Neurobabble, a blog by four Neuroscience PhD students at Oxford University, has a post by Sana Suri about the treatment of mental illness in India that claimed the limelight with the horrifying case of 28 mentally ill patients who burnt to death while chained to trees in the village of Erwadi in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
But Suri highlights some attempts to improve the situation in rural areas, including the initiative of the Sydney-based George Institute for Global Health that is currently running a large-scale study, called the SMART Mental Health program, targetting more than 40 select villages in Andhra Pradesh.
The Georg Institute for Global health was set up in 1999 with the support of the University of Sydney Medical School, with the aim of creating a world-class centre for research in global health. You can read more about their Indian project here.