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This paper explores the meaning and applicability of multilevel interventions and the role of ethnography in identifying intervention opportunities and accounting for research design limitations. It utilizes as a case example the data and experiences from a 6-year, NIMH-funded, intervention to prevent HIV/STI among married men in urban poor communities in Mumbai, India. The experiences generated by this project illustrate the need for multilevel interventions to include: (1) ethnographically driven formative research to delineate appropriate levels, stakeholders and collaborators; (2) identification of ways to link interventions to the local culture and community context; (3) the development of a model of intervention that is sufficiently flexible to be consistently applied to different intervention levels using comparable culturally congruent concepts and approaches; (4) mechanisms to involve community residents, community based organizations and community-based institutions; and (5) approaches to data collection that can evaluate the impact of the project on multiple intersecting levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Multiple disasters’ or disasters that occur in ‘one specific place’ are regular events in coastal parts of the state of Orissa in eastern India. Yet the policy framework for addressing multiple disasters is weak. This paper aims to show that policy responses in pre- and post-independence Orissa have overlooked the effects of multiple disasters. Evidence based on a review of the literature and onfieldwork indicates that Orissa has a long history of experience of multiple disasters due to its unique geographic location, political dislocation, and ineffective disaster policies that have focused only on single events. One can observe the effects of this even today in Orissa, notably inadequate measures to counteract the consequences of multiple disasters at the household level and to build people's capacity. This study posits, therefore, that multiple disasters deserve good representation in integrated disaster reduction strategies designed to mitigate their impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst greatly valuing recent critiques of the vertical imaginary and reified ontology of scale theory, and of the unfettered flows of network theory, this paper argues against a human geography without scale. Rather, four propositions from the theoretical literature are used to provide a tool-kit to analyse the practical negotiation of scalar politics, namely that: scales should be considered as effects, not frames or structures, of practice; networks must be considered in all their complexity and heterogeneity; networks can be interpreted as assemblages, the more re-territorialising and re-scaling of which can be analysed as apparatuses; and that state apparatuses work to create the impression that scales are ahistorical, hierarchical and possess exclusive relationships. These propositions are used to explore a period of history when the scalar constitution of the world was under intense debate. The interwar era saw the imperial scale clash with that of the international, both as ideological worldviews, and as a series of interacting institutions. The assemblages of internationalism and imperialism were embodied by apparatuses such as the League of Nations and the colonial Government of India respectively. Attempts by the League to encourage the abolition of tolerated brothels in an attempt to reduce the trafficking of women and children led to intense debates between the 1920s and 1930s over what constituted the legitimate domains of the international and the ‘domestic’. These explicitly scalar debates were the product of League networks that threatened the scalar sovereignty of the Raj, most directly through the travelling Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East in 1931. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims This paper explores India's role in the world illicit opiate market, particularly its role as a producer. India, a major illicit opiate consumer, is also the sole licensed exporter of raw opium: this unique status may be enabling substantial diversion to the illicit market. Methods Participant observation and interviews were carried out at eight different sites. Information was also drawn from all standard secondary sources and the analysis of about 180 drug-related criminal proceedings reviewed by Indian High Courts and the Supreme Court from 1985 to 2001. Findings Diversion from licit opium production takes place on such a large scale that India may be the third largest illicit opium producer after Afghanistan and Burma. With the possible exceptions of 2005 and 2006, 200–300 tons of India's opium may be diverted yearly. After estimating India's opiate consumption on the basis of UN-reported prevalence estimates, we find that diversion from licit production might have satisfied a quarter to more than a third of India's illicit opiate demand to 2004. Conclusions India is not only among the world's largest consumer of illicit opiates but also one of the largest illicit opium producers. In contrast to all other illicit producers, India owes the latter distinction not to blatantly illicit cultivation but to diversion from licit cultivation. India's experience suggests the difficulty of preventing substantial leakage, even in a relatively well-governed nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, pearl millet is a typical subsistence crop. Nonetheless, use of hybrid seeds is widespread. The first pearl millet hybrids were introduced in 1965 by the public sector. Yet, starting in the late 1980s, market liberalisation led to an increasing role of private companies in seed development and distribution. Although several studies showed that proprietary pearl millet hybrids are more productive than public hybrids and open-pollinated varieties, the impacts of privatisation on farmers’ technology access and overall innovation rates are not yet well understood. This paper analyses the dynamics of adoption using duration models and farm survey data collected in the state of Maharashtra. The results show that education, short distances to main information sources and good market infrastructure speeded up the adoption of pearl millet hybrids. Likewise, the increasing role of private seed companies had a positive and accelerating effect on technology diffusion in the small farm sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to identify some promising policy options which could be part of a strategic and holistic effort to address India's future water challenges. Significant increases in agricultural water productivity would be a major factor in reducing the need for developing new water sources. Crop diversification, appropriately targeted to account for the present agricultural systems and available water resources, will increase productivity. Furthermore, much more emphasis needs to be placed on effective management of the groundwater resources through renewed efforts to enhance artificial recharge and conservation. Also, efforts should be revived to improve the existing surface irrigation systems. In particular, systems could be reconfigured to provide a more reliable water supply and allow effective community level management, where appropriate. Finally, while some of the increasing demands from domestic and industrial users will be met by the development of groundwater and reallocation of water from the agricultural sector, this will not be sufficient. Given that such conditions are emerging in states with high economic growth and relatively water scarce basins, this will require the further development of water resources. In some cases, these conditions along with the demand for reliable water for high value crops, will be part of the justification for inter-basin transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately one-quarter of all maternal deaths occur in India, far more than in any other nation on earth. Until 2005, maternal mortality reduction was not a priority in the country. In that year, the cause emerged on the national political agenda in a meaningful way for the first time. An unpredictable confluence of events concerning problem definition, policy alternative generation and politics led to this outcome. By 2005, evidence had accumulated that maternal mortality in India was stagnating and that existing initiatives were not addressing the problem effectively. Also in that year, national government officials and donors came to a consensus on a strategy to address the problem. In addition, a new government with social equity aims came to power in 2004, and in 2005, it began a national initiative to expand healthcare access to the poor in rural areas. The convergence of these developments pushed the issue on to the national agenda. This paper draws on public policy theory to analyse the Indian experience and to develop guidance for safe motherhood policy communities in other high maternal mortality countries seeking to make this cause a political priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing methods based on Western models may not be culturally relevant to patients from ethnic minority groups or other countries. In order to meet the needs of all patients, more research is needed to understand the cultural and social factors that influence nursing approaches. This paper reports preliminary open-ended discussions with mental health nurses in China and India in order to gain insights into the cultural and social issues that surround social rehabilitation of patients with schizophrenia. Rehabilitation methods included cognitive behavioural therapy, psychosocial methods, and employment/vocational training. Several cultural and social issues drive the rehabilitation process in both countries, including the use of traditional medicine and healers, emphasis on family involvement, stigma, gender inequality, and lack of resources. Participants in both countries were working hard to tackle some of these issues, but also expressed need for improved resources. The study provides an insight into the cultural and social factors that shape schizophrenia rehabilitation in China and India, and serves as a baseline for further research about nursing across cultures. The study also highlights the marked differences in attitudes, values, and behaviours across cultural groups that need to be considered by nursing professionals to ensure that services are culturally competent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is home to a wide range of water impoundments located in a diversity of climates, stretching from mountain conditions near the Himalayas in the north, to tropical conditions in the south. The impoundments include natural lakes, wetlands and coastal lagoons, as well as constructed reservoirs