Covid-19 · Medicine & Doctors · Politics · Public health

COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – PPEs, Frontline workers, and their families

For the previous posts in this series, see here, here, and here. [Throughout history epidemics have served as excellent windows into social and cultural beliefs and norms. While this contagion-catalyzed uncovering of a society’s thought processes helps historians understand past societies in better ways, for present societies it can potentially be utilized as a way… Continue reading COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – PPEs, Frontline workers, and their families

Covid-19 · Culture & Life · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – March 22 Diary

For the previous posts in this series, see here & here. [Throughout history epidemics have served as excellent windows into social and cultural beliefs and norms. While this contagion-catalyzed uncovering of a society’s thought processes helps historians understand past societies in better ways, for present societies it can potentially be utilized as a way to… Continue reading COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – March 22 Diary

Covid-19 · Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Recommended movies, books etc.

COVID-19 in India – Health Journalists and Public Health Experts You Can Follow on Twitter

In view of the large amount of misinformation about COVID-19 being circulated in India, especially after the Indian PM made some announcements which then had to be elaborately (even if incorrectly) justified, I thought of compiling a list of people/accounts that provide the most accurate and up-to-date information on the pandemic in India. Besides news,… Continue reading COVID-19 in India – Health Journalists and Public Health Experts You Can Follow on Twitter

Covid-19 · Culture & Life · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – March 19 Diary

For the previous post in this series, see here. [Throughout history epidemics have served as excellent windows into social and cultural beliefs and norms. While this contagion-catalyzed uncovering of a society’s implicit and explicit thought processes helps historians understand past societies in better ways, for present societies it can potentially be utilized as a way… Continue reading COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – March 19 Diary

Covid-19 · Culture & Life · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – March 17 Diary

[Throughout history epidemics have served as excellent windows into social and cultural beliefs and norms. While this contagion-catalyzed uncovering of a society’s implicit and explicit thought processes helps historians understand past societies in better ways, for present societies it can potentially be utilized as a way to understand our hidden biases, prejudices, and even kindnesses.… Continue reading COVID-19 in India – Society and Culture – March 17 Diary

History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Politics · Public health

Why India’s founders championed a well-funded government-led healthcare system

This appeared in The Wire on 28 January 2020. Here is the article. I wrote this mainly in response to the Indian government’s gradual and timid abandonment of the universal health care goal for its people, with the latest setback being the plans to hand over our country’s civil hospitals to private agencies. “Immediately after… Continue reading Why India’s founders championed a well-funded government-led healthcare system

Cinema & Bollywood · History India South Asia · History of Medicine · Medicine & Doctors · Public health

How B&W Bollywood has preserved a multi-hued snapshot of India’s public health story

This was published on 28 Sep by the Wire India, here. Below are some excerpts: “TB was, and is, a formidable enemy but the foremost public health enemy in the early and mid-1900s in India, accounting for almost a quarter of all deaths every year, was malaria. Observers used terrible superlatives to describe it, such… Continue reading How B&W Bollywood has preserved a multi-hued snapshot of India’s public health story

Medicine & Doctors · Public health · Recommended movies, books etc.

Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students

As I came to appreciate after countless hours in darkened lecture halls, the biomedical view of disease looks piercingly through a patient toward some essential, objective, solid reality of biology—and yet in doing so it loses, like an X ray, almost any sense of flesh of the person. – Chris Feudtner, ‘Bittersweet: Diabetes, Insulin, and… Continue reading Being a good ‘doctor’, not just a good ‘clinician’: Reading recommendations for MBBS students