Months In India Research Articles

India's Universal Immunisation Programme to prevent children from preventable disease: retention and dropout approach

BackgroundThe Universal Immunisation Programme was integrated with the Reproductive and Child Health Programme to improve childhood immunisation in India. However, there is a lack of empirical research on understanding about childhood immunisation by the standard schedule of WHO. This study aimed to estimate the level of retention and dropouts from one vaccination to the next among Indian children aged 12–23 months. MethodsWe use data from the nationwide District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-3), which was carried out in all 596 districts and covered 64 702 children aged 12–23 months in India during 2007–08. We used the Kaplan–Meier method to assess the retention rate of childhood immunisation. FindingsOnly 52·5% (33 959 of 64 702) of children aged 12–23 months have received the full course of vaccination. Children of the poorest and illiterate mothers have the lowest rate of full immunisation. 86·1% (55 688 of 64 702) of children would have been fully vaccinated if each child had been administered all three doses of diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) and polio vaccines and measles vaccine. The retention rate of childhood immunisation was in maximum decline between the second round of DPT and polio (70%, 95% CI 69–71) and the third round (56%, 55–57). On the other hand, if all children are brought under the health-system network by way of registering all births for BCG, the existing dropout rate at different stages of vaccination will yield 60·8% (33 869 of 55 688) of children being fully immunised. InterpretationThe findings of this assessment reveal that immunisation coverage varies from one vaccine to another and declines over the schedule prescribed by the WHO. BCG, third-round DPT, and third-round polio vaccination coverage may play a critical role in full immunisation, as the dropout rates were higher for these vaccinations. Specially designed interventions are needed to meet Millennium Development Goals regarding the under-5 mortality rate, infant mortality rate, and proportion of 1-year-old children immunised against measles. FundingDY was supported by the Government of India/National Eligibility Test Doctoral Fellowship award from the University Grants Commission and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, or preparation of the abstract.

Empire in Question: Reading, Writing, and Teaching British Imperialism by Antoinette Burton (review)

Reviewed by: Empire in Question: Reading, Writing, and Teaching British Imperialism by Antoinette Burton Mark Hampton (bio) Empire in Question: Reading, Writing, and Teaching British Imperialism by Antoinette Burton; pp xxii + 392. Durham: Duke UP, 2011. $28.99 paper; $106.07 cloth. As mrinalini Sinha notes in the foreword to this collection of essays, their author, Antoinette Burton, is among a small number of scholars whose work’s impact “has been nothing short of transformative as regards the ways in which scholars study empires and imperialism” (xi). In such books as Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (1995), At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain (1998), and After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation (2003), Burton has done much to break down the distinction between imperial and domestic histories, to undermine the assumption that cultural transmission proceeded outward from the British Isles to colonial peripheries, and to uncover the interplay between empire and nation. In Empire in Question, Burton assembles fourteen essays originally published between 1994 and 2008, bookending them with a reflective introduction and a final essay that examines the place of British imperialism within globalization. Taken collectively, these essays constitute an excellent introduction to Burton’s scholarship and, as such, to the development of the field of modern British history over the past two decades. The book is divided into two sections, one more theoretical or political, the other more overtly historical—though, as Burton points out (and demonstrates), this distinction is somewhat artificial. The first section includes essays that situate the study of imperial history within the late twentieth-century and early twentieth-first-century political cultures of both Britain and America. The essays argue both for broadening the definition of what “counts” as an archive and for shedding the binary between empire and home that itself constitutes a nineteenth-century “technology of imperial rule” (28). The section is animated not only by Burton’s engagement with contemporary historiography and politics but also by her awareness of her own position as a teacher of British imperial history in a North American university; the final chapter in this section, co-authored with her colleague Jean Allman, includes a sample syllabus for a postgraduate seminar on gender and colonialism. In the second section, several case studies demonstrate the decentred and transnational character of modern British imperial culture, as well as [End Page 215] the close connection between gender and empire. Some of the chapters, drawing on the research that produced Burton’s earlier monographs, show the role of maternal solicitousness toward Indian women in shaping the cause of late nineteenth-century British feminist reform “at home.” These include chapters illuminating Mary Carpenter’s Six Months in India (1868), the campaign against Indian women’s seclusion in the zenana, and the trial of the child bride Rukhmabai, who refused to accept her arranged marriage to a man she deemed her intellectual inferior. Other chapters closely contextualize Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847)and Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink (1995) as colonial and post-colonial texts, as well as the controversy over Lord Salisbury’s gaffe in calling a Liberal candidate for Parliament, Dadabhai Naoroji, a “black man.” The final chapter in this section cites the influence of New Zealand’s welfare reform on early twentieth-century British reforms as an example of the multidirectional transmission of imperial culture. These chapters highlight the complexity of the interactions between class, gender, and race, as well as the fact that “discourses are products of concrete, material social conditions and struggles, even as they also shape the terms through which such conditions are experienced, articulated, and circulated throughout culture” (239). Whereas most of the chapters unite the domestic and the imperial into one mutually constitutive whole, the book’s stimulating final chapter, previously unpublished, takes issue with recent scholarship that treats Britain’s contribution to globalization as, in effect, a new kind of British exceptionalism. Rather than seeing globalization as a product of British imperialism, Burton argues, we should see it, even at the zenith of British expansion, as a decentred process in which the British Empire...

