The journey began on 30th of March 2016, when we hosted what probably was India’s first National Conference for World Bipolar Day. This year’s Event thus marks a decade’s legacy of hosting these unique experiences where a vibrant community comes together to celebrate itself and also mark the day!
S P Jain Auditorium, Bombay Hospital in South Mumbai will yet again host this full day event on Saturday, 29th of March, 2025. For the 3rd year in a row, Amaha Health is collaborating with us at Bipolar India to make this happen.
What exactly is the significance of this day?
30th of March marks the birth anniversary of the legendary artist, Vincent Van Gogh, who was posthumously diagnosed as likely to have been struggling with bipolar disorder. World Bipolar Day is thus celebrated on 30th of March every year in commemoration of the troubled genius.
Coming to our Conference, we have an eclectic line up of speakers from the diverse backgrounds of lived experience, caregivers, advocacy, experts in mental health & holistic health and law and policy. Here’s a glimpse!
Dr Anjali Gokarn, Practising Pediatrician
Anjali will set the tone for the Conference with a Welcome Address and brief overview of what the day holds for the participants.
Dr Anjali Gokarn, MBBS, MD is a Pediatrician by Profession. She has been in practice at Vasai, near Mumbai, for the last 36 years. Anjali has had first-hand connect with mental health conditions on several fronts. She has been living with Anxiety and Depression for four decades. A holistic approach to healing has helped her recover to remission. In addition to this, she has lived in a family with high prevalence of Mental illnesses. She has been a caregiver to her son who has bipolar disorder. Her struggles around mental health has made Anjali determined to contribute to building mental health awareness and support.
Anjali is a fitness enthusiast and is a consummate communicator. In recent years, she has been a fine leader and contributor to the peer support community of Bipolar India and is on Advisory Board, Mental Health Support Foundation.
Avantika Bharad: ‘Young and Thriving!’
Avantika, a passionate social entrepreneur and mental health advocate is dedicated to building safe spaces where people can pause, learn, heal and thrive. As the founder of Beautiful You, a mental health organization with a pan-India presence, she leads initiatives that make mental well-being accessible through community based workshops and innovative digital resources.
With a background in psychology, Avantika brings a unique blend of entrepreneurial vision and social impact to her work. Avantika’s journey reflects her commitment to holistic well-being, education, and community-driven change. When she’s not building ventures, she’s exploring creative pursuits like poetry, public speaking, traveling and fitness.
Being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder type 2 at 17, she understands the importance of communities and strives to be the change she wants to see in the world.
So, hear the story of the feisty and vivacious, Avantika, who is all of 22, and an active part of our peer community!
Saraswathi Suresh: ‘From Compassionate Caring to Advocacy’
A dedicated family carer, mental health advocate, and social development professional, Saraswathi has been caring for her elder son living with schizophrenia for the past 11 years. Her lived experience as a caregiver has profoundly shaped her mission to advocate for the rights and well-being of persons with mental illness (PMI) and empower families who support them.
Saraswathi has completed her Master’s in Social Development from SPJIMR. In 2023, Saraswathi, along with a group of family carers, co-founded FAVMI (Families’ Voice on Mental Illness), a platform that advocates with the government and policy makers for better care, support, and rights for persons with mental illness and their families. FAVMI works under the umbrella of FACEMI India, founded by Dr. Nirmala Srinivasan, with a shared vision of bringing the voices of family carers to the forefront of mental health policy and care.
Saraswathi’s unwavering belief in the power of resilience, gratitude, and hope — values that have carried her family through the most challenging times. She strongly believes that empowering family carers with knowledge, training, and resources is critical in transforming the care journey.
Hers is an inspiring journey!
Nandita Sugandhi: ‘Succeeding in Careers’
Nandita is a daughter, a sister and a friend. A person with Bipolar 2 lived experience, she tries to direct her efforts towards making the world a better place. Her aspiration in life is to be a good human being and to ensure safety and happiness for her family.
Currently, she is working as E2E Productivity Lead for the India Business for Food Industry giant Mondelez International (previously Cadbury). She holds a M. Mgmt. from SJMSOM, IIT-Bombay and an Executive MBA in Project Management from IIM-Mumbai. She’s also a Civil Engineer.
Working in male dominated fields as a conscious choice, since the beginning of her education and career, she’s been a huge advocate of gender parity and women’s self-sufficiency. She brings these ideals to life by empowering her women colleagues and team members, and guiding them towards independence, whenever an opportunity presents itself.
She’s currently working on learning more about mental health and is actively trying to spread awareness regarding it in her social group. She currently lives with her mother in Mumbai.
Nandita is also on Core Team of Mental Health Support Foundation’s Livelihoods initiative, Let’s Walk Together and a generous contributor to the cause of Disability Inclusion.
Neha Kirpal, Co-Founder, Amaha Health: ‘Centering the Expertise by Experience’
Neha is Founding Cohort, India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA), Aspen Fellow, Eisenhower Fellow & Young Global Leader (WEF).
