While there are no documents detailing this, three bodies of the Government of India (GOI) have dedicated funding towards research on dementia. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and Department of Science and Technology (DST) under GOI have specific funding initiatives to conduct research in the field of dementia. The multi-centre Dementia Science Programme of the DBT is a major initiative of the Government to examine prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for dementia in India (Bhatt, 2020). The DST supports many projects in the field of cognitive science (including dementia) through the Cognitive Science Research Initiative (CSRI), which was initiated in 2008 (DST, 2022). The Indian Council of Medical Research has just completed a multicentric research project to develop and adapt a neurocognitive test battery to diagnose dementia in five Indian languages, for literates and illiterates (Iyer et al., 2020). These bodies of the government have funded several research studies on dementia over the last two decades, focusing mainly on basic biology, epidemiology, diagnosis, and brain imaging.

References:

Bhatt (2020). DBT’s multi-centric Dementia Science Programme. Vigyan Samachar. Available from: https://vigyanprasar.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/DBT%E2%80%99s-multi-centric-Dementia-Science-Programme-10apr20.pdf

Department of Science and Technology (2022). Cognitive Science Research Initiative (CSRI). Available from: https://dst.gov.in/cognitive-science-research-initiative-csri

Iyer, G. K., Paplikar, A., Alladi, S., Dutt, A., Sharma, M., Mekala, S., … & Ghosh, A. (2020). Standardising Dementia Diagnosis Across Linguistic and Educational Diversity: Study Design of the Indian Council of Medical Research-Neurocognitive Tool Box (ICMR-NCTB). Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 26(2), 172-186. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617719001127