The public health challenge of early growth failure in India

Recent recognition of the early onset and high prevalence of wasting (30%) and stunting (20%) among infants 0-5 months in India draws attention to the need to understand the causes and develop prevention strategies. Such growth failure has dire consequences in the short (increased mortality) and long-term (loss of human capital and increased risk of chronic diseases). Food interventions before 6 months will increase morbidity/mortality through contamination in settings of poor sanitation and hygiene. Waiting to improve nutrition only after the initiation of complementary feeding at 6 months is a missed opportunity and may permanently alter life trajectory and potential. This underscores the importance of maternal nutrition. Iron and folic acid and protein energy supplementation during pregnancy are interventions that can improve maternal nutrition and birth outcomes. Maternal supplementation during lactation should be considered as a means to improve maternal and child outcomes, although the evidence needs strengthening. Support and counseling are also required to improve maternal diets and promote exclusive breastfeeding. Programs focused on improving maternal nutrition across the continuum of preconception, pregnancy and lactation are likely to have the greatest impact as mothers are central gatekeepers to the health and future of their children.

Effect of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on malnutrition of children aged between 1 and 12 months in Rajasthan, India: a mixed methods study

BackgroundMalnutrition is a major risk factor for mortality in children aged 1–12 months in India. Macroeconomic and social policies are determinants of both health and health inequalities. Therefore, policies targeting poverty and food insecurity might reduce infant malnutrition. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a wage-for-employment policy of the Indian Government, targets deprivation and food insecurity in rural households. The Act could prevent malnutrition in children by improving household food security or increase the risk of malnutrition by reducing the time devoted to infant care or feeding if mothers are employed. We analysed the effect of household's and mother's participation in the scheme on malnutrition of children aged 1–12 months and studied how this effect occurred. MethodsWe did a quantitative cross-sectional study (single-stage cluster sampling) and qualitative focus group discussions (nested sampling) in Dungarpur district in Rajasthan, India. We randomly selected (with Stata; version 10.1) 44 villages from the five administrative blocks of the district. All households with infants aged 1–12 months (identified with records of the local village nurse and community health worker) in each of these villages were asked to participate in the study. We measured three indicators of malnutrition: underweight, stunting, and wasting (WHO criteria). We used multivariable logistic regression modelling with a hierarchical approach. We analysed focus group discussions to generate themes, and quantified theoretical pathways by path analysis. FindingsWe included 528 households with 1056 participants. Between August, 2010, and September, 2011, 281 households took part in the scheme, and 247 did not. Mothers were employed in 51 (18%) households in the scheme. Prevalence of wasting was 39% (n=206), stunting 24% (n=129), and underweight 50% (n=266). Households in the scheme were less likely to have wasted infants (odds ratio [OR] 0·58, 95% CI 0·38–0·90; p=0·016) and less likely to have underweight infants (OR 0·47, 95% CI 0·30–0·74; p=0·002) than were households not in the scheme. Stunting did not differ significantly between groups (OR 0·79, 95% CI 0·54–1·16; p=0·222). We did 11 focus group discussions with 65 mothers. Although the scheme reduced starvation, it did not provide the amount of benefit claimed by the programme because of lower than standard wages and delayed payments. Participants generally agreed that mother's employment was detrimental to infant care and feeding because of a lack of facilities at worksites for child care and breastfeeding. Results from path analysis did not support existence of an effect through household food security and infant feeding but did suggest a pathway of effect through low birthweight. The probability of being born with low birthweight (<2·5 kg) was lower in participating households than in non-participating households, which reduced the risk of infant