 I take this opportunity to introduce to you a new course, what we call as selected topics in psychology. This very course is very, very different compared to rest of the NPTEL courses in three ways. One, it has no prescribed syllabus. If you look at the other NPTEL courses, you have a defined template. You have a very, very defined course structure and then you also have a defined time limit. Unlike those NPTEL courses, here you find that it has no prescribed syllabus. Rather, topics which are very, very pertinent, issues which are burning, such topics which attract the attention of the beginners, such topics that attract the attention of those who are not in psychology, as well as topics which usually people of the other domains of knowledge would also like to know. Those topics have been very surgically chosen for this very course. Number two, that this very course has multiple speakers. I must tell you that little later, I will be introducing to you an elite panel of speakers. So, all together, nine different people have talked on different, different topics which are of extreme relevance, which are of great interest. And third, this entire exercise of coming forward with this course is very, very apt. In a sense, that you would realize little later that there are historically certain significant events that make us think of a course like this. One, two, you would see the collective strength of this very course. Collective strength in the sense that you have multiple speakers. You have people coming from different domains of knowledge. You would also see that there are people who are from little diverse background. And of course, this whole course covers a wide range of topics. For the convenience, this very course has been divided into six different segments. The first segment is the historical review of psychology. Second segment, which deals with society, culture and psychology. Third segment, which is focused on health and well-being. The fourth segment, which is focused on psychological testing and assessment. The fifth area, which deals with neuropsychology and most importantly, it also has something called positioning psychology in the modern context, that is the sixth and the last segment. And this segment is very, very different from the other five segments in a sense that here there is one talk, but it has two panel discussions. So, we come again to the historical review of psychology. Under this very heading, we will have four different lectures, which primarily would begin on emerging of psychology as a discipline to the whole indigenization of psychology in India. The second area, that is society, culture and psychology, there also we will have five different talks, which would again be talking about certain issues, which have cultural and social relevance to how culture and organizational behavior, they interact as well as we would also have topics on attitude similarity and dissimilarity. The third segment, which is health and well-being, it will have five lectures and interestingly you will have a whole lot of diversity in terms of the range that this section covers, where you will have a psychiatrist talking about the perspective on brain and mind. And then it will come up to positive emotions, well-being, mental health issues. In fact, folk healing would also come into being and of course, the major issue of sleep or sleep deprivation. Psychological testing and assessment has a whole range of again diversity, five different talks would be there. The fifth segment that is neuropsychology, it has the highest number of talks, seven different talks you will find in this section. And then the last segment that is positioning psychology in the modern context, where there is one lecture followed by two panel discussions. It is my privilege to introduce to you or distinguished an elite panel of scholars, the best that you can think of in today's India. I am going to introduce to you these speakers in the alphabetical order. Dr. Ajit Dalal is a professor of psychology at the University of Allahabad. He was a visiting faculty at Queens University, Canada, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi. I am Ahmadabad and Calcutta University. He has contributed to areas such as information integration theory, causal attribution, research methods, health beliefs, folk healing, disability attitudes and the history and concept in Indian psychology. Dr. Alok Bajpay is a senior consultant psychiatrist at Kanpur. Between 2003 and 4 and again 2006, 7, he worked as consultant psychiatrist in Australia. His area of interest includes child and adolescent mental health, besides psychiatry, physics, film, music and literature. He has been organizing awareness campaigns and workshops, especially with schools and has trained teachers aiming at increasing sensitivity towards childhood problems. He is also a regular columnist who writes about issues of psychiatry and sexuality for general readers. I am the coordinator of this course and in that capacity, I am taking the privilege of introducing this course as well as the speakers to you. It is little uncomfortable introducing oneself, but I have no choice. Well, I am currently working as associate professor of psychology at IIT Kanpur. Earlier, I have worked at IIT Guwahati and also at QC University, Japan in visiting capacity. My area of interest includes cognitive neuropsychology and trauma psychology. Prof. Girishwar Mishra is a professor of psychology at Delhi University since 