Old Age in India

The new way to view the problems of the people is by identifying the age groups--the plight of the elderly people or health of new-born children or needs of young adults and so on.We have a big ageing population.The elderly in India traditionally were respected, and did not have to worry about expenditures on food or health. But the modern generation of young persons no longer appreciate the wisdom of the elderly and do not care for the health and welfare of the elderly in the family. The hold of the joint family and traditional homesteads have dissolved;now individual nuclear homes with man, wife and children has emerged. Young capable persons opt to move away from the traditional families and enjoy the independence that modernity provides for them. The disadvantaged are the elderly who are left to fend for themselves, and had lost their hold over their grown up children. It is now that the state must intervene and provide for the elderly who have given a lifetime of hard-work for the betterment of the Indian society.We have to give pension for the elderly,so that they can meet the needs of food and medicine.Universal pension for all those above the age of 60 must be given as they have to live with dignity.If they apply, state government do give small pensions.Haryana gives 550 Rupees per month;Punjab gives 250 Rupees, Uttar Pardesh gives 100 Rupees, Madhya Pradesh gives 75 Rupees and Assam gives only 50 Rupees per month.These amounts are too small, by any standards.Many states do not give any pension for the elderly like Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Andra Pradesh and Bihar. The condition of the elderly is very bad. 75% of the old live in the rural areas, 48% of the elderly still work.60% of the elderly in India are very poor and illiterate.Most suffering are for old women, especially widowed or abandoned.Thinking of the future,we are concentrating on the today's young people.Demographic dividend--what are the future prospects of the young population, what are the future possibilities are our primary concerns. But the young also will  be growing old, and we will have bigger problems of providing for a bigger elderly population in the future.Unless we create awareness of the  pathetic elderly now, we will not be able to plan for the future population's needs.We must formulate a method to give a bigger pension for the elderly-- who have provided their entire lifetime by constantly working and in making today's India.They had brought up sons and daughters--the future population of India. Universal Pension of 2000 Rupees per month has been proposed and they will hopefully get this because the elderly are 10 crore voters.How we treat the people who had created  and nurtured us tells a lot about ourselves.