malnutrition in the participating households. The probability coefficients of the Act's effect on each indicator were for wasting: indirect path −0·21 (p=0·074), direct path −0·23 (p=0·216), total −0·44 (p=0·016); for underweight: indirect −0·25 (p=0·051), direct −0·43 (p=0·061), total −0·68 (p=0·007); for stunting: indirect −0·06 (p=0·204), direct −0·26 (p=0·065), total −0·32 (p=0·047). Path analysis and logistic regression did not show a significant effect of mother's employment on the outcomes. InterpretationParticipation in the wage-for-employment programme was associated with reduced malnutrition, possibly mediated indirectly by improved birthweight rather than by improved infant feeding. Provision of child-care facilities at worksites could mitigate the negative effects of mother's participation in the scheme. Although the scheme seems to reduce risk of low birthweight, ensuring timely and adequate payment could improve food security, and augment the protective effect of the programme against infant malnutrition. FundingWeidenfeld Scholarship and Leadership programme, University of Oxford.

Determinants of inappropriate complementary feeding practices in young children in India: secondary analysis of National Family Health Survey 2005–2006

In India, poor feeding practices in early childhood contribute to the burden of malnutrition as well as infant and child mortality. This paper aims to use the newly developed World Health Organization (WHO) infant feeding indicators to determine the prevalence of complementary feeding indicators among children of 6-23 months of age and to identify the determinants of inappropriate complementary feeding practices in India. The study data on 15,028 last-born children aged 6-23 months was obtained from the National Family Health Survey 2005-2006. Inappropriate complementary feeding indicators were examined against a set of child, parental, household, health service and community level characteristics. The prevalence of timely introduction of complementary feeding among infants aged 6-8 months was 55%. Among children aged 6-23 months, minimum dietary diversity rate was 15.2%, minimum meal frequency 41.5% and minimum acceptable diet 9.2%. Children in northern and western geographical regions of India had higher odds for inappropriate complementary feeding indicators than in other geographical regions. Richest households were less likely to delay introduction of complementary foods than other households. Other determinants of not meeting minimum dietary diversity and minimum acceptable diet were: no maternal education, lower maternal Body Mass Index (BMI) (<18.5 kg/m(2)), lower wealth index, less frequent (<7) antenatal clinic visits, lack of post-natal visits and poor exposure to media. A very low proportion of children aged 6-23 months in India received adequate complementary foods as measured by the WHO indicators.

Changes in the Frequency of Different Categories of Temperature Extremes in India

AbstractIn the context of climate change and its impact on sectors like agriculture and health, it is important to examine the changes in the characteristics of temperature extremes of different intensities and duration. In this study, an India Meteorological Department gridded temperature dataset is used to examine the changes in the frequency of occurrence of extreme temperatures over India and its seven homogeneous regions during the period 1969–2005. Results indicate a significant decrease in the frequency of occurrence of cold nights in the winter months in India and in its homogeneous regions in the north except in the western Himalaya. Southern regions show a drastic decrease in the frequency of cold nights relative to the period 1969–75. A significant increasing trend in the number of warm days in summer is noticed only in the interior peninsula. In the entire country and on the east coast and west coast, the maximum number of warm days in summer has been noticed only during the last decade, 1996–2005. Further, in the whole country the maximum number of intense warm days and nights in summer has been observed in the last decade. A significant increase in the number of cold days in winter is observed in the north-central and northeast regions. Changes in the frequency of warm and cold exceedances indicate maximum warming in the west coast as compared with all other regions. In sum, such spatial and temporal changes in the characteristics of all categories of temperature extremes broadly suggest warming trends in large parts of India.

