Obsession with GDP???
It is the fact that world including developing world is follow GDP as measure . I dont call its an obsession. GDP itself is new concept. National GDP is altogether post 1945 phenomenon. Its good that we had a measure. But developing measure for a Nation State was a thought process. It seem now, its non representative which is true now but not then. Coming up with index that is satisfiable is a huge thing. world walked till GDP now, it will move forward which could include all value related thing (even though these are hard to quantify). We have HDI, GII, Happiness Index, Gini coefficient, Failed state ranking, Press freedom Index and other smaller bigger and smaller index. These are getting incorporated in literature . Its not that developing country dont want to follow other index. Nepal have happiness index , way back from 1970s.
Index needs credibility, UN index are never debatable but Failed state index is. And Most of Developing Nation state see other Index as conspiracy of External power, so as a Nation State its very hard to come to terms on these other Index. Its known fact that Gender inequality, other inequality, HDI, violence, human right violation is rampant in countries of south Asia, Africa and other developing countries. Nation state take these index as challenge to there own claim. Take the exam of Human Right Violation during Eelam war(2009) in Srilanka or Maoist war in India, both Nation State dont except report on these. Its hard as of now to move away from GDP, which is a reality not the choice. But all these are nation specific Index centred at Nation State. We need to move beyond Nation State Indexes. How is question for Globalist to think.
And obsession of GDP hasnt hindered healthcare as for as India is considered; It has actually acted like positive feedback mechanism. Spending of Indian State wrt GDP is less compared to developed and some developing countries. It has given civil society a measure to ask for more spending which is the need of time. Yes it could have been done better but its not worst. Time to time intelligentsia discusses HDI,GII, Gini, etc which puts politics and govt on toes to do something good to be in electoral politics. Food Security Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Food_Security_Act,_2013) , Education for all, Health for all(coming in few years) are output of those political and electoral debate.
Regards
Shivaprakash
