Vinay Kumar Srivastava

India mental health country profile

India, the second most populated country of the world with a population of 1.027 billion, is a country of contrasts. It is characterized as one of the worlds largest industrial nations, yet most of the negative characteristics of poor and developing countries define India too. The population is predominantly rural, and 36% of people still live below poverty line. There is a continuous migration of rural people into urban slums creating major health and economic problems. India is one of the pioneer countries in health services planning with a focus on primary health care. Improvement in the health status of the population has been one of the major thrust areas for social development programmes in the country. However, only a small percentage of the total annual budget is spent on health. Mental health is part of the general health services, and carries no separate budget. The National Mental Health Programme serves practically as the mental health policy. Recently, there was an eight-fold increase in budget allocation for the National Mental Health Programme for the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002–2007). India is a multicultural traditional society where people visit religious and traditional healers for general and mental health related problems. However, wherever modern health services are available, people do come forward. India has a number of public policy and judicial enactments, which may impact on mental health. These have tried to address the issues of stigma attached to the mental illnesses and the rights of mentally ill people in society. A large number of epidemiological surveys done in India on mental disorders have demonstrated the prevalence of mental morbidity in rural and urban areas of the country; these rates are comparable to global rates. Although India is well placed as far as trained manpower in general health services is concerned, the mental health trained personnel are quite limited, and these are mostly based in urban areas. Considering this, development of mental health services has been linked with general health services and primary health care. Training opportunities for various kinds of mental health personnel are gradually increasing in various academic institutions in the country and recently, there has been a major initiative in the growth of private psychiatric services to fill a vacuum that the public mental health services have been slow to address. A number of non-governmental organizations have also initiated activities related to rehabilitation programmes, human rights of mentally ill people, and school mental health programmes. Despite all these efforts and progress, a lot has still to be done towards all aspects of mental health care in India in respect of training, research, and provision of clinical services to promote mental health in all sections of society.

On Sanitation: A Memory Ethnography

This paper is an account of the toilets and manual scavenging in Delhi of the 1960s and the early 1970s. The author, born and brought up in Old Delhi, systematically looks at his memories and makes observations on toilets and lavatories therein, providing their first-hand account. The intricacies of social life are explored here. In a sequel to this paper the author intends to write on how the house and the living patterns changed when flush toilets were installed in the neighbourhoods of Old Delhi.

In Search of Harmony Between Life and Environment

AbstractThis paper discusses the problems that small societies are facing because of environmental degradation. Although they an the main sufferers, the impact of eco-spheric destruction is felt by...

Sociological Research in India

Yogendra Singh (Ed.), Indian Sociology, 3 Vols, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2014, 1241 pp., ₹4750, ISBN 0-19-809202-4 (Vol. 1), 0-19-809203-2 (Vol. 2), 0-19-809204-0 (Vol. 3).

Indian Anthropology Today

A survey of the changing aspects of different disciplines—belonging to different faculties—informs us of the impact that anthropological methods, perspectives, theories, and the conclusions of their cross-cultural studies have exercised on them, which indirectly confirms the analytical strength, explanatory power, and methodological sophistication of anthropology. Notwithstanding this, the growth of anthropology in India has been both uneven and slow, a consequence of which has been the ‘interiorisation’ of anthropologists, or which T.H. Ericksen has termed ‘inward-gazing’. Contemporary anthropologists have become aware of what they have been passing through, and are striving their best to recover the past glory of their discipline when they were active participants in public debates. One of the points that this article puts forth is that anthropologists are ‘dispassionate observers’ as well as ‘citizens’. In the first role, they are committed to understanding the social and cultural processes; in the second, like any other conscientious citizen, they expect all societies and states to be just, civil, and inclusive. In the dialectics of these roles, the state of contemporary anthropology can be properly located.

Malinowski and a reading of hisfreedom and civilization

This tribute to Malinowski deals with a reading of his work on freedom, based especially on the lecture of «Freedom and Civilization».

Medical Anthropology: A Review

AbstractMedical Anthropology is one of the important applied areas in anthropology. It Provides the base line data and signals for successfully undertaking community health programmes. This article...

Mao Cult, Charisma and Social Science

ocean of knowledge. The studies of area specialists patronizing this kind of approach tend to be edifices without foundation, a quagmire of empiricism. These fact-oriented studies, though informative, must move from the particular to the general. Only then can their conclusions be relied upon for cross-cultural studies, and research made a meaningful activity. Keeping in mind that all area studies, intensively carried out, further the growth of theory, the basic concern of social sciences, I would join those who urge upon the area specialists not to lose sight of theoretical developments in their disciplines, for a healthy interaction between theory and area particularities generates valuable knowledge.

Book review: Renu Gupta, A Course in Academic Writing (2nd edition)

Renu Gupta, A Course in Academic Writing, (2nd edition). Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2017, 196 pp., ₹330, ISBN: 978-93-86689-63-4 (Paperback).

Religion and Development: Understanding their Relationship with Reference to Hinduism: A Study Marking the Centenary of Weber’s Religions of India

An interesting debate in social science pertains to the relationship between religion and economy, particularly the areas of economic development. Both these aspects are so different that they are often approached with a streak of scepticism. Religion is expected to drive one away from this world, engaging one with supra-empirical and spiritual concerns, and it is to its amelioration that the process of development devotes itself. This relationship of religion and development being polar opposites was challenged in Max Weber’s comparative religious studies. Since then, it has generated an animated debate whether the cultural and symbolic ingredients present in Protestant ethics were found in other religious traditions. This article submits that religion, ‘in and by itself’, is neutral. So malleable it is to interpretations by people and their institutions at different points of time that it can be defined as promoting economic enterprise at one time, and at another, its pursuit may be situated as antithetical to economy.