Campaign In India Research Articles

Television is More Effective in Bringing Behavioral Change: Evidence from Heat-Wave Awareness Campaign in India

Summary This paper analyzes a unique data set that details the daily advertisements on Information, Education and Communication (IEC) material to avert heat stroke mortality in different media used by the state government of Odisha, India and the actual daily heat-wave mortalities in the state over a period of eight years. The paper then investigates the relative effectiveness of the different media in reducing mortality econometrically. The government adopted awareness generation as an adaptation strategy for heat waves in the year 2003 and intensified the use of public media from 2007 when multiple newspapers and radio and television channels were used for dissemination. I analyze the district-level daily death occurrences due to heat stroke using both linear and non-linear econometric models. Media used on the same day or on previous days are represented in the models by grouping them as either print, audio or video media. The data used is a daily panel data set consisting of only summer days (15th March–20th June) for the years 2005–12 for each of the 30 districts of the state. The estimated models account for the gap in data and the multidimensional nature of the panel (days, months, years). The results show the repeated use of video media to be the most effective in reducing deaths followed by newspapers and radio. The paper’s novel contribution is the use of secondary data to evaluate media and compare media effect of public health communication strategies in a developing country.

‘Plants out of place’: The ‘noxious weeds’ eradication campaign in colonial south India

The spread of transferred plants such as the prickly pear and lantana, labelled ‘noxious weeds’ in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century south India, and the exploration of viable means for their extirpation gave rise to a complex colonial discourse. Such plants not only seriously impeded agricultural and plantation interests but also threatened colonial commercial concerns. The eradication discourse consisted of various shades of opinion highlighting the ambivalences and contradictions within the eradication agenda. The increasing use of the legal domain as a regime of control by the colonial state was directed at legitimising the use of coercion for the destruction of undesirable plants. Notably, the use of legal coercion proved ineffective in the face of escalating costs of implementation and lack of local support. Local voices appealing against the enactment of eradication programmes were also attempts at opposing the colonial state’s efforts at instituting a regime of control. The colonial state’s eradication discourse and campaign against lantana in south India provide valuable insights into the then prevailing perceptions and attitudes towards exotics and invasives.

OC08_03 Cost-Effectiveness of a Smokeless Tobacco Campaign in India

OC08_03 Cost-Effectiveness of a Smokeless Tobacco Campaign in India

Effects of an awareness raising campaign on intention and behavioural determinants for handwashing.

This article assesses the effectiveness of The Great WASH Yatra handwashing awareness raising campaign in India on changing visitors' intention to wash hands with soap after using the toilet and the underlying behavioural determinants. Interviews based on the RANAS (Risk, Attitudes, Norms, Abilities, Self-regulation) model of behaviour change were conducted with 687 visitors before and after their visit to the campaign. Data showed that a campaign visit had little effect on the intention to wash hands with soap, even when comparing visitors who had actively participated in handwashing games with those who had not. After a campaign visit, knowledge about the benefits of washing hands had increased by almost half a standard deviation. A multiple linear regression analysis revealed that when considering all behavioural determinants change scores simultaneously, they were able to explain 57% of the variance in the intention change score. These findings suggest that substantively changing behaviour requires more than improving knowledge and emphasizing the importance of washing hands. Identifying the crucial behavioural determinants for handwashing may be an important first step in planning effective large-scale promotion programmes.

Breaking the Cage

Contemporary feminist campaigns in India are finding new ways to confront the issue of women’s safety in public spaces. Local and national feminist campaigns like Why Loiter, Blank Noise, Take Back the Night Kolkata, and Pinjra Tod have begun to challenge mainstream arguments about women’s safety by asserting that women’s freedom and rights cannot be compromised in the name of protection.Together, they signify a new direction for feminist activism in India.