The benefit of ayurvedic diagnostics in treatment strategies for rheumatoid arthritis

Question Ayurveda gains greater attention worldwide, but investigations of ayurvedic treatments with participation of ayurvedic physicians are scarce in international literature presumably due to different conceptual frameworks of both medical systems. We examined which ayurvedic diagnosis corresponds to the diagnosis rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and how patients with RA respond to one line of herbal ayurvedic drug preparations. Methods In an open observational study, a team of physicians from western and ayurvedic medicine diagnosed patients according to the ARA criteria (1987) as RA and thereafter according to ayurvedic criteria. One line of routinely used ayurvedic drug preparations based on Semicarpus anarcardium L., Commiphora mukul Hook ex Stocks, Withania somnifera Willd. and Asparagus racemosus Dunal. was given for 10 months in India. The Paulus and Ritchie indices, Steinbrocker classes, ESR, CRP, joint swelling score, morning stiffness, joint pain/tenderness scores and the functional status were monitored monthly. Results Forty-four RA-patients were included and subgrouped according to ayurvedic diagnostic criteria as Sandhigatavata srotovarodha (SS) ( n =33), Sandhigatavata dhatukseya (SD) ( n =6) and Amavata (A) ( n =5) with distinct clinical and biochemical features. The treatment course was completed by 26 patients. Eighteen patients left due to improvements ( n =3), non-compliance ( n =7), relocation ( n =1), unknown reasons ( n =4), adverse events ( n =1) or inflammatory attacks ( n =2). The 20% and the 50% Paulus response were achieved by 34% and 15.9% of all patients, respectively. The 50% Paulus response was achieved in 40% of A-, in 33% of SD-, but only in 9% of SS-patients. Conclusion The Western diagnosis RA did not correspond to a uniform ayurvedic diagnosis. The treatment response differed between subgroups. Ayurvedic diagnostics may support the search for ayurvedic drugs for RA in India and may be developed to an additional tool for treatment strategies and response predictions to medication in RA in Western medicine.

Does biofuel smoke contribute to anaemia and stunting in early childhood?

Reliance on biomass fuels for cooking and heating exposes many women and young children in developing countries to high levels of air pollution indoors. Exposure to biomass smoke has been linked to reduced birth weight, acute respiratory infections, and childhood mortality. This study examines the association between household use of biofuels (wood, dung, and crop residues) for cooking and heating and prevalence of anaemia and stunting in children. Data are from a 1998-99 national family health survey in India, which measured height, weight, and blood haemoglobin of 29 768 children aged 0-35 months in 92 486 households. Multinomial logistic regression is used to estimate the effects of biofuel use on prevalence of anaemia and stunting, controlling for exposure to tobacco smoke, recent episodes of illness, maternal education and nutrition, and other potentially confounding factors. Analysis shows that prevalence of moderate-to-severe anaemia was significantly higher among children in households using biofuels than among children in households using cleaner fuels (RRR = 1.58; 95% CI: 1.28, 1.94), independent of other factors. Prevalence of severe stunting was also significantly higher among children in biofuel-using households (RRR = 1.84; 95% CI: 1.44, 2.36). Thirty-one per cent of moderate-to-severe anaemia and 37% of severe stunting among children aged 6-35 months in India may be attributable to exposure to biofuel smoke. Effects on mild anaemia and moderate stunting were smaller, but positive and statistically significant. Effects of exposure to tobacco smoke on anaemia and stunting were small and not significant. The study provides a first evidence of the strong association between biofuel use and risks of anaemia and stunting in children, suggesting that exposure to biofuel smoke may contribute to chronic nutritional deficiencies in young children.

