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This paper attempts to answer the question: why do the police use deadly force in a democratic country? Police shootings in India are better known as encounters, a term that refers to a specific type of police contact—a spontaneous, unplanned ‘shoot-out’ between the police and alleged criminals, in which the criminal is usually killed, with few or no police injuries. The police use of deadly force remains largely unquestioned or unaccountable. This paper explores the wider structural and systemic factors that create conditions in which killing ‘hardened’ criminals seems to be the last resort for the police to gain some control in the fight against crime. Wider cultural and specifically police sub-cultural factors that make police killing of alleged criminals both feasible and acceptable in a democratic country are discussed. Based on a qualitative study of Mumbai police officers’ narratives accounting for use of deadly force, the paper draws upon wider policing literature in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, South Africa and certain Latin American countries to explain why this form of police violence occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that manifestations of the sacred in Hollywood biblical spectaculars, as well as in films from Bollywood (the Hollywood of Bombay), have been significantly contoured by a reticulate set of oral norms. That is, the films' depictions of hierophany are tied to a way of knowing that maintains roots in orality (as distinct from a way of knowing historically permitted and/or induced by a cultural investment in the written word). Such orally inflected norms as epical and exoteric abundance, melodrama, frontality, and a telescoping of the real into the mythic compel us to re-think the common critical assumption that religious spectaculars are not authentically manifesting the sacred or that they can only be operating as escapist metaphors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) strains resistant to isoniazid and rifampin (multidrug-resistant tuberculosis [MDR-TB]) are increasingly reported worldwide, requiring renewed focus on the nuances of drug resistance. Patients with low-level moxifloxacin resistance may benefit from higher doses, but limited clinical data on this strategy are available. Methods We conducted a 5-year observational cohort study of MDR-TB patients at a tertiary care center in India. Participants with Mtb isolates resistant to isoniazid, rifampin, and moxifloxacin (at the 0.5 µg/mL threshold) were analyzed according to receipt of high-dose moxifloxacin (600 mg daily) as part of a susceptibility-guided treatment regimen. Univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazard models assessed the relationship between high-dose moxifloxacin and unfavorable treatment outcomes. Results Of 354 participants with MDR-TB resistant to moxifloxacin, 291 (82.2%) received high-dose moxifloxacin. The majority experienced good treatment outcomes (200 [56.5%]), which was similar between groups (56.7% vs 54.0%, P  = .74). Unfavorable outcomes were associated with greater extent of radiographic disease, lower initial body mass index, and concurrent treatment with fewer drugs with confirmed phenotypic susceptibility. Treatment with high-dose moxifloxacin was not associated with improved outcomes in either unadjusted (hazard ratio [HR], 1.2 [95% confidence interval {CI},.6–2.4]) or adjusted (HR, 0.8 [95% CI,.5–1.4]) models but was associated with joint pain (HR, 3.2 [95% CI, 1.2–8.8]). Conclusions In a large observational cohort, adding high-dose (600 mg) moxifloxacin to a drug susceptibility test–based treatment regimen for MDR-TB was associated with increased treatment-associated side effects without improving overall outcomes and should be avoided for empiric treatment of moxifloxacin-resistant MDR-TB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based initiatives have become a popular approach to addressing the health needs of underserved populations, in both low- and higher-income countries. This article presents findings from a study of female peer facilitators involved in a community-based maternal and newborn health intervention in urban slum areas of Mumbai. Using qualitative methods we explore their role perceptions and experiences. Our findings focus on how the facilitators understand and enact their role in the community setting, how they negotiate relationships and health issues with peer groups, and the influence of credibility. We contextualize this within broader conceptualizations of peer-led health interventions and offer recommendations for similar community-based health initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines two celebrated cases of the conversion of Indian youths to Christianity by missionaries in Bombay: the case of Dhanjibhai Nauroji of 1839 and the case of Shripat Sheshadri of 1843. The cases were precedents in Indians challenging Christian conversion by way of the law courts, and highlight the adaptive responses of the Parsi and Hindu communities of Bombay and western India to Christian proselytism, and the attractions and challenges of the larger colonial environment to Indians' ability to regulate and safeguard their community and caste norms. The article argues that in response to Christian proselytism and colonial power and ideology, Indians utilized traditional and non-traditional mechanisms that ultimately led to challenges, accommodations, and reassessments of Indians' place under the ideological framework of colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To assess the prevalence and pattern of alcohol use in a middle-aged and elderly population in Mumbai, India. Methods: 50 220 men aged ≥45 years from the lower and lower-middle section of the general population were interviewed. Results: 18.8% were currently consuming alcoholic beverages, of whom 32.8% drank on at least 6 days per week. The most popular beverage was locally distilled products of fruits and grain (country liquor). Seventy-five per cent of the consumers of country liquor would consume over 53 g of ethanol on a day when they drank, with 46.6% of these doing so on at least 6 days per week. Conclusions: Abstinence, and also heavy and frequent use of alcohol, are common in this population and the latter is likely to have significant public health implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the author's gendered analyses of a new religious movement in Bombay, India. Early on in her work on new religious communities, the significance of the charismatic leader emerged as an essential factor in both commitment to and disillusionment with alternative religious groups. As the research revealed the importance of strong emotional attachments in the development of religious commitment, another more troubling aspect of the teacher and follower relationship also became apparent, as the spiritual leader often assumed the role of an idealized father figure among the devotees. The parental dynamic evident within the groups had social as well as psychological implications that, for many of the women, mirrored pre-existing domineering and abusive relationships in the family of origin. The reproduction of varied forms of abuse &mdsh; psychological, physical, and sexual — within the surrogate family structure of charismatic movements led me to consider the effects of childhood abuse on the development of the self, a study that went far beyond the scope of religious conversion.