India is still 21 years away from 2047. That may sound like a long time, but in healthcare, two decades can pass quickly. Diseases that appear manageable today can become much bigger problems when millions more people are living longer, urbanisation accelerates and lifestyles continue to change. The question, then, is not simply what medicine can cure in the future, but what India needs to prevent before the problem becomes too large to control.
We asked 10 doctors from different specialities the same question:
India turns 100 in 2047. What is the one health crisis in your field that India must solve before then?
Their answers do not point to one single disease.
Instead, they reveal a larger picture of India’s health future, from mental illness and cancer to diabetes, heart disease, respiratory illness, ageing, women’s health, childhood health and preventable infections.
What makes their responses striking is the overlap. Several doctors spoke about diseases that begin silently, remain undiagnosed for years and eventually reach hospitals only after complications have developed. Others pointed to something even more fundamental: India cannot build a healthier future by treating people only after they fall sick. Prevention, early detection, primary healthcare and healthier environments will have to become part of everyday life.
MENTAL HEALTH: A CRISIS WE ARE NOT WILLING TO SEE
Director of the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare, Dr Samir Parikh, says mental health is the epidemic that we are not willing to see or willing to accept that it is the single biggest problem.
“My take on this is that mental health is a crisis. It is an epidemic that we are not willing to see or accept and this is the single biggest problem. And just because it is the silent suffering in its own way, we just do not give it the kind of importance that it deserves from all stakeholders,”says Dr Parikh.
“I don’t see mental health in its clinical seriousness being given the kind of importance. I do feel that in years to come, loneliness will become a major health priority,” he says.
Dr Parikh also explained that he feels suicide prevention needs to be prioritised, while also looking at the impact of social media on the overall mental health of individuals.
“But having said that, mental health is a crisis and that’s the only way to look at it. And until everybody understands that we are stakeholders, the media needs to keep focusing on mental health. Policymakers need to keep working on mental health. The corporate sector needs to make workplace mental health a priority. Schools need to strengthen preventive and school mental health programmes,” he adds.
Dr Parikh also said that social media platforms need to take greater responsibility for their impact on mental health, while people who have influence over others and role models need to talk more about the issue.
“Social media platforms need to make sure that their impact on mental health is something they need to start regulating upon. Role models need to start talking a lot more about mental health. And most importantly, healthcare providers need to ensure that mental health is one of the most important pillars of healthcare.”
DINACHARYA MEDICINE WILL BE KEY
We asked Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, a practising specialist in ‘Preventive and Cardiometabolic Medicine’ and a leading health policy expert, about his wishlist for India. “As we approach 100 years of independence, our biggest health challenge will be the ongoing epidemic of cardio-metabolic diseases — diabetes, hypertension, obesity, lipid disorders and fatty liver. By 2047, we might have world-class hospitals and more super-specialist doctors than any other country, yet still lack enough family physicians and general physicians who can prevent disease, provide continuity of care and look after the whole person.”
At the same time, Dr Lahariya believes, a rapidly ageing population will need sustained, affordable care for multiple chronic conditions. India must therefore redefine healthcare by rebuilding the culture of the family physician, strengthening preventive medicine and moving beyond a treatment-first approach.
So, how should India prepare for 2047? “I would say we need what I call ‘Dinacharya Medicine’—where diet, physical activity, sleep and healthy daily routines become as integral to healthcare as medicine and diagnostics. My vision for India@100 is simple: hospitals should not only treat disease; every healthcare facility must become a centre that actively helps people stay healthy throughout their lives,” he told us.
DIABETES MAY BE ONLY THE BEGINNING
For Dr Anoop Misra, a top diabetologist and Chairman, Fortis-C-DOC Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, Metabolic Diseases and Endocrinology in New Delhi, “India’s biggest health challenge by 2047 will be preventing the cardio-metabolic epidemic from becoming the defining cause of premature disability and death in the next generation.”
The Padma Shree Awarded by President of India, believes the focus must shift from treating diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease after they appear to prevent metabolic dysfunction from developing in the first place. “This will require action from early in life — improving nutrition, physical activity, sleep, food environment, and other environmental determinants of health.”