and tanks. This paper provides an overview of the lake management in India, focusing on wetlands, reservoirs and tanks. While there has never been a thorough survey of the lakes of India, it is possible to discuss the general conditions in which lake management is currently carried out in India. Overall, lakes all over the country are exhibiting varying degrees of environmental degradation caused by encroachments, eutrophication (from domestic and industrial effluents) and siltation. The high population density ensures that many water bodies are under severe and direct pressure from anthropogenic activities in their catchments. Actions to control and prevent these problems are addressed, with a focus on measures such as public interest litigation, the National Lake Conservation Plan, and the Special Purpose Vehicles. The role of national and international institutions is critiqued. Finally, the issues related to gaps in the knowledge base, delays in restoration, lack of coordination, ineffectiveness of legislation, and the general lack of an integrated approach to management are discussed, and possible solutions to these impediments are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the experiences of decentralization under successive political regimes in Kerala in the context of neo-liberal policies, with reference to the impact on the lives of adivasi (indigenous) communities. The Communist Party-led government had been implementing a home-grown programme of decentralized planning since 1996 until it lost power to the Congress Party-led conservative coalition in 2001. In the context of the accelerated structural adjustment and liberalization of the national government, the new government amended its predecessor's programme with a reduced role for the state bureaucratic and political actors in mobilizing people for planning and implementing projects at the local level. Based on a comparative analysis, the authors argue that the new programme has so far not been successful as regards enabling marginalized groups such as the indigenous communities to resist exclusion and move out of their states of deprivation. The study also shows that the withdrawal of the state from the social and economic sectors has adversely affected these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stigmatization and discrimination against social groups raise obstacles to the participation of their members in community interventions. Internalized stigma and a lack of empowering experiences promote fatalistic expectations that little can be achieved. This paper discusses how the Sonagachi Project in Kolkata, India, challenges stigma as part of its community development and health promotion efforts with sex workers, drawing on interviews with 19 sex workers involved in the Project and one group discussion among the Project's leaders. The internalized stigma of prostitution is challenged (1) by asserting that sex workers have rights which should be respected, (2) by claiming equivalence to other oppressed but politically successful groups and (3) by providing evidence of sex workers' positive achievements. These arguments are made plausible to sex workers by a material context that provides evidence and experience of the possibility of change. I conclude that interventions designed to problematize stigma and discrimination should back up the conceptual alternatives that they present by producing concrete changes to a community's living conditions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a rationale for the education of CAMHS staff and service development as a partnership between the UK and developing countries. The local context and background of child and adolescent mental health services in India are described, and the rationale for the teaching principles is outlined. The planning and delivery of the teaching, following these principles, is illustrated through a case study of work in India. The discussion focuses on what worked well, problems and difficulties faced, how these were managed, and how visitors can influence change whilst respecting the local perspective. Suggestions are made for improving future programmes so as to maximise the outcomes of such links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper present a case study of international technology transfer, where foreign transnational companies (TNCs) in developing countries provide their local suppliers with technological assistance as part of their on-going business relationships. The analysis is set against a background of changing corporate strategies, where TNCs increasingly use ‘follow sourcing’, i.e. international suppliers set up operations close to their main established customers worldwide, leading to a situation where smaller indigenous suppliers, especially in developing countries, face difficulties in establishing business relationships with foreign TNCs that can lead to increased technological capabilities. We use unique firm-level data collected at Volvo Trucks’ assembly plant in India and show that domestic suppliers can improve their technological capability through a transfer of both product and production technology. Our findings complement the existing empirical litterature by showing that local technology transfer can arise from new green-field investments by TNCs focused on more simple assembly operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The Gaur Bos gaurus ranges from India to