Maharashtra

In Maharashtra’s Satara district, female children, named Nakoshi (translated as “unwanted”), were renamed in 2011 in a public ceremony that drew global attention. The paper revisits this event after a decade to study the developments in due course of time. Apart from the initial feeling of positivity, the renaming ceremony hardly changed the lives of the girls. The paper argues that more than the tokenism of name change, these forgotten Nakoshis need significant and effective measures of reform to break free from the shackles of the patriarchal cultural practices and the subsequent sufferings. Greater sustained state support, through educational and socio-economic welfare schemes, could perhaps have carved a better future for the girls.

Transformation in the Indian private hospitals sector is examined in Maharashtra, employing qualitative interviews, witness seminars, and desk research. Findings point to significant changes: hospitals viewed as businesses to yield profits; adoption of business strategies to ensure financial viability and returns; changes in not-for-profit and small hospitals; and consequences for institutional and medical practice. Policy shifts towards greater private sector involvement in health, industry advocacy, availability of insurance, and patient expectations drive these changes towards corporatisation, which is not just about the growth of corporate hospitals; it entails structural and behavioural changes across the healthcare sector solely favouring economic goals.

Ironically, installing rule by manipulation is likely to be counterproductive.

Novel public health experiments from Maharashtra in the pandemic times, involving co-production of healthcare, interventionist regulation of private hospital rates and popular initiatives to ensure social accountability of private hospitals, demonstrate significant potentials to advance people-centred health system changes.

.