Georgius Huszthius, a traveller from Croatia, and his account of the Ottoman naval campaign in India (1538–1539)

This paper analyses the description of the Ottoman naval campaign in India (1538–1539) in the travelogue of the Croatian traveller Georgius Huszthius, a trumpeter in the fleet of Hâdım Süleyman Pasha during the Indian campaign; thus he is an excellent witness to these events. The aim is to compare Huszthius’s account with other primary sources for the mentioned events and secondary sources published up to now. Huszthius’s travelogue named Descriptio peregrinationis Georgii Huszthii and published in 1881 is historically significant, because it gives us new information about the mentioned Ottoman campaign and also corroborates the testimonies of the Portuguese chroniclers and of an anonymous Venetian author whose journal Viaggio di un comito Veneziano da Alessandria all’ assedio di Diu was published in Venice in 1540. Huszthius’s and the unknown Venetian’s works represent the only two first-hand accounts of the Indian campaign from the side of the crew of the Ottoman fleet. Their works confirm Portuguese primary sources and give us a more balanced view on Hâdım Süleyman Pasha’s naval campaign. Huszthius’s travelogue’s section concerning the Ottoman naval campaign in India and the siege of Diu still has not been fully examined by Turkish historians and this paper is an attempt to ameliorate that situation.

Reflections on a Multi-stakeholder National Campaign in India around Comet ISON

AbstractA country-wide awareness campaign was conducted in India on the trail of Comet ISON, which built upon the networks created during IYA2009, thus maximising its reach.

Partition and poliomyelitis: an investigation of the polio disparity affecting Muslims during India's eradication program.

BackgroundSignificant disparities in the incidence of polio existed during its eradication campaign in India. In 2006, Muslims, who comprise 16% of the population in affected states, comprised 70% of paralytic polio cases. This disparity was initially blamed on the Muslims and a rumor that the vaccination program was a plot to sterilize their children. Using the framework of structural violence, this paper describes how the socio-political and historical context of Muslim populations in India shaped the polio disparity.Methods and FindingsA qualitative study utilizing methods of rapid ethnography was conducted from May-August 2009 in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. Field methods included participant observation of vaccination teams, historical document research, and 107 interviews with both Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) stakeholders and families with vaccine-eligible children. Almost all respondents agreed that Aligarh was a highly segregated city, mostly due to riots after Partition and during the 1990s. Since the formation of segregated neighborhoods, most respondents described that "Muslim areas" had been underdeveloped compared to "Hindu areas," facilitating the physical transmission of poliovirus. Distrust of the government and resistance to vaccination were linked to this disparate development and fears of sterilization influenced by the "Family Planning Program" from 1976-1977.ConclusionsEthnic violence and social marginalization since the Partition and during the rise of Hindu nationalism led to distrust of the government, the formation of segregated slums, and has made Muslims victims of structural violence. This led to the creation of disease-spreading physical environments, lowered vaccine efficacy, and disproportionately higher levels of resistance to vaccination. The causes of the polio disparity found in this study elucidate the nature of possible other health disparities affecting minorities in India.LimitationsThis study is limited by the manual coding of the transcribed data, size, and some dialectal difficulties in translation.

The elusive effect of water and sanitation on the global burden of disease

About 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, and 1 billion have no access to any form of sanitation (UNICEF 2013). About 780 million people lack access to an improved water source, a figure that is based on a fairly generous definition incorporating little with respect to reliability, proximity and convenience of access (UNICEF 2013). While the ancient Romans may already have been aware of it (Bradley 2012), water and sanitation came to be regarded as key to improve health in the growing cities of Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A number of notable observational studies were carried out that even with the limited epidemiological tools available at the time all but proved the direct link between water, sanitation and health (Snow 1860; Pringle 1910). By contrast, in the early days of development aid in the post-colonial era, water and sanitation were often not regarded as a health issue, but primarily provided with the aim of making people’s life easier and enable developmental activities. Whoever tried to argue for more investment on health grounds was faced by a lack of epidemiological studies conducted in low-income settings, which led to a renewed interest in research from the 1970s.

Understanding the State: Right to Food Campaign in India

Marginalized peoples’ struggle for subsistence rights in the neoliberal era has theoretical implications for understanding the role of the state in a globalized world. Variations in power exercised by state institutions at the local and national level have implications for the tactics that movements adopt. We examine the Right to Food Campaign in India, an informal network of organizations and individuals across local and national levels, which targets the state for entitlement to food. Using the interim orders of the Supreme Court in 2001, the campaign converted welfare initiatives for children into legal entitlements for access to nutritious food by holding state officials accountable at the local level; it also worked towards the enactment of the National Food Security Act of 2013. The campaign impacts local, national and global institutions, such as the WTO which expressed its disagreement with welfare provisions in the NFSA. Our analysis has three main implications. First, we note that the state is not a monolithic whole but comprises institutions at national and subnational levels (country, state, county or district, and village), all of which may not always work towards the same goal. Second, we argue that the state’s implementation of neoliberal policies that deny subsistence rights of the poor results in localized resistances that are linked to national and global protests. Third, a temporal lens on local and national politics is important to understanding the dynamics between local struggles and state institutions.

