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Objectives: The mental health of adolescent girls in countries of South Asia is related to several social and cultural factors including gender disadvantage, especially in low resource settings such as tribal areas. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has increased this vulnerability even further. This study assesses the association of gender disadvantage with psychological distress among adolescent girls residing in a tribal area of India and examines the role of resilience. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic first wave in 2020 using telephonic interviews with 102 girls aged 15–20 from one block (65.46% tribal population) of a predominantly tribal area in Central India. Trained interviewers administered translated versions of the Kessler Psychological Distress 10-item scale (K-10), the Checklist for Assessment of Gender Disadvantage (CAGED), and the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS). Pair-wise correlation was conducted between gender disadvantage, resilience and psychological distress using CAGED, BRS and K-10 scores. A one-way ANOVA was used to compare mean difference in CAGED domain scores and K-10 severity score groups. Results: The mean age of girls was 17.62 years (standard deviation 1.64). Scores on K-10 indicating moderate to severe psychological distress were seen among 27.5% of the respondents. Girls reported lack of space/privacy (39.2%), lack of freedom to pursue interests (32.4%), opinions not being considered (31.4%), and financial difficulties as hindrance to opportunities (28.4%) as common experiences of gender disadvantage. Gender disadvantage was directly associated with severity of psychological distress and inversely with resilience. Conclusion: This study indicates the importance of decreasing gender disadvantage for improving the mental health of young women and girls in underserved areas. The role of peer group interventions and engaging men and boys using gender transformative interventions in improving mental health needs to be studied.

The aim of the present study was to prepare and evaluate voriconazole microemulsified hydrogel. The voriconazole microemulsified is prepared by Water Titration Method. In which voriconazole microemulsified incorporated with hydrogel, Blank gels of different polymers were prepared by distilled water. Finally, the carbopol gel was prepared by dispersing 0.5% carbopol w/v and 0.5% aloe vera powder in 100 ml of water with stirring on mechanical stir. Additionally, for preservation of formulations 0.8% methyl paraben was mixed. Oil phase was selected by dissolving the voriconazole pure in different oils, oleic acid, castor oil, coconut oil, olive oil, cooten seed mineral oil and soya oil. Oleic acid was selected on the basis of higher solubility of voriconazole in it. Combination of surfactant and co-surfactant was selected on clear visual observation. Span - 40: propylene glycol in ratio 1:1 and 2:1 selected for further preparation of microemulsion. From the study F-8, F-9, F-10, F-14 and F-15 were selected for further studies. Though F-16, F-17, F-18, F-19 and F-20 formulations are also stable, but rejected due to high concentration of surfactant can cause skin irritation, skin burning and/or other complications. Characterization of selected voriconazole microemulsion formulations were evaluated under various parameters like Droplet size, Zeta potential, Poly Dispersity Index (PDI) and (%) Drug content all results showed.

IntroductionSwabhimaan is a community-based programme to improve adolescent girls’ and women’s nutrition in the rural areas of three Indian states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha with high prevalence of undernutrition.Methods and analysisSwabhimaan has a nested prospective, non-randomised controlled evaluation. Since 2017, five intervention sites receive community-led interventions through national government’s livelihood mission supported women’s self-help group federations and five control sites will initiate these activities 36 months later, in 2020. Community-led activities aim to improve coverage of 18 interventions including adequacy of food consumed, prevention of micronutrient deficiencies, access to basic health services and special care of nutritionally ‘at risk’ girls and women, improving hygiene and access to water and sanitation services and access to family planning services. The evaluation includes baseline (2016–2017), midline (2018–2019) and endline (2020–2021) surveys covering 6638 adolescent girls, 2992 pregnant women and 8755 mothers of children under 2. The final impact analysis will be by intention to treat, comparing primary and secondary outcomes in five intervention areas and five control areas. The primary outcomes are: (1) a 15% reduction in the proportion of adolescent girls with a body mass index (BMI) 2; (2) a 15% reduction in the proportion of mothers of children under two with a BMI 2and (3) and a 0.4 cm improvement in mean mid-upper arm circumference among pregnant women.Ethics and disseminationAll procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha and in compliance with guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki. Evidence will inform maternal and preconception nutrition policy at national and state level.Trial registration number58261b2f46876 and CTRI/2016/11/007482; Pre-results.

Measurement of rotation of plane of polarization of linearly polarized light can provide information about the concentration of the optically active system with which it interacts. For substances containing sugar, accurate measurement of rotation of linearly polarized light can provide quantitative information about concentration of sugar in the material. Measurement of sugar concentration is important in areas ranging from blood sugar level measurement in body fluids to measurement of sugar concentrations in juices and other beverages. But in many of these cases, the changes introduced to the state of polarization considering a sample of practical proportion is low and the measurement of low optical rotations becomes necessary. So methods with higher sensitivity, accuracy and resolution need to be developed for the measurement of low optical rotations. Here we describe the development of a compact, low cost, field portable, device for rotation sensing leading to sugar concentration measurements, using speckle de-correlation technique. The developed device measures rotations by determining the changes occurring to a speckle pattern generated by a laser beam passing through the medium under investigation. The device consists of a sample chamber, a diode laser module, a ground glass diffuser and a digital sensor for recording of laser speckle patterns. The device was found to have high resolution and sensitivity.