the Indian Express
April 13, 2021
Though the app is still to undergo its field trial stage and is not available for public use as yet, it will be a platform catering to the overall wellness of people of all age groups and genders who can access it from their own comfort.
The pilot version of a health application, MANAS Mitra (Mental health And Normalcy Augmentation System), was launched Tuesday. The app, meant to be a guide, especially for mental health, was launched virtually by Prof K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor (PSA) to the Government of India.
A mission-mode initiative led by the Office of the PSA, MANAS Mitra is a joint venture by Pune-based Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) and National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. The application has been developed by the Bengaluru centre of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC).
The pandemic has forced people to spend more time on screen and with little feedback available, there are issues of health being raised, shared Prof Raghavan.
On the app development, the PSA said, “The app must be integrated with public health schemes like the National Health Mission, Poshan Abhiyan, Sanjeevani and others so that it is used widely. Besides, the application must be made multi-lingual.”
Though the app is still to undergo field trials and is not available for public use as yet, it will be a platform catering to the overall wellness of people of all age groups and genders. “The application can be used for a person’s overall wellbeing and is supported with tele-consultation, especially for mental health-related problems. There will be health tracking and all data records will be maintained, which will help users during future consultations. Such interventions can help policy developers in understanding the health of the users,” S D Sudarsan, executive director of CDAC-Bengaluru, told The Indian Express.
The current version has identified two age groups — ages 15 to 20, termed as Mann-Marg, and ages 20 to 35, termed as YoungISTAN. Over the next 100 days, field trials will be carried out to validate the application.
The C-DAC on Tuesday celebrated its 34th foundation day. Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Education, Sanjay Dhotre, addressed the virtual meet. On the occasion, two systems — Security Operation Centre (SoC) as a service and solutions system like Parallel Development Environment, and Automatic Parallelising Compiler (PraDE) for High Performance Computing (HPC) systems — were launched.