ICMR has a program called “Short-term Studentship” (STS). It is aimed at junior medical students in India. It is very much like any major research undertaken anywhere in the world where you submit to the committee the topic for your research and how you propose to do the study. Once the ethics committee approves your project you can start the study. I understand that the actual field study should be done within 2 months. You are then given 8 to 10 months to write and submit the results to ICMR. In the mean time you are allowed to present the paper at local meetings and conferences. At the end of it, if ICMR thinks that your work and research were good you are given a certificate and a stipend which used to be Rs 10,000.00. I don’t know what it is now. The whole process is to encourage medical students in India to get interested in publication, research and presenting papers at conferences. ICMR is making it worthwhile for the students by offering them cash rewards for good papers.

Dear friends, this is exactly what we are trying to do through our web page. However we have not announced cash rewards yet. It will be coming in the not distant future!

Badri.