1993. Earlier he had served Bhopal University, Allahabad University and Gorakhpur University. His area of interest includes social psychology, human development, cultural and indigenous psychology and human motivation and creativity. Professor J. B. P. Sinha is a professor of psychology and management at the Association for Social Engineering Research and Training, a cert at Patna. He had earlier worked at Ranchi University and A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies at Patna. He was also a visiting faculty to Hunter College, City University of New York, Wake Forest University and McGill University. His work and area of interest includes style of leadership, work culture, dependence proneness, organizational behavior, cultural context of health and Hindu identity and national character. Dr. Manasky Mandel is an outstanding scientist at the Defense Research and Development Organization that is DRDO and is currently the chief controller R and D of life sciences in DRDO since March this year. Prior to this he was the director of Defense Institute of Psychological Research, DIPR, one of the DRDO labs. Before joining DRDO, Dr. Mandel was a professor of psychology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT, Kharagpur and he had also served Banaras Hindu University. Twice he was visiting professor at Kyushu University, Japan. His area of interest includes social cognition and experimental neuropsychology. Dr. Rakesh Gupta is the head and director of radiology and imaging at Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurugram. Earlier he had served Hindura Hospital and Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences that is in mass at Delhi. From 1984 to 2012 Dr. Gupta served at Sanjay Gandhi post graduate institute of medical sciences at Lucknow. He is a neuro radiologist with more than 30 years experience in clinical studies and a large number of publications. He has been involved in the validation of various software in its clinical application in neuroscience. Professor Ramadhar Singh is a distinguished professor at IIM Bangalore since 2010. Before this he had served at National University of Singapore, IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Kharagpur and Patna University. His research areas include in attraction, cross cultural and developmental differences and leadership and decision making. Professor Vivek Benegal is a professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Neemans Bangalore. His major research is directed towards epidemiology of substance abuse in India and neuro biology and genetics of alcohol dependence. He has been actively involved in policy and advocacy related to substance abuse. As you can see we have psychologist, we have psychiatrist and we also have radiologist in this panel. Another interesting thing that we have people who are in teaching and research as well as people who are in clinical practice. So, all together this is a very vibrant and as I told you a very distinguished and elite panel of speakers. Coming back to the topics and the subsections, the first section that is historical review of psychology. It is very important to understand that we are right now celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. And if you trace the history of psychology, you find that the first person to offer a course in psychology in the US was William James. And William James had a connection with Swami Vivekananda. He did hear him for long a time when we are celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. It makes sense to look forward to a course which starts from the historical antecedents in psychology to the very modern look that psychology has taken right now. Second and most important thing that in 1916 when the first department of psychology began at Calcutta University, in next two years psychology in India is going to be 100-year-old. It is extremely apt for us at this point in time in history to think of a course like this, where we have now right from historical antecedents to the modern look that psychology has taken with all its diversity taking a very, very multidisciplinary approach. And third and very, very important thing why this topic, why this course is very, very apt is the fact that now DSM 40R is undergoing revision and by the time this course will be ready after editing DSM 5 will come into existence. With this introduction, I invite you all to this talk series Selected Topics in Psychology. Let me come back to the first section that is historical review of psychology. The first section presents to you the historical review of psychology which is of course inclined more towards psychology in India. And primarily it is designed to map the growth and development of scientific temper of psychology as a discipline. The first topic that I would be covering is how psychology emerged as a discipline. Then we will have a talk by professor Ajith Dalal who would basically you know telling you about the growth and the decline of western psychology in India. Thereafter professor Greshir Mishra will talk to you about the core and context of Indian psychology. And finally, professor J. B. P. S. Ina will be talking to you on the indigenization of psychology in India. Very interestingly although this talk was recorded know in various phases, but you will realize that in his talk, professor Ajith Dalal refers to the work of professor J. B. P. S. Ina and Ramadhar Singh. And professor J. B. P. S. Ina in his talks, he refers to the