A Mental Health Ambassador, Neha has worked at the intersection of the creative and social sectors for nearly two decades. Having founded India’s first international art fair, she ran it successfully for ten years before selling the business & moving her focus entirely to the marginalised sector of mental health. As a social entrepreneur, Neha brings tremendous experience in weaving impact networks with great passion and commitment, stemming from her own family’s mental health struggles for over three decades.
In 2019, Neha joined Dr. Amit Malik as co-founder of Amaha, today one of India’s largest mental health organisations delivering accessible and high-quality treatment, care and support in 16+ languages, with an in-house team of over 200 psychologists and psychiatrists. Today Amaha’s digital platform has touched over 5 million lives. Having delivered over 1 lac+ therapy and psychiatry sessions in the last year to people in over 600 Indian cities, Amaha now offers in-person consultations across 8 centres in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi NCR and is soon opening its first speciality mental health hospital.
Recognising the need to build mental health capacity and cross-sectoral alliances, Neha was part of the founding cohort that established the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA) in 2023. Set up by Founding Trustees Vasvi and Ashish Bharat Ram, in partnership with Amaha and Children First, the India Mental Health Alliance (IMHA) intends to be a catalyst in building a mental health ecosystem, to centre the voices of experts by experience, foster cross-sectoral partnerships, and lead capacity-building initiatives for professionals and the community. The Alliance has on-boarded over 60+ member organisations from diverse sectors in its initial month of launch and will be building a knowledge centre, national convenings and lived experience ambassadorship with pan-indian participation.
An Aspen fellow (2018) and an Eisenhower fellow (2018), Neha has been part of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders community (2015-2020) and received the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar given by the President of India in 2015. She received the NDTV Indian of the Year award (2018), Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 (2015), and the coveted Business Today’s -India’s Most Powerful Women award for three consecutive years.
Let’s hear the rousing story of this trailblazer of a woman!
Dr Raksha Bhide: ‘Clinical Yoga Therapy for Mental Health’
Dr Raksha Bhide holds a PhD in Clinical Yoga Therapy and Mental Health from Dept of Psychiatry, NIMHANS. She specialises in clinical yoga therapy for mental and maternal mental health and has served over 1000+ clients. As a researcher and a therapist, she’s passionate about integrating clinical yoga therapy with scientific research to make a difference in an individual’s holistic well-being.
She has founded Dhi Life as a holistic mental health initiative. She is passionate about holistic integration of Yoga philosophy from ancient texts with yogic practices as a complementary therapy for her clients. She holds a double Masters in Psychology (M.Sc.) and Yoga Therapy (M.Sc.)
Her interests include Indian Psychology, Integrative Medicine, spirituality, and Indian classical music. She has over 10 National and international publications on yoga and mental health. She was Interviewed by NDTV India for promoting Yoga for mental well-being during C19 lockdown.
She believes that art has a huge role in emotional regulation and mental well-being. She is a trained classical vocalist, plays the Indian flute and integrates music into her therapy sessions. She is interested in spoken poetry, and her writings are a reflection of raw perspectives drawn from her life experience or from stories of her clients.
Anshul Khosla: Expectations from Psychotherapy
Anshul is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 4.5 years of experience addressing a wide range of concerns, including complex trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, attachment issues, OCD, and bipolar disorder. He integrates mental health assessments into his practice and adopts diverse approaches to psychotherapy, emphasising a client-centered action plan to alleviate distress and enhance daily functioning. Anshul holds an M.Phil. in clinical psychology after completing his MSc from Christ University in Bangalore. He has worked with numerous clients in both the government and private sectors in Mumbai. His studies at Oxford University in London as a summer graduate provided him with valuable insights into the brain’s role in emotional processing and its connection to thought and language. His work with the National Disaster Management Authority of India (NDMA) also involved assisting individuals in crisis and promoting long-term change. Outside of his professional endeavors, Anshul is passionate about dancing, filmmaking, content creation, music, and mimicry, believing in the importance of finding joy and balance in life’s challenges.’
Dr Vani Kulhalli: ‘What we know about Bipolar Disorder now’
Dr Vani Kulhalli completed her MBBS from BJ Medical College Pune. Psychiatry is her chosen path and she earned MD Psychiatry from NIMHANS Bangalore and is working in Mumbai since 2003. Due to a busy practice, she was able to treat and be with persons with Bipolar disorder between ages of 7 to 90 years old, both men and women and of varying severity and complexity.
This has sometimes been exhilarating sometimes heartbreaking…but always rewarding.
Dr Soumitra Pathare: Keynote Address
‘Rights Based Approach to Mental Health’
Soumitra Pathare is a psychiatrist and the Director of the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy (CMHLP), Indian Law Society, Pune, India. His primary interests are in the areas of mental health policy, scaling up mental health services, suicide prevention, and rights-based care & legislation.