peninsular Malaysia. Its distribution, status and conservation in the Indian subcontinent are reviewed here on the basis of available information, both published papers and unpublished census reports of forest departments, and field survey data from north-eastern India and parts of Bhutan and Nepal. The Gaur is found in three disjunct regions, south-western India, central India and north-eastern India (including Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh). Within these regions the distribution is highly fragmented and includes a number of small non-viable isolated populations. The habitat in north-eastern India is still contiguous with that in Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh and to some extent with Nepal. Although the estimated population of the Gaur is 23 000–34 000, it is declining alarmingly. Populations outside the protected areas may not last long. An action plan has been proposed for its conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the procedures adopted by two independent studies in India for identifying and classifying children with dyscalculia in primary schools. For determining the presence of dyscalculia both inclusionary and exclusionary criteria were used. When other possible causes of arithmetic failure had been excluded, figures for dyscalculia came out as 5.98% (15 cases out of 251) in one study and 5.54% (78 out of 1408) in the second. It was found in the latter study that 40 out of the 78 (51.27%) also had reading and writing problems. The findings are discussed in the light of previous studies. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has the world's highest number of HIV/AIDS infections for any country outside Africa. Eighty-five per cent of HIV transmission in India occurs through heterosexual contact. One billion population, a large number of female sex workers, high prevalence of sexually transmitted infection (STIs) and low condom use make a potent combination for explosive growth of the epidemic. Taking available estimates of the number of female sex workers (FSWs), their work patterns, prevalence of HIV and STIs and condom use among them in 1999 as the base, and adopting reasonable infectivity rates, this paper attempts to present a model to estimate the spread of HIV infection in commercial sex networks until 2005. HIV infections in commercial sex networks are estimated to increase from the 1999 level of approximately 2.49 million to about 3.93 million by 2005 in a favourable scenario, and to 6.87 million in a worse scenario. Spread of HIV is influenced in the short term by condom use and prevalence of STIs, and these are the only factors that can be manipulated to limit the spread of the infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on DEC distribution and compliance with treatment in a large-scale annual single-dose mass treatment programme to eliminate lymphatic filariasis in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. 76.9% of households (82.5% in rural areas and 58.0% in urban areas) were aware of drug distribution for control of filariasis. DEC was given to 70% (= distribution rate) (range 0-92%) of the population and 53.5% (range 12-89%) complied with treatment. The distribution rate was more than 75% in 74% of the villages and compliance was in the range of 51-75% in 76% of the villages. About 5% of the treated population reported side-effects. Distribution and compliance were higher in rural than urban areas and similar between males and females. Qualitative data showed that some socio-economic factors, logistic and drug-related problems and people's poor knowledge and perceived benefits of treatment played a role in a proportion of the population not receiving or taking the drug. The Tamil Nadu programme showed that large-scale repeated annual DEC mass treatment is feasible and that existing health services are capable of delivering the drug to all communities. While even poor to moderate compliance rates can reduce the vector transmission of infection to some extent, improved drug distribution and compliance with treatment are necessary to consolidate the gains of earlier rounds of treatment and achieve the goal of filariasis elimination within a reasonable time frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India being the second largest populated nation has always been energy deficit. In the run, several alternate sources of energy have been tested and utilized to compensate the energy deficiency; these sources include solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, and bioenergy. This paper focuses on the technical, social, and economic aspects of biodiesels produced from various nonpopular sources available in India, which at present are not been practiced on the commercial scale, but their viability has been tested successfully. The study has been made on biodiesels from neem oil, rubber seed oil, karanja seed oil, sal seed oil, kusum oil, simarauba oil, mahua oil, thumba oil, tobacco seed oil, cherua oil, pilu oil, jojoba wax, and tung oil. The paper also discusses the future and setbacks of biodiesel keeping Indian subcontinent in the vision and even throws light on various biofuel policies being implemented by the government. As the study concludes, we have identified that India's diverse flora, as well as agriculture pattern, has potential to boost the discovery, production process, technology transfer, and usage of various unsung nonedible oil‐based