work of professor Ajith Dalal, Ramadhar Singh and professor Greshir Mishra. So that is an interesting dynamics that you will realize in this course. The second theme is society, culture and psychology. This section will focus on socially demonstrated and culturally acceptable behavior that help you understand how psychologists interpret them. For instance, look at this ritual that is often seen in Hindu families when they are blessed with a new born baby. Sharing and caring is an integral component of our Indian culture. This is a common observation during Muharram in India. This section will weave the social and cultural salience of the manifested behavior and focus on the psychological significance of such behavior. The first talk in this section would be weaving culture into psychology and you would realize that this is know much more with respect to the case of intelligence. The second talk refers to the implications of culture and self for social behavior. This talk also exclusively focuses on self in Euro American context, self in non-western cultural context and finally, the Indian perspective on self. We have all seen men at work. Professor J. B. P. Sinaw would show you the interplay of society, culture and work. In our day to day interaction, we find ourselves attracted towards others or repelled from them. This can be seen every now and then in individual interactions, group discussions, formulating and supporting a view point and so forth. Two talks by Professor Ramadhar Singh will explain the how and why of attraction based on attitude similarity and dissimilarity. The most unique thing in these talks would be mapping the trajectory of research in this direction on a time scale ranging from 1961 to 2013. Hereafter, we will have the third section that is health and well-being. This is one of the most pertinent sections of this talk series, which covers a very large spectrum. It ranges from lay concept to the technical knowledge about behavioral classifications on clinical criteria, right from what is socially prescribed, culturally acceptable to what and when the behavior demands attention of the clinicians. Everything is enveloped in this very subsection. It touches issues like organization of life activities, access to health care, taboo, stigma, concerns about wellness and sleep related problems. Most importantly, the talk focuses on the lessons from psychological research and sustainable happiness. One of the reasons to include this subsection is the fact that DSM 5 is about to come into picture. Another interesting thing that you will find in this section is that two of the speakers, professor Ajith Dalal and Dr. Alok Bajpayee, both of them have mentioned Gita Upadesh by Lord Krishna, when they talk about human behavior. The fourth section deals with psychological testing and assessment. In this section, we will revisit the issues and concerns related to assessment. The major highlights of this section are looking at behavioral research from a cognitive neuroscience perspective and elaborate introduction to MRI as a technique. And the most interesting topic dealing with non-traditional research, psychology has been obsessed with reporting statistically significant findings and the moment one finds non-significant results, the person becomes distressed. In a unique and rare talk, you will understand the process of deriving meaning out of non-significant statistical findings. Another interesting thing that you will find in this section is of course, a focus on the non-traditional approach interpreting non-significant results and most importantly the current usage of technology, primarily magnetic resonance imaging. The fifth section deals with neuropsychology. Psychologists and researchers have always been interested looking into the brain. Functional approaches have been adopted for doing so. Some people have tried statistically relating the functions of peripheral organs with selected regions of the brain, while some have used magnetic resonance imaging and other brain imaging techniques to look at the functional brain. The talks in this section will focus on the concept of side bias as well as brain micro structural correlates of cognitive functions. Of great academic and social interest are topics pertaining to addictive behavior which deals with addiction to substances as well as behavioral addictions. But the most fascinating topic in this series concentrates on art, aesthetics and the brain. Three interesting things that you will also find in this section is the focus on or the felt need for multidisciplinarity. Two something that we are very inclined towards that is the magnetic resonance imaging. But the speaker you will find there he talks about the limits of MRI and interestingly something that we very generously have been accepting the concept of reflex action. Here you find the speaker challenging the whole concept of reflex action. And finally, we will have the sixth section which talks about positioning psychology in the modern context. In this section I will be talking to you about technological advances in other areas and their impact on psychology. But primarily this will concentrate on the eye tracking technology and virtual reality as a technique. But most importantly this section has two panel discussions. The first panel discussion talks about positioning the state of psychology in India in the global scenario and the second deals with the scientific publications in psychology trend issues and concerns.