India Social Development Report 2014

Description

The India: Social Development Report 2014 looks at the state of health policies in India and assesses its dynamics—its failures and triumphs—suggesting, through nuanced essays and empirical data, ways of improving the existing conditions. Four parts comprise the report which: • focuses on the nature of development itself, agricultural, nutritional and welfare policies, legislation, and welfare programmes and their implication for health; • evaluates different aspects of health and health services, offering positive insights and delineating the challenges it faces; assesses the existing trends and outcomes of liberalization and health sector reforms from different perspectives and in different priority areas such as women’s health, hospital and health service systems, environmental health, etc.; • develops further the Council’s Social Development Index by extending its coverage to north-eastern states, offering comparisons between gender, social classes, and rural and urban populations; shows the close link between health and other development indices; and • takes stock of the challenges and hurdles faced by the country’s health system and focuses on a vision of the future of public sector health services in the country emphasizing the primacy of politics. The Social Development Report 2014 is a window to what happens when unfettered policy transition supports commodification of health service for a purely growth-oriented development. It presents evidence of the resulting dependence on private sector, undermining of public sector health services, and social welfare conducive to health. Lessons from within the country and abroad indicate that the crisis in health sector can be tackled if state health services are revived and a broader vision of public health guides policy. The Council for Social Development is an independent research organization, established in 1970 by a group of scholars and policymakers in social development led by Durgabai Deshmukh and C.D. Deshmukh. The Council, through its research and advocacy, seeks to secure a just and equitable developmental outcome.