To Avoid Catastrophes, India Should Adopt Risk Minimisation for All Policies Sagar Dhara https://www.newsclick.in/Lesson-Covid-19-Avoid-Catastrophes-India-Should-Adopt-Risk-Minimisation-Policies India’s woefully inadequate public healthcare system buckled under the relentless onslaught of COVID-19’s second wave. At the peak of this wave on May 8, 2021, India reported 283 new cases per day per million population. Other nations reported a similar incidence but did not face a crisis as they had invested more in public healthcare than India did. Jordan, Iran, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Uruguay, and Bahamas had incidences ranging 287-1,130 new cases per day per million population. These countries invested 7-8% of their GDP on healthcare compared to India’s 4.7%. Consequently, they had 3-6 times the number of beds compared to India’s 5.3 beds per 10,000 population, and 1.5-5 times the number of doctors compared to India’s 9.3 doctors per 10,000 population.
India lacks good risk mitigation programmes as it is a low-value and a low-price-of-life society. Value of life is the extent to which society nurtures and supports every person’s life regardless of identity...
India is in one of the most vulnerable regions to global warming impacts. In the near future India will be battered by extreme weather events, sea rise, glacial melts, heat stress, water and food shortages, biodiversity loss and increase in vector borne diseases. Over eighty critical non-renewable minerals, including fossil fuels and other common metals, will be exhausted within this century. India must prepare from now to face these challenges by changing its outlook from “gain maximisation for a few” to “risk minimisation for all.” As a first step, India must make three parametres—good environment, food and water security, and health security—fundamental rights, and allocate 10% of the Union and state government budgets for each of them.