I have just passed the PLAB and wish to have a career in anaesthetics and critical care medicine. I have worked in anaesthetics for six months in India. Which jobs should I apply for to get on to an anaesthetic rotation? Should I apply for the non-training jobs in accident and emergency?

I have just passed the PLAB and wish to have a career in anaesthetics and critical care medicine. I have worked in anaesthetics for six months in India. Which jobs should I apply for to get on to an anaesthetic rotation? Should I apply for the non-training jobs in accident and emergency?

From "Die Tochter (The Daughter)"

It all started with Lebanon. In the summer of 1982, Motti was supposed to be in London, where he wanted to spend a couple of weeks before flying on to New Delhi. All his friends and classmates left the country for a while after the army, if they could afford to, and even the poorest of them did everything possible to get away, be it only to Cyprus or Greece. To avoid the temptation of a premature return, those who wanted a true break from Israel bought one-way tickets to New York or L.A., procuring jobs as waiters or enrolling in Tai-Chi courses once they got there. Motti couldn't make up his mind. He wanted to begin his university studies in the near future and could hardly imagine, with his aging parents, going away for too long. A couple of months in India and Nepal would suffice to dear his mind and to still his adolescent curiosity for the great wide world, which had thus far lain beyond reach behind the fortress walls of his constrictive homeland, where everyone knew everyone-indeed everyone knew everything about everyone-and no one was allowed to waver for a single day from the side of his people in their never-ending war of survival. Like nearly all of his friends, Motti had never been abroad, and his interest in the Asian subcontinent was based on nothing more than a desire to see with his own eyes the hundred-- thousand fairy-tale colors in which, he had often heard, the native landscape, cuisine, and clothing were bathed. But as it happened, one month after his scheduled discharge from the army and one week before his planned departure, he found himself sitting back in his tank thundering toward Beirut. It was his first time in action, and whenever they fired a shot, whenever the recoil kicked the ten-ton vehicle like a empty beer can, whenever that crazy Eli let out a victory cry, shrill and fearful, from his cannon overhead, Motti went dizzy, sweating profusely and trembling as though feverish. His fear was only exceeded by his zeal. He knew that the harder they fought, the sooner they drove the Palestinians into the sea, the earlier he would be released. They raced up the coastal road like lunatics, through this ugly, flat, arid land whose brackish sea, desiccated riverbeds, decrepit houses, and strip-harvested banana fields seemed like a caricature of Israel. The landscape first changed beyond the river Al Litani. Hills suddenly emerged to the east, hills of white and green, with houses on their slopes that were more opulent than the most opulent villas in Savion. At the same time, the sea to the west began to flutter like a giant cloth of green silk against the bright June sky. Somewhere just before Sidon, two days after their last skirmish, Motti believed that the worst was now behind them. Hour by hour, his nerves settled down, his appetite returned, and he increasingly ventured brief, dreamy glances through the peephole. Smiling, he thought, who would have imagined that my first trip abroad would be like this? Then they arrived in Al-Biah. At first everything here, too, seemed to be all right. The Shiites, happy to be rid of the PLO, showered their tanks with grains of rice and offered them food and drink, and consequently it took Motti and the others a bit too long to notice that the Shiites were no Shiites. Afterward, when the whole thing was over, a depressing, cadaverous stink spread across Al-Biah, and Muamar, that son of a bitch, was nothing more than a semi-liquid mass on the cobblestones of his village. It would be autumn before Motti was out of uniform again. A mere three months had passed, but he felt as though he had already dispensed with everything that life had previously held in store for him. He had trouble sleeping and suffered frequent loss of appetite, while at other times he ate enough for two. He felt a constant trembling in his arms and legs but discovered that, when he examined them, they were absolutely still. He became irritable and was constantly yelling at his parents-he loathed his mother's temper tantrums, yet his father's gentle, reserved manner grated equally on his nerves. …

