Our Life Expectancy

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J. P. dda furnished statistics on life expectancy of the people of different States to the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Not many people will recall that when India became independent, the overall life expectancy of the country was just 37 years. In those days we did not have State-specific or gender-specific statistics about life expectancy. Fortutely, we have more detailed data these days. One of the encouraging bits of information is that in some of our States, the life expectancy has doubled since Independence. The tiol average is not all that remarkable. The average life expectancy is 68.8 years for men and 71.1 years for women for the period 2016 to 2020. All over the world, the life expectancy for women is generally higher than for men. It is no different for India. It is perhaps because women do more work than men. In India, the best life expectancy for men is for Uttar Pradesh (76.5 years) and for women for Kerala (78.1 years). Regrettably, men from Assam have the lowest life expectancy of 65.6 years. Could it be related to idequate physical exercise or insufficient work?