NIMHANS mental health courses on cellphones
New Delhi, June 27: Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Wednesday launched NIMHANS Digital Academy to train mental health professionals through virtual classrooms, saying the government will see if mental health disorders can be screened at primary health centres under Ayushman Bharat.
"We must match speed, skill and scale to implement the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017," he said while addressing the first batch of professionals enrolled for undergoing courses in psychiatry and psychiatric social work.
Nadda said the Act brings forth a stronger and more robust legal scaffold and humane and patient-centric rights based approach for mental healthcare in the country, according to a statement by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry.
"We have to be ambitious and ensure that the Act increases in scale of operations," he said. The minister also released the training modules and curricula for various training programmes to be undertaken at the NIMHANS Digital Academy.
About 150,000 sub-centres that will be converted into Health and Wellness Centres under Ayushman Bharat to deliver comprehensive primary health care, Nadda said: "In the coming times, we have to see if we can detect mental health disorders at these centres and if it can be included in the universal screening ... We can think of training our frontline functionaries in detection."
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, which has always been in the forefront of capacity building and human resource training in the mental health sector, has an established infrastructure for starting a digital academy.
Through the academy, it will provide large scale training to healthcare service providers like medical officers, psychologists, social workers and nurses to deliver quality mental healthcare services throughout the country.
Up to 50 people can be trained in the virtual classroom with only a mobile phone with 3G connection required at the receiver's end. The courses for different categories of healthcare providers would be of about 30 hours duration each and spread across a period of three months.
The courses will be digitally delivered to remotely located healthcare providers across the country. After successful completion of the course and evaluation, the participants will be awarded "Diploma in Community Mental Health" by NIMHANS, Bengaluru.
Similar training programmes will also be started by the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi, and Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health, Tezpur, and other mental health institutes supported by the ministry.
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K’taka HC judge whose controversial remarks triggered controversy expresses regret before open court
Bengaluru: Karnataka High Court judge, Justice V Srishananda, on Saturday expressed regret in open court after facing backlash over his controversial remarks in his recent court hearings, reported Bar and Bench.
Two purported video clips from Justice V Srishananda’s court hearing that show him making inappropriate comments went viral across social media platforms.
On Saturday, Justice Srishananda invited members of the Advocates Association, Bengaluru, and senior lawyers to his courtroom at 2:30 PM, where he read out a note expressing regret for inappropriate comments.
Quoting Advocates Association President Vivek Subba Reddy, Bar and Bench wrote, “He expressed regret for the comments and clarified that it was not his intention to offend any community or members of the Bar. He also requested the association to relay this message to all members of the Bar.”
Reddy further stated, “We also advised him to encourage young lawyers in the courtroom and refrain from making any irrelevant remarks during hearings.”
Another senior lawyer present during the session confirmed to the legal news portal that Justice Srishananda also addressed comments directed at a woman lawyer, who was seen in one of the videos being reprimanded by the judge. The judge Justice Srishananda clarified that his remarks were not intended to target her (woman lawyer) specifically, but rather pertained to the appellant she was representing. “He explained that his comment was meant to imply that the appellant seemed to know a lot about the other party,” said the lawyer.
In addition, Justice Srishananda assured those present that he would avoid making such comments in the future.
The controversy came to light on September 19, when a video clip from an August 28 Court hearing surfaced on social media, showing Justice Srishananda referring to a Muslim-majority sub-locality in Bengaluru’s Goripalya as "Pakistan." Hours later, another video from the same courtroom emerged, in which the judge was seen making a gender-insensitive remark.
Following outrage over the viral videos, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, along with Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant, and Hrishikesh Roy, on September 20 took a suo motu cognizance and sought a report from the Karnataka High Court Registrar General in connection with the viral video.
