Health crisis: From lifestyle disease to malnutrition

Life expectancy at birth goes up 10 years since liberalisation

Indians have gained nearly a decade of life expectancy since 1990, women more so than men, a first of its kind study released on Tuesday has revealed. But that is a rare bit of good news as India faces a severe lifestyle crisis, with its disease burden from communicable diseases such as diarrhoea and tuberculosis to non-communicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes, the study has found. Worse, this health crisis is characterised by widening disparity between India’s relatively more prosperous and poorer states and can potentially impair its demographic dividend.

Life expectancy at birth improved from 59.7 years in