INDIA’S SILENT METABOLIC CRISIS IS GETTING YOUNGER
Dr Ananya Mohanty, Consultant, Internal Medicine, Manipal Hospital, Bhubaneswar, believes one of India’s biggest health challenges by 2047 will be the growing burden of non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
The worrying change is not only the number of people affected, but their age. These conditions are increasingly appearing in younger people and often remain undiagnosed until complications develop. A health system that waits for symptoms or complications will struggle to deal with the scale of the problem.
Dr Mohanty believes India needs to move from a system that primarily treats illness to one that actively identifies risk early. Regular screening, healthier lifestyles and stronger primary healthcare will have to become part of routine healthcare rather than something people seek only when they feel unwell.
If prevention and early detection become normal parts of everyday healthcare, she believes India can significantly reduce the long-term burden of disease as it approaches 2047.
THE AIR WE BREATHE COULD SHAPE INDIA’S HEALTH FUTURE
For Dr Vikas Mittal, Director, Pulmonologist, CK Birla Hospital, Delhi, respiratory disease could become one of the defining health challenges of India’s future.
Air pollution, smoking, occupational exposure and climate change are all contributing to respiratory risks. Conditions such as COPD, asthma, lung cancer and respiratory infections already affect individuals and families, and the burden could become harder to manage if prevention does not improve.
Dr Mittal says India needs to move away from treating respiratory disease only after symptoms appear. Cleaner air, stronger tobacco control, safer workplaces, vaccination, better disease surveillance and wider access to pulmonary care and diagnostics will all be important.
His larger message is straightforward: a country cannot aspire to become a healthy developed nation while millions of people continue to breathe polluted air every day. Respiratory health, therefore, cannot remain only a hospital issue. It has to become an environmental and public health priority.
THE CHILDREN INDIA RAISES TODAY WILL DEFINE INDIA @ 100
Dr Sarath Gopalan, Lead Consultant, Pediatric Hepatologist and Gastroenterologist, Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital, believes India’s biggest health priority should be giving every child the opportunity to grow into a healthy and productive adult.
India has made significant progress in reducing childhood deaths, but Dr Gopalan says the next challenge is the quality of survival. Malnutrition, childhood obesity, developmental disorders, mental health concerns, infections and the long-term effects of poor nutrition and unhealthy environments could shape the health of an entire generation.
The first few years of life are especially important because they influence lifelong physical and cognitive health. That makes early intervention one of the strongest tools India has to improve its future health outcomes.
Dr Gopalan believes India needs stronger preventive paediatric care, universal immunisation, nutrition support, developmental screening and accessible mental health services. His argument is simple: investing in children today is an investment in the India of 2047.
INDIA MUST LEARN HOW TO AGE WELL
India’s demographic shift will create another challenge that cannot be solved inside a hospital alone. Dr Manisha Arora, Director, Internal Medicine, CK Birla Hospital, Delhi, believes the country must prepare for a rapidly growing elderly population.
The challenge is not simply helping people live longer. It helps them remain independent, functional and able to live with dignity. Dr Arora points out that India’s healthcare system is still largely designed around acute illnesses, while ageing requires long-term management of chronic conditions, rehabilitation, mental health support and preventive care.
A strong geriatric care ecosystem will therefore become increasingly important. Healthcare professionals will need better training in geriatric medicine, while elderly-friendly services must become available in major cities.
By 2047, healthy ageing will not be treated as an afterthought. It will have to become a national health priority, particularly as more Indians live into older age.
SOME OF INDIA’S BIGGEST HEALTH PROBLEMS COULD STILL BE PREVENTED
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens to return medicine to a pre-antibiotic era. Decades of antibiotic overuse and misuse due to unnecessary prescriptions for viral illnesses, self-medication, Over the Counter (OTC) sales, inappropriate broad-spectrum use, incomplete courses and excessive veterinary use, together accelerated the emergence and spread of resistant “superbugs”.
Dr Ishwar Gilada, a consultant in HIV/STDs/Infectious Diseases, Unison Medicare& Research Centre, Mumbai, says, “the declining pipeline of new antibiotics makes this an urgent national priority. In short, AMR has become a Man-made, chemists’ and doctors-sponsored and Government-neglected health crisis. Through the People’s Health Organisation-India (PHO), my longstanding infectious-disease advocacy has included promoting rational treatment, infection prevention, treatment access and public awareness.”