biodiesels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite strong policy and program commitment, essential maternal nutrition services are not reaching enough women in many countries. This paper examined multifactorial determinants (personal, family, community, and health services) associated with maternal nutrition practices in Uttar Pradesh, India. Data were from a household survey of pregnant (n = 667) and recently delivered women (n = 1,835). Multivariable regression analyses were conducted to examine the determinants of four outcomes: consumption of diverse diets, consumption of iron folic acid (IFA) and calcium tablets, and weight monitoring during pregnancy. Population attributable risk analysis was used to estimate how much the outcomes can be improved under optimal program implementation. During pregnancy, women consumed 28 IFA and 8 calcium tablets, 18% consumed diverse diet, and 17% were weighed ≥3 times. Nutrition knowledge was associated with consumption of diverse diet (odds ratio [OR] = 2.2 times), IFA (2.3 times), calcium (11.7 times), and weight monitoring (1.3 times). Beliefs and self‐efficacy were associated with IFA (OR = 2.0) and calcium consumption (OR = 4.6). Family support and adequate health services were also associated with better nutrition practices. Under optimal program implementation, we estimate that 51% of women would have adequate diet diversity, an average consumption of 98 IFA, and 106 calcium tablets, and women would be weighed 4.9 times during pregnancy. Strengthening existing program operations and increasing demand for services has the potential to result in large improvements in maternal nutrition practices from current baseline levels but may not be sufficient to meet World Health Organization‐recommended levels without creating an enabling environment including improvements in education and income levels to support behaviour change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of the infrastructure gap is widely articulated in development studies to denote lacunae and areas of need in infrastructure functioning and connectivity across regions and nations. Sanitation infrastructure is one of the clearest areas in which to examine this gap. To close the gap, government and multilateral agencies are espousing citywide inclusive sanitation. This means comprehensive sanitation services for all through a combination of centralized and decentralized projects and a variety of techniques and services. However, this diversity of projects, techniques, and services will create additional challenges for infrastructure connectivity and functionality that need to be addressed through empirical research. We explore the gaps in wastewater and fecal sludge management infrastructure in India by approaching the problem from the activities and perspectives of three nonstate leaders and their associates. We argue that the notion of infrastructure disarray is an appropriate orienting idea as it points to an emerging field of experimentation and innovative activity while also showing how conditions of dysfunction and disconnection are sustained and reproduced. Taking disarray as a condition of infrastructure confusion among overlapping and disconnected segments of the sewage services chain, the cases show how nonstate actors and their communities are confronting disarray, reproducing these conditions of disarray, or grappling with ways to overcome this disarray. This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of WaterEngineering Water > Planning WaterHuman Water > Water Governance The Nagwa drain in Varanasi where Dr. Mishra carried out his flow measurements.This paper argues that infrastructure disarray rather than infrastructure gap is a more useful notion for framing the challenges and conditions of wastewater management in India today. Taking disarray as a condition of infrastructure confusion among overlapping and disconnected segments of the sewage services chain, the cases show how nonstate actors and their communities are confronting disarray, reproducing these conditions of disarray, or grappling with ways to overcome this disarray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maternal death review (MDR) is an important strategy to improve the quality of obstetric care and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. MDR provides detailed information on various factors at community, facility, and district levels that influence maternal health outcomes. One of the key challenges is to analyze large volumes of data collected via a paper-based system that uses facility and community level forms. This database continues to expand quantitatively (multiple forms and data elements), which makes analysis of data increasingly difficult for timely management and analysis. The present paper describes the development process involved in linking the paper-based system with an electronic system for MDR in India. The lessons learnt from this experience can contribute to understanding how innovative technologies can be used to address large-scale public health issues in low-resource countries and in particular solutions to address maternal health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research critically engages with existing theories of class and urban governance, and is empirically located in Delhi, India. The paper argues that existing theories of urban participatory governance in the global South, which polarise