Public Health in India: Policy Shifts and Trends captures transitions in the public health debates in India from different vantage points. It marks the erosions, reflected mainly in policy changes, that have taken place at the national level in the area of public health. The analysis of selected articles attempts to understand the amnesia about the health of people that has pervaded not only the professional and the political class but also those who believe in an elitist, bio-medical perspective, limited to hi-tech interventions at the cost of a balanced view on healthcare. This volume traces the history of public health debates in India over five decades and identifies the paradigm shifts in post-Independent India through contradictory approaches by state strategies and interventions. The transition of health policies and shifts in the state’s commitment towards ‘Health for All’ form part of these debates. The series ‘Social Change in Contemporary India’ brings together key texts published in the prestigious journal Social Change, from 1971 till present times. These writings, most of which are considered canonical, address important issues in health, education, poverty and agriculture with special focus on disadvantaged groups. These writings will help readers identify key points in the history of policymaking in India and major discourses and debates and their impact. Contents: About the Series Manoranjan Mohanty Foreword P. M. Arathi Introduction SECTION I: Political Economy of Health and Illness Sectional Introduction A. K. Sharma Stratification and Mortality Suparna Som, Manoranjan Pal and Premananda Bharati Do Socio-economic Development and Improvement of Health Go Together? A Comparison among Indian States K. B. Saxena Trade in Health Services: Implications for People’s Health Anjali Shenoi Biomedical Research in India: Law and Ethics at Crossroads Sharmila Borkar Empathy in Physician-Patient Relationship: The Construct and Its Applicability to India’s Health Care Anita Pal, Laxmi Kant Dwivedi and Dolly Kumari Long Working Hours and the Risk of Chronic Disease SECTION II: Questions of Women’s Health and Reproductive Justice Sectional Introduction Prabha Ramalingaswami Impact of Social Change on Health Problems of Tribal Women M. E. Khan Productive and Reproductive Roles of Women Indira Jai Prakash Menopause: A Fresh Look at the Much Misunderstood Phenomenon Sheela Saravanan Female Infanticide in India: A Review of Literature Shubhangi Vaidya Women with Disability and Reproductive Rights: Deconstructing Discourses SECTION III: Nutrition: A Social Determinant of Health Sectional Introduction Kamala Mankekar Diet Habits in Rural Areas Saumya Rastogi and Laxmi Kant Dwivedi Child Nutritional Status in Metropolitan Cities of India: Does Maternal Employment Matter? Imrana Qadeer, Sourindra Mohan Ghosh and Arathi Presenna Madhavan India’s Declining Calorie Intake: Development or Distress? K. Radhakrishna Murty Food Security Eludes Tribals of Andhra Pradesh SECTION IV: Malthusian Spectre and Indian Public Health History Sectional Introduction Kamala Gopal Rao Policy-makers and Research in Family Planning Rajiv Balakrishnan Fertility and the Value of Children in Three Asian Countries: A Review of Salient Themes Sukanya Srinivasan Population policy and programme in India: A review Index About the Author: P. M. Arathi is Assistant Professor at the School of Indian Legal Thought, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India. She completed her doctoral research on ‘Gendered Bodies, Medicine and Law: A Study of Selected Case Laws from India’ and an MPhil thesis on ‘Aborting Gender Justice: Legislating Abortion in Selected Countries of South Asia—A Preliminary Analysis’ from the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She was a Global Fellow (2015) at the Berlin Social Science Center, which was funded by the WZB and the International Social Science Council, Paris. Dr Arathi co-edited the book Universalising Healthcare in India: From Care to Coverage. Her postdoctoral academic work and publications cover the areas of public health laws, the politics of reproductive technologies, social determinants of health and the regional modernity of Kerala. She was book review editor of the journal Social Change (2018–2019).