India must now implement a strong One Health AMR strategy: antimicrobial stewardship in every healthcare facility, rapid diagnostics and culture-based treatment, robust surveillance across humans, animals and the environment, strict regulation of OTC antibiotic sales, infection prevention, responsible veterinary use, safe disposal, and investment in new antibiotics and diagnostics.
“This requires a very strong political will coupled with strict implementation of the policy by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and the state Food and Drug Administrations (FDA). Every unnecessary antibiotic usage today could make a life-saving antibiotic ineffective tomorrow,” he told India Today.in.
THE HEART ATTACK IS NOT THE WHOLE STORY
Dr Kiran Narang, Interventional Cardiologist and Co-Founder, Hridyarambh Clinic, Mumbai, says India’s biggest cardiovascular challenge is not the heart attack itself. It is the years of silent risk that come before it.
He points to the ICMR INDIAB national study, which found that 35.5% of Indian adults have hypertension, roughly 315 million people. The study also found diabetes in 11.4%, prediabetes in 15.3% and abdominal obesity in nearly 40%. More than 80% were reported to have some form of lipid abnormality.
The bigger concern, according to Dr Narang, is what happens after people develop these conditions. Many remain unaware that they have high blood pressure or other cardiovascular risk factors, allowing damage to build silently over years.
For India, the challenge before 2047 will therefore be to identify risk much earlier. The goal should not simply be to save someone during a heart attack, but to prevent that heart attack from happening in the first place.
CANCER IS NOT JUST ABOUT TREATMENT. IT IS ABOUT TIME
For Dr Garvit Chitkara, Associate Director, Breast Surgical Oncology and Oncoplasty, Nanavati Max Institute of Cancer Care, Mumbai, India’s biggest cancer crisis before 2047 is not simply that more people are developing cancer. It is that too many cancers are still being detected late.
The National Cancer Registry Programme estimated 14.6 lakh new cancer cases in 2022, rising to about 15.7 lakh in 2025. GLOBOCAN projections suggest India could cross two million cases a year by 2040. Breast cancer has also emerged as the most common cancer among Indian women.
But Dr Chitkara highlights another number that reveals the problem. According to NFHS 5, only 0.9% of women aged 30 to 49 had ever been screened for breast cancer, while cervical cancer screening stood at 1.9%. Screening for oral cancer was also below 1%.
For him, India does not necessarily need a new drug to solve this part of the crisis. It needs organised population-level early detection for breast, cervical and oral cancers, with people actively invited, followed up and recalled rather than being left to find screening on their own.
THE WARNING RUNNING THROUGH ALL 10 RESPONSES
Ten doctors. Ten specialities. Different diseases. Yet their answers reveal a striking common thread.
The biggest health crisis facing India in 2047 may not be one single disease at all. It could be a failure to identify and prevent health problems early enough. Mental illness can remain untreated for years. Diabetes and hypertension can silently damage the body. Cancer can be discovered after it has advanced. Respiratory disease can worsen while pollution continues. Older people can live longer without necessarily living healthier lives.
The doctors are also asking India to look beyond the hospital. Schools, workplaces, families, cities, food systems, sanitation, air quality and primary healthcare will all influence whether Indians reach old age healthier or simply live longer with disease.
INDIA @ 100 WILL BE DEFINED BY WHAT WE DO NOW
The India of 2047 will not be created in 2047. It is being shaped today, through the food children eat, the air they breathe, the healthcare they can access, whether their mental health is recognised, whether cancer is caught early and whether diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are prevented before they cause irreversible damage.
The 10 doctors interviewed for this story may have chosen different health crises, but their solutions repeatedly return to the same words: prevention, early detection, access, awareness and stronger primary healthcare.
By the time India turns 100, success in health should not be measured only by how advanced its hospitals are or how many sophisticated treatments are available. It should also be measured by how many people never needed those hospitals because their disease was prevented, detected early or managed before it became life-changing.
India has 21 years to decide what kind of health system it wants at 100. The bigger question is whether it will wait for the crisis to arrive, or start solving it now.
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