The small hilly state of Himachal Pradesh has been working toward effective tobacco control for two years with support from The Union South-East Asia Office (USEA) and the Himachal Pradesh Voluntary Health Association. In May 2009, the state’s capital Shimla was declared smokefree, and 11 other districts around the state are trying to achieve the same goal.

To measure the success of Shimla’s efforts, the government assigned Dr. Ravinder Kumar from the Faculty of the State Institute of Health and Family Welfare in Himachal Pradesh to conduct a compliance assessment survey on enforcement of the law, which is titled Section 4 (smokefree provisions) of India’s Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act.

To support him in translating the findings from his survey into a publishable manuscript, USEA invited Dr. Kumar to New Delhi as a participant in the research internship programme. As a result, Dr Kumar came at the end of July, and the experience earned high marks from him:

“I learned a lot,” he said. “I was very taken by the vision and clarity of the USEA experts on the subject. The working environment at USEA was conducive to learning. I was given open access to the Internet and a small library and, of course, the coffee corner.”

The internship gave him the opportunity to learn research methodology in depth and to gain hands-on experience in using the Epi-Info software for analysing his data.

Dr Kumar also felt the long discussions with experts on policy issues related to tobacco control were another highlight of his week in Delhi. Since the end of his internship, he has finished another draft of the manuscript and is eagerly looking forward to the continued upgrading of his research skills.

Internship opportunities in the USEA are limited, but interested applicants may write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

See also "Summer intern at USEA develops an operations research protocol"