees and deforestation simply means the elimination of photosynthesis itself and must be made a very big crime. If you cannot deliberately cut the heads of people for say constructing a road, then a tree also must be given equal status, in fact a more important status because every tree performs simply hundreds of life giving functions.

The problem is those who are really needed, are the people who know nature first hand and not university degrees. Not the people ho flaunt PhDs and don't know nature.

Why Pakistan hates India ....

The reasons why Pakistan hates India can be termed as diverse. The reason I will choose to highlight the most will be an ill-planned and executed partition, egoist religious differences and a straight lack of political insight.

Pakistan as a country came into existence from shrewd British diplomatic measures and the lack of foresight among both the contemporary Indian and Muslim politicians at the time of Independence. The partition should never have been accepted. Sadly, India wanted freedom as soon as possible from the British, and for the Muslim politicians of the day, it was the only chance of fame, glory, power and wealth. The partition thus happened displacing millions to each side of the border, and sadly this was accompanied by much shock and stigma that lead to unnecessary blood-shed and bitter scars among the populaces, the scars of which run till today.

By the time of partition, the INDIAN identity was lost and it was subdivided into a distinct MUSLIM and HINDU identities. And when a secular society runs on religious lines with fanatics fanning the flames, tensions and egos are bound to clash. That happened at all its glory and very much persists till date.

Post-independence, Pakistani leaders and populace had a hope that with freedom, the situation there will improve and prosperity will be enormous. Both India and Pakistan grew similarly from that stage. But the twist came that with abundant geographical proportions and population, combined with objective assistance of the Soviets, India made a slow but steady improvement, retaining its secular identity. Pakistani population, who had a secular identity before these events, now rapidly acquired an Islamic identity. It became an Islamic nation because of the whims of its rulers. The populace there had already became a cattle when they lacked the wisdom to identify the motives of the Muslim League, prior to partition. Suddenly, Pakistan realises its mistake to seperate from its erstwhile Indian identity. It perceives an existentialist threat from India along with the constant threat of Balkanization.

Another reason for Pakistan to go seperate was the hope that as a Muslim and Islamic state, it will forge better ties with the Middle-East, to be accepted as one of them.

Yet another reason will be the lack of political insight by Pakistan. Pakistan after independence always hoped to be the new leader to the Muslim world.

Thus, inspite of all the Indo-Pakistan rivalry on the world stage and the conflict over Kashmir, most of the world including the Muslim world sees India as a country with the third highest Muslim population in the world, that offers opportunities of economic benefits and not as the HINDU INDIA that can be marginalized for Pakistan's sake.

Hence, the reason Pakistan hates India is because of its own inferiority complex, its own illogical perceived threat of existentialism from a Hindu country, its social and economic collapse with India fast rising and shining, its inability to secure Kashmir for itself, its inability to marginalize India on the world platform and its degradation in the international and Asian community.

NOW:
Why did Churchill hate India?
    "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion"

-Entry dated to September 1942 on a conversation held with Churchill in Leo Amery : Diaries.
This is just one of the many anti-India remarks by the man so revered by the British. What was the reason for this hatred?

Churchill may have been an imperialist and a racist, but he was a very intelligent man. He knew that if India were to gain independence, other colonies of Britain would also demand independence.

He was right, wasn't he? Taking inspiration from India's struggle for independence the following countries were liberated.

    Ghana(1957)
    Cyrenaica(1949)
    Libya(1951)
    Uganda(1962)
    Kenya(1963)

Thus, he knew that the most crucial thing to do to save the empire and preserve the British status as a superpower, he had to crush the Indian independence movement.

Lastly, Indians were very superstitious, corrupt, and easy for the British to turn against one another, which might have led him to think of them as stupid. This assessment would only be reinforced by the fact that they followed a bald toothless man, dressed like a beggar, whose grand plan was to gain independence and then completely reject the modern world, so we could return India to its villages and rely solely on hand made goods.

As if to prove him right, we didn't even pause for a moment to celebrate the British departure but proceeded immediately to slaughter half a million of our own and displace 14 million more. That was a pretty beastly thing to do.

It's also sad, looking at the above list of less than desirable traits, to see how many of them still exist in India to this very day. Perhaps, given the landscape of religious riots and caste based voting, we should first ask why Indians hate each other so much?

Where is kali yuga taking our banks and Mother India?

Where is kali yuga taking our banks and Mother India?As it is, for me the Kali yuga is, hounding the savings of the country into the hands of the big business tycoons, some of whom are also big NPAs, via the share market by exempting dividends, profits on mutual funds etc from the income tax and subjecting the fixed depositors to total loss. The principal FD, will be lost because of the inflation, the interest is fake income, the fake income has to be added to the taxable income and now for the sin of taking fixed deposits in the previous years, tax avoided on the fake income of those years is subject to a fine of 45 per cent. Meanwhile the MLAs are put in five star hotels to see that they vote for the party candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections, the MLA bribe dowry appears to Rs 10 crores plus. That fat MLA dowry is not from FDs. Well, when banks are so attacked, denuded of fixed deposits, NPAs treated with kid gloves, where is kali yuga taking our banks and Mother India?