India 2047

Standing on the crossroads of a millennial opportunity, will India be able to make a leap -- let alone a great leap -- into the next century? Here is the big picture.

H E A L T H || A N D || E N V I R O N M E N T
Limited Options

• With 100 per cent immunisation by 2005 and advances in molecular biology, it should be possible virtually to eradicate all major communicable diseases.
• Rapid industrialisation, urban sanitation and quality of water will remain major threats to public health.
• China and India will have moved up from second and sixth place as emitters. Both Asian giants will band together to ward off international eco-pressures.

ALMOST 75 per cent of all deaths in India are attributable to water-borne and respiratory ailments. With the movement towards provision of safe water for all, effluent and emission controls, the abolition of two-stroke engines, resort to cleaner sources of energy and the upgradation of technology, the environment, especially air and water, should show steady improvement.

With 100 per cent immunisation by 2005 and advances in molecular biology, it should be possible virtually to eradicate all major communicable, air and water-borne diseases such as malaria, cholera, filaria, kala-azar, guinea worm, leprosy and polio within the next 20-25 years. Maybe even cancer and aids. However, new diseases, specially neurological and geriatric, will have emerged.

Health insurance and social security, including old-age pensions, will be universal. The cost of maintaining an ageing population with greater longevity will begin to tell.

There will be more rigorous safety and environmental standards. Integrated pest management and bio-fertilisers should greatly reduce the problem of toxic residues. The prime sources of pollution will change from those of poverty, subsistence and obsolete technology to those of rapid industrialisation, urban sanitation and water quality which will remain major threats to public health.

The pressure on forests will begin to decline by 2025 with the provision of alternative sources of fodder and fuel. With the increased use of tractors, modern dairy farming based on upgraded, stall-fed animals, and the phasing away of the bullock cart as vehicular transport penetrates the countryside, India's massive and largely unproductive cattle population will begin to decline. The nation's green cover will rise with the spread of plantations and the regeneration of degraded forests.

The UN framework convention on climate change will have been filled out by 2010; "emission budgets" could be in place worldwide to arrest and reverse global warming. China and India will have moved up from second and sixth place as emitters. Both Asian giants will band together to ward off pressures to "do more" and "cut back" beyond a pace dictated by domestic and technological compulsions.

Long-term planning and cropping strategies will be required to neutralise the consequences of new rainfall and temperature patterns and changing flood and drought cycles.

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