Death is the new sex, last great taboo in Western society and Western medicine, as Richard Smith discusses in his editorial (p 129). In the trinity of births, marriages, and deaths, only death does not have glossy magazines devoted to stylish consumption at the attendant ceremonies. On the web, of course, …

Death and dying

1. Name and territory of the Union ................................................................... 2 2. Admission or establishment of new States ................................................ 2 2A. [Repealed.] .............................................................................................................. 2 3. Formation of new States and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing States ................................................................................................ 2-3 4. Laws made under articles 2 and 3 to provide for the amendment of the First and the Fourth Schedules and supplemental, incidental and consequential matters ....................................................................................... 3

Constitution of India

Mental Health Interventions during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Conceptual Framework by Early Career Psychiatrists.

Caring for the family caregivers of persons with mental illness.

How do poor people cope with, and even make sense of, toxic danger? This book is a ‘‘story of silent habituation to contamination and of almost complete absence of mass protest against toxic onslaught’’ (p. 4). As such, it is distinct from much of the social movement literature, and also the ethnographies of the poor. The dependent variable in the social movement literature is community protest; we find protest, and try to explain its appearance, citing such things as ‘‘cognitive liberation.’’ But what about the many more communities that would seem ripe for protest, but do not? How, in particular, can we explain the ‘‘silent habituation to contamination’’ that is often associated with slum communities? Why the ‘‘perpetuation of ignorance, mistake, and confusion’’ (p. 8) on the part of the residents, despite ample evidence of contamination? The book explores ‘‘the reproduction of uncertainty, misunderstanding, division, and ultimately, inaction in the face of sustained toxic assault’’ (p. 8). ‘‘Uncertainty and ignorance,’’ they claim ‘‘have not been a dominant focus among ethnographers’’ (p. 12). True or not, here the authors explore it in rich detail. The place is a settlement on the edge of Buenos Aires. With two-and-one-half years of intensive fieldwork they have intimate knowledge of the community, and the second author, Debora Swistun, was born and raised in the town, and only left at the end of the fieldwork. Javier Auyero, no stranger to poverty research in Latin America, came in from the University of Texas for long stays. This is an ethnography, loosely structured, and like most ethnographies it is theoretically undernourished. The repeated references to Bourdieuian aphorisms such as ‘‘symbolic violence,’’ ‘‘schemata of perception,’’ ‘‘how domination works,’’ and the curious ‘‘site effects’’ (where ‘‘what is lived and seen on the ground’’ is really ‘‘elsewhere’’) (p. 159) do not structure the argument. The authors’ excellent narratives make it clear that the domination is more material than symbolic, and the pervasiveness of the pollution—air, water, soil—speaks to the silent contamination more strongly than the mechanisms and metaphors in the literature they repeatedly cite. Though much of the material has appeared elsewhere in scholarly journals, where it is more tightly organized, the leisurely pace and intimacy of this presentation has many virtues. Unfortunately, however, the lack of a decent index, so easily constructed on a computer, is not one of them. In addition to its dramatic focus upon ignorance, mistake and confusion in the community, there is a striking emphasis upon the link between environment and misery. Scholars, they say, have remained silent for a long time about environmental factors as the key determinants in the reproduction of destitution and inequity. They see it as the missing dimension in the study of poverty in Latin America. Graphically, and in wrenching detail, they show how the polluted space the urban poor live in compounds the normal problems of poverty. The silent, often invisible, steady accumulation of poisons appears to feed the resignation and displace the blame. It may be the shantytowns of Argentina which have had protests have not had the full environmental assault Flammable has had. The settlement was once an area with many small farms and fruit trees, clean water from a river, and a white-sand beach in the estuary. Gradually, but implacably, it became a hellhole, a toxic dumping ground, surrounded by one of the largest petrochemical compounds in the country. The Shell refinery is the biggest, but there is another oil refinery, three plants that store oil, several that store chemical products, one that manufactures chemical products, and a power plant. The settlement expanded into the

Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry

Disaster mental health is based on the principles of 'preventive medicine' This principle has necessitated a paradigm shift from relief centered post-disaster management to a holistic, multi-dimensional integrated community approach of health promotion, disaster prevention, preparedness and mitigation. This has ignited the paradigm shift from curative to preventive aspects of disaster management. This can be understood on the basis of six 'R's such as Readiness (Preparedness), Response (Immediate action), Relief (Sustained rescue work), Rehabilitation (Long term remedial measures using community resources), Recovery (Returning to normalcy) and Resilience (Fostering). Prevalence of mental health problems in disaster affected population is found to be higher by two to three times than that of the general population. Along with the diagnosable mental disorders, affected community also harbours large number of sub-syndromal symptoms. Majority of the acute phase reactions and disorders are self-limiting, whereas long-term phase disorders require assistance from mental health professionals. Role of psychotropic medication is very limited in preventing mental health morbidity. The role of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) in mitigating the mental health morbidity appears to be promising. Role of Psychological First Aid (PFA) and debriefing is not well-established. Disaster management is a continuous and integrated cyclical process of planning, organising, coordinating and implementing measures to prevent and to manage disaster effectively. Thus, now it is time to integrate public health principles into disaster mental health.

Disaster Management: Mental Health Perspective:

Purpose: Studies on whether pornography poses a greater risk for sexually aggressive behavior have revealed conflicting results. This study aims to examine the relationship between the consumption of pornography and the subsequent increase in sexual violence, thus testing the hypothesis that increase in consumption of pornography is related to increased sexual crime, in the Indian scenario. Materials and Methods: The current study explored the association between reported incidence of crime over a period of four decades - 1971-2008 (time periods being divided into: Pre-liberalization and post-liberation - India adopted liberalization policy in 1992) and availability of pornography over internet with a particular focus on crime against women (such as rape, sexual harassment, and crime against women). Results: Comparison of pre-liberalization and post-liberalization growth of rape rates was not significant. Though there were statistically significant positive correlations between the number of internet users and sexual crime rates, the association was non-significant after controlling for the effects of population growth using regression analysis. Conclusion: Results presented needs to be interpreted with extreme care and caution. Nevertheless, the results from this study suggest that easy access to pornography did not have a significant impact on rape rates and crime rate against women.

Sexual Crime in India: Is it Influenced by Pornography?:

Stigma haunts persons with mental illness who seek relief as per Disability Act 1995.

Recent changes in policies allowing practitioners of Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) to integrate into the mainstream of healthcare and also allowing practitioners of Ayurveda and Homoeopathy to perform medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) under the proposed amendment to the MTP bill have brought crosssystem practice into the limelight. We evaluate cross-system practice from its legal and ethical perspectives. Across judgments, the judiciary has held that cross-system practice is a form of medical negligence; however, it is permitted only in those states where the concerned governments have authorized it by a general or special order. Further, though a state government may authorize an alternative medicine doctor to prescribe allopathic medicines (or vice versa), it does not condone the prescription of wrong medicines or wrong diagnosis. Courts have also stated that prescribing allopathic medicines and misrepresenting these as traditional medicines is an unfair trade practice and not explaining the side-effects of a prescribed allopathic medicine amounts to medical negligence. Finally, the Supreme Court has cautioned that employing traditional medical practitioners who do not possess the required skill and competence to give allopathic treatment in hospitals and to let an emergency patient be treated by them is gross negligence. In the event of an unwanted outcome, the responsibility is completely on the hospital authorities. Therefore, there is an urgent need to abolish cross-system practice, invest in healthcare, and bring radical changes in health legislations to make right to healthcare a reality.

Maria Christine Nirmala

Papers

Disaster Management: Mental Health Perspective:

Sexual Crime in India: Is it Influenced by Pornography?:

Stigma haunts persons with mental illness who seek relief as per Disability Act 1995.

Ethical and legal issues in cross-system practice in India: Past, present and future.