India Shining: Losing its future

Everyday we listen about India’s booming economic growth, upcoming Indian MNCs’ and speculations of India becoming a superpower by 2020. In the metro cities of India and across the country, we see signs of growth in terms of rising standard of living, upcoming malls and adaptations of western lifestyle.Among the factors contributing to the growth and success of Indian economy, one is health tourism, a sector which is expected to contribute Rs. 50- Rs.100 billions to the economy by 2012. A lot of organizations are coming up with corporate hospitals these days. Along with these pharmaceutical companies are also shifting there focus from production to the development of new drugs and medicines.But there is also a picture on the flip side. This picture is that of the neonates, who live up to an age of 28 days. It is evident from the shocking report of UNICEF, ’The state of the world children- 2008’, which states that out of 4 million children who die within 28 days of birth, 1 million are from India, of the 19 million underweight infants in developing countries, 8.3 million are from India, about 55 million or one- third of total underweight’s’ under five are in India. For India, to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, it needs to have a reduction rate of 7.6% in the under five mortality rate.Isn’t it the corporate social responsibility of these corporate hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, who are earning millions and billions of dollars to work to improve this situation, thereby serving the society, through which they are earning huge sums of money and which is also cooperating them sincerely in their mission. The ex- President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has spoken of the corporate social responsibility, which the corporate world should take seriously.The time has come for the corporate world to payback and to cooperate with the society and the country in improving this situation, which has supported them in getting them where they are today.