Population Ageing and Health in India

iii Health and Human rights has explicit intrinsic connections and has emerged as powerful concepts within the rights based approach especially so in the backdrop of weakening public health system, unregulated growth of the private sector and restricted access to healthcare systems leading to a near-total eclipse of availability and accessibility of universal and comprehensive healthcare. A rights-based approach to health uses International Human Rights treaties and norms to hold governments accountable for their obligations under the treaties. It recognises the fact that the right to health is a fundamental right of every human being and it implies the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and that it is one of the fundamental rights of every human being and that governments have a responsibility for the health of their people which can be fulfilled only through the provision of adequate health and social measures. It gets integrated into research, advocacy strategies and tools, including monitoring; community education and mobilisation; litigation and policy formulation. Right to the highest attainable standard is encapsulated in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It covers the underlying preconditions necessary for health and also the provisions of medical care. The critical component within the right to health philosophy is its realisation. CEHAT's main objective of the project, Establishing Health as a Human Right is to propel within the civil society and the public domain, the movement towards realisation of the right to healthcare as a fundamental right through research and documentation, advocacy, lobbying, campaigns, awareness and education activities. The Background Series is a collection of papers on various issues related to right to health, i.e., the vulnerable groups,health systems, health policies, affecting accessibility and provisions of healthcare in India. In this series, there are papers on women, elderly, migrants, disabled, adolescents and homosexuals. The papers are well researched and provide evidence based recommendations for improving access and reducing barriers to health and healthcare alongside addressing discrmination. We would like to use this space to express our gratitude towards the authors who have contributed to the project by sharing their ideas and knowledge through their respective papers in the Background Series. We would like to thank the Programme Development Committee (PDC) of CEHAT, for playing such a significant role in providing valuable inputs to each paper. We appreciate and recognise the efforts of the project team members who have …