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Medical tourism, perhaps a late 20th century phenomenon, is said to be making a huge impact across the world in many countries, especially in developing world. According to the Medical Tourism Association in the United States, the term “medical tourism” is where people who live in one country travel to another country to receive medical, dental, and surgical care while at the same time receiving equal to or greater care that they could have received at their own country. Many people across the globe are taking to the wheels to various destinations for their medical needs owing to critical reasons like affordability, better access to care at a higher level of quality, etc. Medical tourism is a fast-growing Indo-Pacific region too. The chapter starts with a literature review of the industry followed by identifying the global hubs of medical tourism especially in the Indo-pacific region. It concludes with looking at potentials and challenges of medical tourism industry between India and Australia.

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The sustainable socio-economic growth of any country depends on the availability of adequate and reliable power at reasonable rates. This is even true in case of a rapidly developing country like India where coal-based power plants account for the majority of electricity generation. Making use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity index (MPI), this study analyses the productivity change of coal-fired power plants during 2002–2012. Productivity change is further decomposed into technical efficiency change (EFFCH), technological change (TECHCH), scale efficiency change (SECH), pure technical change (PECH) and total factor productivity change (TFPCH). The study revealed that 0.70 per cent of average annual total factor productivity (TFP) growth was witnessed from 2002–2003 to 2011–2012 indicating overall progress. The contribution of TECHCH in TFP growth is positive, that is, 1.3 per cent per annum. It demonstrates that expansion of the efficient frontier. However, there was a decrease in technical EFFCH of −0.6 per cent per year, indicating the adverse sign of progress. Plants in the central sector achieved maximum growth of 4.6 per cent annually. A total of 54.05 per cent of plants have recorded negative TFP growth. Power plants between 500 and 999 MW achieved the highest operational performances in all indices except SECH.