Caring for the old

World Money

Arranging adequate funds for a fast growing elderly population is not an easy task

Last month witnessed a heat wave in much of western Europe with temperatures rising up to 40 degree centigrade. In France alone, about 13,000 old people died prematurely as a direct result.

Perhaps the most tragic and heartrending part was that, at one time, more than a thousand bodies were lying unclaimed in Paris, with the relatives unwilling, in some cases, to bear the cost of the funerals, in others, to interrupt their traditional August holidays on the beaches.

So many bodies were lying unclaimed that the French authorities had to hire refrigerated food vans to store them.

In contrast, consider what happened in Mumbai a couple of decades ago when Datta Samant led a strike of textile workers. Despite a very lengthy strike and no unemployment benefits of any kind, few textile workers died of hunger.

The reason: perhaps the most effective social security system in the world