Use, Adoption and Rise of Web Media as tools of Communication for Election Campaign in India

Use, Adoption and Rise of Web Media as tools of Communication for Election Campaign in India

Disney’s High School Musical: Music makes the world go ‘round’

Abstract This article examines the Walt Disney Company’s contemporary globalization strategies, primarily focusing on Disney’s customization efforts for the media franchise, High School Musical, in various parts of the world, including the customization of songs and the soundtrack(s); the customization of the marketing and promotional campaign in India and South East Asia; and the customization of the musical itself in Latin-America and China. The article concludes that perhaps for the first time, Disney’s musical-based multimedia global franchises allow the company to customize its brands to appeal even more to teen fans across the world cost-­effectively while further contributing to the standardization and commercialization of children’s mediated cultures worldwide.

An untold story of policy failure: the Total Sanitation Campaign in India

The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) was a community-led, people-centred, demand-driven and incentive-based programme ideal to address India's rural sanitation crisis, or so it seemed. But policy failed to translate into practice and outcomes were remarkably poor. In the 2011 census data showed 31% sanitation coverage in 2011 (up from 22% in 2001), far from the 68% reported by the Government. The decade has witnessed progress slowing down and the number of rural households without latrines increasing by 8.3 million. This article draws on evidence from two coordinated studies in four Indian states. It aims to explore the dichotomy of TSC policy and practice, its causes, and the potential of the new sanitation campaign, the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). The study found that TSC implementation was unaligned with the programme's guiding principles. In reality the TSC was government-led, infrastructure-centred, subsidy-based and supply-led, leading to poor outcomes. The reasons behind the theory–practice gap include low political priority; flawed monitoring; distorting accountability and career incentives; technocratic and paternalistic inertia; and corruption. In the new NBA, despite promising changes such as a stronger demand creation focus, key issues hampering implementation remain ignored. It is thus doomed to fail, burdened by known past hurdles.

THU0478-HPR Health professionals & rheumatoid arthritis care in resource poor settings

BackgroundPeople living with Rheumatoid Arthritis [RA] needs price discounted drugs & proper nursing care. Appropriate public health program incorporating NGO’s in healthcare set-up are necessary. Specially trained nursing personal are...

Between Women: Indenture, Morality and Health

Indentured women in Fiji collectively challenged their exploitation in the sugar-cane plantations from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The primary forum used to articulate their grievances and oppose their maltreatment was the Indian Women’s Committee. The activism of this Committee was particularly intense from 1913 to 1920 when its platform intersected with international campaigns in India to abolish the indenture system. During this period, parallel resistances were mounted by the Australasian Committee of Inquiry into the Social and Moral Conditions of Indentured Women in Fiji. This Committee, comprising Australian, New Zealand and Indian women, adopted transnational principles to advance the social and moral position of indentured women in Fiji. While the Committee may be critiqued for furthering patriarchal constructions of morality and femininity that converged with discourses of colonialism, imperialism and Indian nationalism, this article will demonstrate that it simultaneously played a critical role in improving the quality of life for indentured women in Fiji, particularly in the area of women’s health.

The Bargaining Power of Missing Women: Evidence from a Sanitation Campaign in India

Female bargaining power in rural Haryana, as in much of northern India, is constrained by widespread discrimination against women. In recent years, however, women successfully demand private sanitation facilities from potential husbands as a precondition for marriage. I study this manifestation of bargaining power by modeling latrine adoption as an investment that males can make to improve their desirability on the marriage market, and I show that increasing proportions of females with strong sanitation preferences drive male investment in toilets. Moreover, I demonstrate women’s ability to secure latrines increases when they are relatively scarce in a marriage market. I test these predictions empirically by studying a sanitation program in Haryana, India, known colloquially as “No Toilet, No Bride”. Using a triple difference empirical strategy based on households with and without marriageable boys, in Haryana and comparison states, before and after program exposure, I provide evidence that male investment in sanitation increased by 15% due to the program. Further, the program effect is four times larger in marriage markets where women are scarce (26%) as compared to marriage markets where women are abundant (6%). These results suggest the relative scarcity of women in Haryana has, conditional on women surviving to marriageable age, improved the ability of the remaining women to secure valuable goods.