Writing at the kitchen table: the authorized biography of Elizabeth David

While still a girl, Elizabeth Gwynne longed to escape from the horsy, country-house world in which she was brought up. After being finished in Paris and Munich, she went on the stage, but she was restless and unsettled. In august 1939 she and her lover, Charles Gibson-Cowan set off in a boat for Greece. Trapped in Antibes by the war, Elizabeth came under the spell of Norman Douglas, one of the most important influences in her life. She and Charles set sail again just as Italy entered the war, only to find themselves interned. Eventually they reached Athens. They spent the winter of 1940-41 on a Greek island, where Elizabeth first started to cook food. The German invasion of the Balkans forced them to join the refugees fleeing to Egypt. In the raffish Fortunes of War world of Alexandria and Cairo, Elizabeth flourished and came to know writers such as Lawrence Durrell and Patrick Leigh Fermor. She also met Tony David, officer in the Indian army. He proposed to her by letter from Italy and, to the astonishment of her friends, she accepted. After the war and a few months in India, Elizabeth returned to grey and rationed England. Exasperated by the bleakness of English food, she put pen to paper and began to work out an agonized craving for the sun. The result was Mediterranean Food, a book which caught the imagination of a generation. In the course of the next decade, the happiest of her life, her books and articles inspired a cookery revolution. Elizabeth never spoke of her failed marriage, and few people knew about the other man, the great love of her life. When he left her for another woman, she thought she would never write again. Instead she opened her kitchen shop, but disagreements between the partners forced Elizabeth out. She returned to writing, but the tone of her last books was more scholarly than lyrical. Working from extensive archive of personal papers, Artemis Cooper reveals the powerful tensions between Elizabeth David's private world and the image of the successful woman she presented to her public. It is a story that even some of her closest friends never knew.

Role of low pressure areas in the absence of tropical disturbances during monsoon months in India

In this study an effort has been made to find out the contribution of low pressure areas (or lows) towards the rainfall of northern and central India during the monsoon months of June to September in the absence of more intense cyclonic disturbances such as depressions, deep depressions and cyclonic storms. 15 years of data from 1983 to 1997 has been used to study this aspect. This study has shown that the occurrence of moderate to heavy rainfall mainly depends upon their frequency, life span, track followed and origin of these disturbances provided there are no inhibiting meteorological factors like ‘break’ monsoon situations. Copyright © 1999 Royal Meteorological Society

Role of low pressure areas in the absence of tropical disturbances during monsoon months in India

In this study an effort has been made to find out the contribution of low pressure areas (or lows) towards the rainfall of northern and central India during the monsoon months of June to September in the absence of more intense cyclonic disturbances such as depressions, deep depressions and cyclonic storms. 15 years of data from 1983 to 1997 has been used to study this aspect. This study has shown that the occurrence of moderate to heavy rainfall mainly depends upon their frequency, life span, track followed and origin of these disturbances provided there are no inhibiting meteorological factors like ‘break’ monsoon situations. Copyright © 1999 Royal Meteorological Society

Fearful Bodies into Disciplined Subjects: Pleasure, Romance, and the Family Drama of Colonial Reform in Mary Carpenter's "Six Months in India"

Everywhere the appearance of men, women, and children was sufficiently novel and curious. The deficiency of clothing in the men struck me peculiarly. They seemed to consider that a black skin supersedes the necessity of raiment, and in this respect the lower orders appear perfectly devoid of any sense of decency. I never became reconciled to this, and believe now, as I did then, that living thus in a sort of savage state in the midst of a civilised people increases that want of proper selfrespect and that separation from the higher classes which is so painfully characteristic of Hindu society. . . . Multitudes of both men and women assembled before sunrise to perform their ablutions. . . . Strange was the scene which was here every morning presented to an English eye; for the women appeared wholly devoid of any feeling akin to decency, and in this public place, to avoid wetting their garments, left the greater part of their bodies uncovered. It would seem as if the great seclusion of the women of the higher classes withdraws

A simplified HF field strength prediction procedure for India

Field strength measurements of several HF broadcast transmissions were made at New Delhi during 1987-1990 with a view to evolving a simple procedure for estimation of the skywave field strength in the HF bands (3-30 MHz). An attempt has been made using the measured field strength values to arrive at a single combined loss factor which can account for all the losses in excess of basic free space and ionospheric absorption losses. The present study has shown that a provision of 4 dB for transmission losses other than free space and ionospheric absorption losses can bring the predicted values closer to measured field strength values for single-hop circuits in India for about 50% of the cases, and 10 dB increases it to 90%. Transmission losses in general were found to be much higher during equinoctial months in India, particularly around the peak region of equatorial anomaly. >

