Health is an important indicator of a nation’s development, and nations with healthy people are quite likely to be the most prosperous. The importance given to the health sector, however, varies across nations, and in many parts of the world, a low priority, weak governance, and poor living habits and conditions have all led to the emergence of significant health disparities and a short life cycle. 

This book explains four basic health concerns pertaining to regulation, climate change, air quality and community participation; observed by scholars and practitioners in India, who attempt to offer suitable reform measures for addressing the challenges in the public health sector. 

It has been widely argued that human development cannot take place without popular participation in the policymaking and governance processes. Therefore, the perceptions of the civil society on public health presented in this publication assume immense significance as India is moving toward and planning for universal health care, and would be of much use to health policy makers, planners, implementers, scholars and students.

Rumi Aijaz is senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi. His education and professional experience has been in the field of social sciences; and the research undertaken covers many topics such as socioeconomic and ecological characteristics in human settlements, role of small scale industries, women’s empowerment and urban governance. Dr Aijaz was part of a team of researchers that prepared India’s first Human Development Report for the state of Madhya Pradesh in 1995; the Report presents district-level data and analysis on people’s well being as well as deprivation vis-à-vis education, health and livelihoods. His writings and views have found place in leading world journals and acknowledged by prominent Indian and foreign institutions, websites and news agencies.