India has skyrocketed on the world scene as an economic and intellectual superpower. This India contrasts sharply with the dire poverty, malnutrition and newborn mortality from preventable conditions that threaten the dream for development. The government health infrastructure established to reach and treat every villager in the country is dysfunctional despite decades of attention or perhaps neglect.

Jenny Ruducha and Peter Berman, Eitz Chayim members for over 15 years, have spent 8 years in India (and just returned this summer) working on programs and policies to address some of these difficult public health problems. They will share their work lives, everyday experiences and impressions of the current state of public health in India in the midst of this broader social transformation. Peter is a health economist now working at the World Bank in Washington, DC, and an adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. Jenny holds a PhD in public health and has worked for international NGOs (Save the Children and PATH) and US public health departments developing and evaluating programs for migrant farm workers and minority and poor women and children.