South Asianist Reflections on Mexican Micropolitics

One of the justifications for the appearance of South Asianist in symposium otherwise devoted to Mexico was the hope, bravely expressed by the organizers in their invitation, that such an individual would somehow be able to put the papers in a framework. This is large expectation, even among symposium panelists, and I must admit at the outset that I have evaded this part of the obligation. The following commentary contains, it is true, some subjective impressions on the differences between the study of rural politics in Mexico and India. But it offers none of the grand systematic synthesis that the phrase comparative framework might suggest. Possibly we have arrived at point in anthropological research where the study of institutions across grand divides of the Mexican-Asian sort will again be valuable in the development of the discipline. But I think much still needs to be done at an intermediate level before we sink back for really long spell in the armchairs. For example, studies of rural political organization in several regions of Mexico, followed by similar studies involving Mexico and other Latin American nations, would properly precede pan-hemispheric parallels and contrasts. The latter are simply too great to provide suitable focus for discussant's commentary on the preceding papers. This is not to suggest that respectable enough anthropological precedents do not exist. The choice of Mexico and India for research strongly appealed to Robert Redfield, apparently. And when I was invited to contribute to this symposium I recalled one of the first anthropological studies I had read as an undergraduate: Oscar Lewis's comparison of social organization in North Indian village (not far from where I eventually did my own fieldwork) and Tepotzlan, Mexican village I take to be not totally unlike those discussed in this symposium. Lewis's study is particularly relevant here because the main anthropological contribution that emerged from his eight months in India in 1952-53 was debate he engendered on the question of factions in village India. I think Lewis misconstrued his

RIVER VALLEY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: PROBLEMS OF EVALUATION AND SOCIAL COSTS

KyklosVolume 12, Issue 4 p. 589-604 RIVER VALLEY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: PROBLEMS OF EVALUATION AND SOCIAL COSTS1 K. William Kapp, K. William Kapp Brooklyn College, New YorkSearch for more papers by this author K. William Kapp, K. William Kapp Brooklyn College, New YorkSearch for more papers by this author First published: November 1959 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6435.1959.tb01819.xCitations: 2 1 The author spent nine months in India as a Fulbright Research Professor at the Gokhale Institute of Economics and Politics in Poona during the academic year 1957/58. He gratefully acknowledges the stimulating discussions with his colleagues at the Institute. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Citing Literature Volume12, Issue4November 1959Pages 589-604 RelatedInformation

Today's medicine in underdeveloped areas.

Recently there has been a growing interest in the economic plight of village people in distant lands. Bold new programs to increase food production, to provide opportunities for education, and to improve health have been launched with the support of the United States Government and private foundations. During the past year, I have spent about four months in India as medical advisor to the government of India and the Ford Foundation. The primary purpose of these visits was to assist in the development of a village health program that would integrate with the other aspects of the community development program in India. The health of a villager in India is the result of the interplay of a number of factors, some of which would at first glance seem far removed from health. Any endeavor to improve the health of an Indian villager must consider existing health practices and prejudices, the

Did India Influence Early Greek Philosophies?

In the belief that this intriguing nest of problems needs to be re-examined, I recently spent some months in India, Greece, and the Near East and in libraries in Europe and America. An adequate study of the problems would require years. In this report I offer some impressions which I hesitate to call conclusions, but which may serve at least to state some of the questions. No attempt is made to enumerate the kindly scholars who in all these countries welcomed me and helped me. I would be glad to receive further criticisms and suggestions from anyone who is interested-especially at any point where I may have followed the wrong expert. It should be noted that consideration is here almost entirely confined to philosophers prior to Socrates; the problems of possible Eastern influences on Plato and Aristotle are too involved for brief treatment, and in the Hellenistic period, after the blaze of Alexander, conditions were different from those of the early days.