Pink Chaddis and SlutWalk Couture: The Postcolonial Politics of Feminism Lite

The SlutWalk campaigns around the world have triggered a furious debate on whether they advance or limit feminist legal politics. This article examines the location of campaigns such as the SlutWalk marches in the context of feminist legal advocacy in postcolonial India, and discusses whether their emergence signifies the demise of feminism or its incarnation in a different guise. The author argues that the SlutWalks, much like the Pink Chaddi (panty) campaign in India, provide an important normative and discursive challenge to a specific strand of feminism based on male domination and female subordination in the area of sexuality and also speaks to the emergence of consumer agency in the very heart of pleasure in the neo-liberal moment. It serves as a space clearing gesture, a form of feminism ‘lite’, rather than offering a transformative or revolutionary politics, and thus enables the possibility of feminist theoretical positions in a postcolonial context that have hitherto been marginalised or ignored in feminist legal advocacy in India to emerge.

Urban Heat Island Assessment for a Tropical Urban Airshed in India

There has been paucity of field campaigns in India in past few decades on the urban heat island intensities (UHI). Remote sensing observations provide useful information on urban heat island intensities and hotspots as supplement or proxy to in-situ surface based measurements. A case study has been undertaken to assess and compare the UHI and hotspots based on in-situ measurements and remote sensing observations as the later method can be used as a proxy in absence of in-situ measurements both spatially and temporally. Capital of India, megacity Delhi has grown by leaps and bounds during past 2 - 3 decades and strongly represents tropical climatic conditions where such studies and field campaigns are practically non-existent. Thus, a field campaign was undertaken during summer, 2008 named DELHI-I (Delhi Experiments to Learn Heat Island Intensity-I) in this megacity. Urban heat island effects were found to be most dominant in areas of dense built up infrastructure and at commercial centers. The heat island intensity (UHI) was observed to be higher in magnitude both during afternoon hours and night hours (maximum up to 8.3?C) similar to some recent studies. The three high ranking urban heat island locations in the city are within commercial and/or densely populated areas. The results of this field campaign when compared with MODIS-Terra data of land surface temperature revealed that UHI hotspots are comparable only during nighttime. During daytime, similar comparison was less satisfactory. Further, available relationship of maximum UHI with population data is applied for the current measurements and discussed in the context of maximum UHI of various other countries.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in chronic areca nut chewing Indian women: Case series and review of literature.

Background:Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is an important public health problem in India. Several risk factors such as tobacco, human papilloma virus, alcohol, areca nut usage have been extensively studied as causative agents. Though Areca nut chewing is known cause of oral cancer, its association with hypopharynx cancer has not been previously reported. Since areca nut is mostly consumed along with tobacco, it is uncommon to find patients who consume the areca nut alone.Materials and Methods:This is a prospective case series of ten women who presented to us with HNSCC with history of chewing of areca nut alone for several years. We have excluded all those cases where areca nut was consumed along with tobacco in any form. The data were prospectively collected with regard to clinical parameters, duration and frequency of areca nut usage, the socio-economic status and education level.Results:All ten females had varying degree of submucous fibrosis and coexisting squamous cell carcinoma either in the oral cavity or hypopharynx. Submucous fibrosis was characterized by burning mouth, unhealthy oral mucosa, buried third molars, trismus, poor oral hygiene, etc. The disease presented in an advanced stage in majority of the cases. All patients were unaware of areca nut's deleterious effects.Conclusion:Areca nut chewing is an important risk factor for HNSCC in females. Despite plethora of information, little importance is given to areca nut control in cancer prevention campaigns in India.

Entrepreneurship and human rights: Evidence from a natural experiment

Entrepreneurship and human rights which comprise two large areas of modern life do not seem to be on talking terms with each other. They appear to inhabit two different worlds with nothing in common, except a bit of antagonism. The view that the perspectives of the two disciplines are incompatible is strengthened by a lack of empirical studies. We utilise the staggered implementation of a human rights awareness and training campaign in central India to identify its effect on the creation of new small businesses. Our estimates indicate that new micro-businesses increased by about five per cent. Similar increases were observed in the investment in new micro-businesses and employment generated by new micro-businesses. We present evidence that this is a causal effect, we find that this increase is not a reversible blip and sustains over a period of time. Key words: Human rights, entrepreneurship, natural experiment.