This book provides a comprehensive overview of universal health coverage in India. It starts by setting the historical context and politics of the debates around universal health coverage (UHC) in India and proceeds to analyze the present crisis of public health in the country. The book examines the present policies on the pharmaceutical industry, missing links in universalizing health, and the importance of social determinants of health. It is divided into five sections, and some of the topics covered include the difference between comprehensive primary health care and universal health care, public health and medical care, health service, and health system. The chapters are contributed by scholars and practitioners based on historical, interdisciplinary, empirical, and policy research. The book is insightful to academics, public health administrators, policymakers, practitioners, and students interested in health care and organization, looking to transform theory into policy and practice.

Considering more than 100 million households worldwide that have benefitted from healthcare cooperatives, this pioneering collection highlights both the challenges a successful healthcare cooperative may face, as well as its proven effectiveness in making a difference.

This book critically examines the public and private healthcare systems in India. Analysing the current scenario of health insurance in India, it studies the inadequacy of public healthcare services and unaffordability of private health care facilities. The volume investigates government sponsored health insurance schemes and advocates for the need of universal health insurance coverage. It details India’s per capita health expenditure and provides policy inputs on how healthcare systems and insurance coverage can be improved in the country. Further, it explores the financial parameters of health insurers and standalone private health insurance companies, and also discusses the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Indian healthcare. An insightful read on the state of healthcare in India, this book will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the fields of insurance, healthcare administration and management, public health policy and practice, health and social care, medical sociology, and sociology & social policy. It will also be useful for think tanks and policy makers.

Dreams of a Healthy India the ninth volume in the Rethinking series is an attempt to demystify the issues of health care and health systems for the general reader and to simultaneously provoke rethinking on several critical dimensions through writings by policymakers and academics. Its introductory essay and the thirteen subsequent essays lay out the scenario as well as the challenges in this regard and provide actionable solutions. These are solutions for the present times that can simultaneously contribute to sustainable health care for the future. Complex ideas are not made simplistic but are presented in simple language with some illustrative case studies vignettes and data that speak for themselves. The book published in collaboration with the Samruddha Bharat Foundation sheds light on the complex systemic layers and processes that influence people's health in their everyday lives. It argues that there has to be a reassessment of the popular image of health care as medical care alone as well as of the nineteenth- and twentiety-century imagination of hospitals and health centres that we still work with. Systemic issues such as increasing doctor-patient distrust plural health knowledge systems and health governance need to be understood with analytical rigour and dealt with in the collaborative spirit of the twenty-first century. Democratic health care in the present times will have to ensure the dignity of the patient the community health workers nurses and doctors-something that is increasingly getting lost in the contemporary health-care system. This volume suggests that an indigenously developed health-care system based on public-community partnerships and respect for the plurality of needs experiences and knowledges can generate such health care for every Indian.

This book explores the intersectional perspective of sustainable social development in key sectors, such as education and skill development, health and nutrition, gender concerns, and food security and agriculture in India. It delves into contemporary concerns of poverty, employment and inclusive growth, and social marginalisation and inequality. The volume brings together the contributions of various stakeholders from academia, research organisations, NGOs and policymakers to address social-sector issues and sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the Indian context. It reflects on policies, strategies and performance in the context of Constitutional goals and the commitment to global SDGs and examines the character and contours of social development in the country. Comprehensive and topical, this volume will be useful to scholars, researchers, policymakers and practitioners of development studies, political studies, sociology and development economics.

This study presents 13 articles interrogating themes likely to impinge on India’s 15th general elections in 2009. These were written following intense discussion between the contributors and use available data as well as original data and analysis. The significance of the analyses goes beyond how much these questions find place in the campaign, or how much they would impact the electoral results. These have and would continue to be essential themes in Indian politics for some time. They would influence the country’s politics, its leaders, parties and institutions and would be interrogated in political, policy and social science circles in the foreseeable future. They would in turn be impacted, redefined and perhaps transformed by political dynamics and social pressure. The first attempt of its kind to analyse the impact of certain emerging trends in politics on upcoming elections anywhere in the world, this book will be a useful addition to election studies and policy making in general.

This contributed volume explores flexible, adaptable, and sustainable solutions to the shockingly high costs of birth across the globe. It presents innovative and collaborative maternity care practices and policies that are intersectional, human rights-based, transdisciplinary, science-driven, and community-based. Each chapter describes participatory and midwifery-oriented care that helps improve maternal and newborn outcomes within minoritized populations. The featured case studies respond to resource constraints and inequities of access by transforming relations between providers and families or by creating more egalitarian relations among diverse providers such as midwives, obstetricians, and nurses that minimize inefficient hierarchies within maternity care. The authors build on a growing awareness that quality and respectful midwifery care has lower costs and improved outcomes for child bearers, newborns, and providers. Topics include: Sustainable collaborations including transfers of care among midwives and obstetricians in India, The Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, and Denmark Midwifery-oriented, femifocal, indigenous, and inclusive models of care that counter obstetric violence and gender stereotypes in Mexico, Chile, Guatemala, Argentina, and India Doula care and midwifery care for women of color, previously incarcerated women, indigenous women, and other minoritized groups in the global north and south Practices and metrics for improving quality of newborn and maternal care as well as maternal and newborn outcomes in disruptive times and disaster settings Sustainable Birth in Disruptive Times is an essential and timely resource for providers, policy makers, students, and activists with interests in maternity care, midwifery, medical anthropology, maternal health, newborn health, obstetrics, childbirth, medicine, and global health in disruptive times.

Studies in Indian Public Finance is a comprehensive analytical study of Indian public finance evaluated in the background of theories and best practice approaches. It is a comprehensive analysis of the nature and composition of public spending and its financing. Beginning with normative questions on the role of the State, the book argues that public expenditure policies in India are dominated by political economy considerations. Low revenue productivity of the tax system has constrained the ability of the government to adequately finance physical and social infrastructure at required levels causing elevated levels of large deficits and debt threatening stability, and sustainability. The book also analyses the trends and issues in Indian fiscal federalism and evaluates the effectiveness of intergovernmental transfers in a country marked with wide inter-regional disparities. The analysis also extends to the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indian public finances. The book will be useful to students of economics, scholars working on the subject, and policy makers.

The theme of this book is health outcomes in India, in particular to outcomes relating to its caste and religious groups and, within these groups, to their women and children. The book’s tenor is analytical and based upon a rigorous examination of recent data from both government and non-government sources. The major areas covered are sanitation, use by mothers of the government’s child development services, child malnutrition, deaths in families, gender discrimination, and the measurement of welfare.