In the past, he has provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, in drafting India’s new Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, which takes a rights-based approach to mental health care. He was a member of the Mental Health Policy Group appointed by the Government of India to draft India’s first National Mental Health Policy released in October 2014.
Soumitra has served as a WHO consultant in many low- and middle-income countries including Botswana, Seychelles, Lesotho, Samoa, Vanuatu & Eritrea, Guyana, Grenada among others, to assist them in drafting and implementing mental health legislation and national mental health policies.
He is currently the co-PI on multiple projects at CMHLP including suicide prevention projects such as Outlive, ENGAGE, SPIRIT and Contact And Safety Planning (CASP).
Soumitra has conceptualised and steered various innovative community-led mental health interventions and strongly believes all persons with mental illness should be able to fully participate in society, as everyone else!
Soumitra also heads the Advisory Board of Mental Health Support Foundation.
What is a Conference without interaction with participants?
Panel Discussion followed by the Q & A session
About the Panelists:
Dr. Milan Balakrishnan is a Licensed Psychiatrist with over 15 years of experience in the field of mental health. A Consultant Psychiatrist at Bombay Hospital, Dr Milan is trained in both general psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and in psychotherapy. He is also a clinical professor at Masina Hospital, where he teaches medical students and psychiatry residents.
He is Founding Trustee of Mental Health Support Foundation, a mental health NGO that is doing dramatic work in mental health activism.
He is also ex secretary Bombay Psychiatric Society, Member of Indian Psychiatric Society and Committee member of the Digital Mental Health Committee of Indian Psychiatric Society. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and has presented his research at national and international conferences.
Dr. Hvovi Bhagwagar is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist and the founder of Manashni, a private practice in Mumbai. Now in the 25th year of her career, she works extensively with mental health challenges, including mood disorders, anxiety, and trauma-related conditions.
Beyond her clinical practice, Dr. Bhagwagar is deeply committed to mental health advocacy and education. As a Founding Board Member of the Mental Health Support Foundation (MHSF), she actively contributes to initiatives that support persons with lived experience, caregivers, and the broader mental health community. She also serves as a visiting faculty member at various academic institutions, training aspiring mental health professionals in trauma-focused interventions.
A strong advocate for mental health literacy, Dr. Bhagwagar has written extensively for media platforms, presented research at national and international conferences, and authored scholarly articles on trauma-informed practices. She is passionate about creating meaningful dialogues between mental health professionals and persons with lived experience, to build a more inclusive, informed, and compassionate mental health ecosystem.
Dr Anjali Gokarn rounds up the panel by bringing her lived experience as well as insights as Caregiver. (Her Bio has been shared at the outset on this post)
Vijay Nallawala is an Author, Founder Bipolar India and Managing Trustee of Mental Health Support Foundation. Previously an entrepreneur for thirty years, his own lived experience with Bipolar Disorder inspired him to Found Bipolar India, a unique peer led peer support community in 2013. In 2022, he conceptualised and Co-Founded Let’s Walk Together, an initiative focused on livelihoods for persons living with mental health conditions.
He actively advocates for Disability Rights & Inclusion and believes in the power of community led initiatives. His journey and community work has been featured in numerous Podcasts, media articles such as The SOS Show, BBC, Huffington Post, The Better India, Happiest Health among others.
He has been invited as Presenter and Panelist at International Symposia and Conferences on Mental Health & Policy. Vijay is on Advisory Board & Steering Committees of several Organisations engaged in the spheres of mental health and social impact.
Do join us for this fine day of incomparable learning!
PLEASE NOTE: Breakfast begins 9 am
Conference timings: 10 am to 6 pm
Venue: S P Jain Auditorium, Bombay Hospital, 4th floor, New Marine Lines, Mumbai:400020
Registration Fee of Rs.350/- includes Breakfast, Lunch & High Tea.There is NO provision for Spot Registration
https://imojo.in/WBDay2025
Bipolarindia is an Initiative of a Registered NGO,
DISCLAIMER:
The Organisers, Bipolarindia, Amaha and Mental Health Support Foundation will take due precautions to ascertain that the content of the conference contributes to your knowledge in a safe way.
However, if you are a person living with mental health condition/s or other vulnerabilities, some of the sharing at the Conference has the potential of triggering you.
You may want to seek advice from your Mental Health Professional to ascertain whether this Conference is suitable for you to participate in or not.
The nature of the Conference makes participation suitable for age groups 18 and above.
By attending the Conference you agree that you will not hold the Organisers, either jointly or separately, responsible for any content in course of the Conference that may affect you adversely.
Although all speakers have confirmed their participation, the Organisers reserve the right to change/replace any of the speakers if the need arises.
Venue:
S P Jain Auditorium, 4th Floor, Bombay Hospital (New Wing), New Marine lines, Mumbai.
