Just 7%, and everything will be fine.

A decade ago, former World Bank economist Lant Pritchett labeled India, not a failing state, but a "flailing state" because, "while its performance was world class by some measures of governance, it was terrible in other respects, notably in health, education and sanitation", wrote Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar. The Kumbh Mela was run excellently by Uttar Pradesh. Aiyar is mistaken. The Kumbh Mela was held in Haridwar in Uttarakhand state in April, HT. The Kumbh would have been responsible for spreading the coronavirus widely because, "Max Corporate Services, the company accused of conducting nearly one lakh (100,000) fake COVID tests during the recent Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, has links with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that might have played a role in its selection by the Uttarakhand authorities despite failing to make the grade earlier, an investigation by The Wire has revealed," wrote Kunal Purohit. "Uttar Pradesh now has a chief minister" "who satiates the allure for violence and aggressive fantasies much more directly. He has a commitment to a governance philosophy that is the purest distillation of the authoritarian-communal model that we have ever seen," wrote Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Sanitation has been improved by the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, which means Clean India Mission, wikipedia. Ayushman Bharat Yojana, which means Longevity India Mission, "aiming to provide secondary and tertiary health care to 500 million poorer people, financed over 10 million hospitalisations before Covid struck". Not everyone agrees with Aiyar's optimism. The official death toll due to the pandemic was 4,33,622, but, "The number of deaths is, by consensus among experts, at least 10 times more, and that means India has the highest death toll among all countries," wrote Congress Leader P Chidambaram, "In the Global Hunger Index, India was placed 94 out of 107 countries." "On April 18, 2021, the Ministry of Health tweeted that out of 163 oxygen plants that were proposed (more were added later) only 33 plants had been installed. Scroll, a media organization, found that only five oxygen plants were operational." "Indians have expressed shock and anger after a junior health minister told parliament that no Covid deaths had been reported due to oxygen shortages," BBC. "Hospitals across the country ran out of oxygen in April and May during a deadly second wave -- there were daily reports of people dying from a lack of oxygen." "India's GDP was decelerating even before Covid, from 8.3% in 2016-17 to 7.1%, 6.1% and 4.2% in the next three years." If only we can somehow increase GDP growth rate to 7% per year, everything will be super fantastic, thinks Aiyar. Sadly, some of our citizens could not wait. "Suicides across India rose by 10% to 1.53 lakh (153,000) from 1.39 lakh in 2019, with the suicide rate -- suicides per lakh of population -- too showing an increase from 10.4 to 11.3," TOI. So many deaths notwithstanding, everything will be fine if GDP growth increases to 7%, says Aiyar. After all, "In the long run we are all dead", aren't we?