Healthcare issues have assumed significant socio-economic and political significance in contemporary India. Both the central and the state governments have responded to criticisms of health care inaccessibility by including it as a part of its developmental policies in the last two decades. Given this context, the contributors to this volume explore how the health care system is structured in India; the role of the state, market, private, and corporate sector in health care; the distribution of basic health care facilities by the state across caste, class, gender, and spatial locations; the implications of increasing clinical trials and use of pharmaceuticals in terms of cost, exclusion, and ethicality; how globalization created opportunities or built hurdles for democratizing health care facilities; and the critical role of communities in the new health care system. This edited volume thus provides a holistic narrative that explains the politics of health care access in terms of distribution, utilization, and outcomes as well as the context in which health inequalities are reproduced which is critical not only to our scholarly understanding of health care but to informing the development of health care policy in India at a critical juncture.

Table of Contents:
List of Tables and Figures Introduction : Health Inequities in India : The Larger Dimensions N Purendra Prasad Section I: State, Market, and Health Care 1. State, Community, and Primary Health Care: Disempowering Discourses? Ritu Priya 2. Health Care Reforms: Do they Ensure Social Protection for the Working Poor N Purendra Prasad 3. Medical Industrial Complex: Trends in Corporatisation of Health Services Rama V Baru. 4. Social Roots of Medical Education Neha Madhiwalla 5. Medical Education and Basic Health Care: Forging Connections Anand Zacharaiah Section II: Pharmaceuticals and Experimentation 6. Globalization, Intellectual Property Rights, and Pharmaceuticals Amit Sengupta. 7. Access to Pharmaceuticals: Role of State, Industry, and Market S Srinivasan and Malini Aisola 8. Structure, Organization, and Knowledge Production of Clinical Trial Industry Roger Jeffery, Gerard Porter, Salla Sariola, Amar Jesani, and Deapica Ravindran 9. Body as `Resource' in Surrogacy and Bio-medical Research: New Frontiers and Dilemmas Sarojini Nadimpally and Vrinda Marwah. Section III: Equity Issues in Health Care - Gender, Caste, Disability and Violence 10. Health, Disability, and Equity: Conversation Among Bodies, Discourses, and Law Renu Addlakha. 11. Caste, Class, and Gender on the Margins of the State: An Ethnographic Study Among Community Health Workers Madhumita Biswal 12. Legitimising Violence: A Narrative of Sexual Health Asima Jena 13. Addressing Violence Against Women as a Health Care Issue: Perceptions and Approaches Sangeeta Rege and Padma Deosthali. Section IV: Right to Health and Universal Health Strategies 14. Universal Health Coverage: How Viable? K Srinath Reddy and Manu Raj Mathur 15. Kerala's Early Experience: Moving towards Universal Health Coverage Sunil Nandraj and Devaki Nambiar 16. A Financing Strategy for Universal Access to Health Care: Maharashtra Model Ravi Duggal. 17. The Right to Health: A Contested Journey Kajal Bharadwaj, Veena Johari and Vivek Divan Index About the Editors and Contributors