urban citizens and their mobilisation strategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of 'capturing' participatory structures; and the poor, conceptualised as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in more politicised forms of mobilisation, are incomplete. This research identifies urban citizens who fit neither the 'elite' nor 'poor' conceptual binary, and explores how such 'ordinary' citizens engage in participatory urban governance. Empirically, research addresses Delhi's unauthorised colonies (UCs), residential areas that have evolved mostly on private land that is not classified 'residential' in the Delhi Master Plan. Housing roughly a quarter to one-third of Delhi's population and comprising a mix of classes, UCs are technically illegal locations for residential development, are consequently excluded from Delhi's network of basic urban services (water, roads, electricity) and face potential demolition. UCs are conceptualised as representing India's 'missing middle' both empirically, highlighting the multiplicity of the middle class, and conceptually, revealing the failure of binary concepts to accurately describe participatory urban governance for those in 'the middle'. In addition, analysis highlights how UCs' invisibility (linked to their heterogeneity - i.e. their empirical and conceptual 'middle-ness') functions as both an asset and a limitation in terms of participation in urban governance. The paper calls for greater recognition in academic and policy debates regarding the nuances in everyday life that are overlooked by neat binaries. As the Delhi case shows, a large proportion of urban populations are neither 'poor' nor 'elite', and arguably a similar trend is likely to exist in cities throughout the world where segments of populations demographically in 'the middle' are 'missing' from academic and policy debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-monsoon thermal field over the Indian landmass has an important bearing on the land-sea heating contrast in the region, consequently influencing the establishment, advance and overall performance ofthe Indian summer monsoon rainfall. This paper examines the relationship between the pre-monsoon thermal field over India and the following summer monsoon rainfall, in order to identify possible predictors for long-range forecasting of Indian summer monsoon rainfall. Based on the spatial patterns of correlations of monsoon rainfall with maximum and minimum temperatures at 121 stations well distributed over India, during the recent period 1951--80, two predictors showing a significant contribution to the variance in monsoon rainfall have been identified. They are (i) March minimum temperature in east peninsula India and (ii) May minimum temperature in west central India. These two predictors have performed very well in terms of their significant contribution to the multiple regression models during 1951--1987, vis-a-vis several other known predictors. They have also shown a consistently significant relationship with the monsoon rainfall during the recent period, from the mid-1940s till the end of the data period. A stepwise regression model for long-range forecasting of all-India summer monsoon rainfall, involving three regional predictors, has been developed, and has shown a multiple correlation of 0.89. ) 1997 by the Royal Meteorological Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of the current generation of climate models, in their long-term simulations, to replicate the observed atmospheric behaviour on a wide range of spatial and time scales provides support in applying these models to the greenhouse gas-induced climate change projections on regional scales. A series of long time-slice control experiments have been performed recently with the ECHAM3 atmospheric general circulation model at T21, T42 and T106 horizontal resolutions (30 years each with T21 and T42 and 5 years with T106). All these model experiments use a common sea-surface temperature climatology in their control experiment inferred from a coupled ocean--atmosphere climate model (ECHAM1 + LSG) experiment. In this paper, we examine the ability ofthe ECHAM3 model to simulate the Indian monsoon climatology at thesethree different horizontal resolutions. Because the Indian summer monsoon circulation evolves through a characteristic sequence of events, it is important that the climate models should be able to realistically portray these important features of the circulation over adequate spatial and time scales. We focus on the model's simulation of selected variables representative of the thermal, dynamic and hydrological components in zonal mean cross-sections and area-averaged monthly as well as seasonal regional distributions. Generally, with respect tolarge-scale features of the circulation, the largest differences among the simulations occur at T42 relative to T21. At both T21 and T42 horizontal resolution, however, the model does not have a high degreeof correspondence with observations as regards the spatial distribution of mean sea-level pressure, surface air temperature, 850 hPa. winds and precipitation. On regional scales, T106 resolution best captures both the spatial and temporal characteristics of the Indian climatology. Both the diurnal and seasonal cycles of area-averaged surface air temperature over the region simulated by the model at T106 resolution [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]