I don't know, there are a lot of variables. As someone else mentioned, not only was this storm stronger, but it was at the theoretical maximum strength that a storm could be. So, it's possibly among the strongest ever to hit land.
You can't get good info from the news and of course any government will has its own agenda to look good. Getting good data from 3rd world countries is also hard.
We took a direct hit (eye passed over the city) from what was at one time the equivalent of a cat 5 hurricane (Pablo) in the southern part of Negros Oriental in the Philippines last year. I don't know what strength it was by the time it got to us, but the winds were pretty damn scary. Fortunately, this typhoon was mostly wind and not much rain. The typhoon created a mess, but we were largely back to normal in one day.
The year previous to Pablo, we got hit by Sendong which seemed like the opposite of Pablo. There wasn't much wind, but the rain was heavy and steady for something like 10 hours. That rain created much more destruction and lost lives than the winds from Pablo.
So, each typhoon has its own personality. You can't do an apples to apples comparison from one storm to another. It's typical of media to make such a comparison.
The Philippines also has some logistical difficulties that India may not have. It's an archipelago of over 7,000 islands and a very poor country. India has its poor areas also, but the nation as a whole has far more resources.
The Philippines did make an effort to evacuate people and clearly the nation could have better prepared. There is always more that you can do. I don't know how this area in India compares to the Philippines, but we get hit with an average of something like 20 typhoons every year. The Philippines is among the most dangerous places on the planet for natural disasters.
Shelters a great for saving lives, and that's the most important, but it also sucks to lose your house and all your belongings. If someone is looking for a world changing innovation, then figuring out a way to make a cheap structure which could withstand the sorts of natural disasters that the Philippines gets hit with regularly would be huge.
ETA:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/10/21389125-typho...
> Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging seas that resembled a tsunami, flattening buildings and drowning hundreds, according to Reuters.
This supports what I mentioned earlier. The wind is bad, but in a typhoon, it's water which really ratchets up the number of casualties. Comparing winds speeds of two different typhoons isn't necessarily comparing the most destructive components.