UK report places India 67th in Quality of Death Index, says despite economic growth it ranks low in health care

By Our Representative
A new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), United Kingdom, has ranked India on 67th position in the Quality of Death Index (QDI) of 80 countries it has selected. The index is meant to measure how well do governments across the world work to improve life for their citizens so that they “die well”, insisting, economic growth alone cannot improve health facilities for the aged.
A measure of quality of palliative care available to adults, QDI seeks to analyse the approaches taken to “improve the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual”.
While India can console itself that China is placed worse, 71st, in QDI ranking, and Bangladesh on the 79th, the countries that do much better than India include Mongolia (28th), Argentina (32nd), South Africa (34th), Brazil (42nd), Mexico (43rd), Venezuela (45th), Russia (48th), Indonesia (53rd), Vietnam (58th), Kenya (63rd), and Sri Lanka (65th).
As expected, the developed countries better do best with United Kingdom topping, followed by Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Belgium, Taiwan, Germany, Netherlands and the United States.
The report states, “While the European, Asia-Pacific and North American countries in the top of the index benefit from relatively high levels of government support, several less wealthy countries with less well developed healthcare systems stand out. These include Chile, Mongolia, Costa Rica and Lithuania, which appear in the top 30, at positions 27, 28, 29 and 30 respectively.”
Providing different categories which make up QDI, the report ranks India 51st in palliative and healthcare environment, saying, “India, which was at the bottom of the list in the 2010 Index, is at a slightly higher position in 2015—at 51—reflecting a stronger indication of government commitment.”
Then, India ranks 67th in the human resources category, 74th – one of the worst – in affordability of care category, 59th in the quality of care category, and 45th in community arrangement.
The report praises Mongolia in following words: “Mongolia is an impressive case. The driving force behind the increase in palliative care in the country is Odontuya Davaasuren, a doctor who is helping to build a national palliative care programme, pushing to change prescription regulations to make generic opioids available, training palliative care specialists, and working to include education on palliative care in the curricula for doctors, nurses and social workers.”
“By contrast”, the report states, “Some countries that might be expected to perform more strongly, given their rapid recent economic growth, rank at low positions in the index. India and China perform poorly overall, at positions 67 and 71 in the index. In the light of the size of their populations, this is worrying.”
The report adds, “While the budget allocation for India’s 2012 National Program for Palliative Care was withdrawn, elements of the strategy remains in place and, as a result, some teaching programmes are emerging across the country. Moreover, recent legislative changes have made it easier for doctors to prescribe morphine in India.”
Further, the report places India in the 60th position in the capacity to deliver palliative care, saying, “India has a shortage of specialised care professionals and accreditation for palliative care is not yet the norm.”
The report comments, “In India, the passing in 2014 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Act by parliament brings legal clarity for physicians wanting to prescribe opioids to their patients.”
It adds, “While work remains to be done to train doctors and nurses, the passing of the bill represents a major step forward for India, which was criticised in a 2009 Human Rights Watch report for failing to facilitate provision of opioid painkillers to its citizens (an issue also highlighted in the report accompanying the 2010 EIU QDI).”

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World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Mental health: India's 95% patients "deprived" of medical care, treatment gap 70%

By Moin Qazi*
Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are left forlorn and abandoned, stigmatized, shunned and misunderstood.

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

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