POSTED ON November 4, 2020
January 25, 2024
As winter envelops Delhi, the city once again finds itself ensnared in an air pollution crisis. With over 30 million residents, the region has seen a surge in hospital admissions, notably among children and the elderly grappling with breathing difficulties. The Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi reached an alarming 500 in early November1 and […]
August 22, 2023
Disclaimer This article was first published in Times of India on August 16, 2023. In Parliament’s tumultuous monsoon session, focus briefly turned to the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, with the presentation of a CAG report. It covers the implementation of PMJAY from its inception in 2018 to early 2021, which overlaps with my […]
March 31, 2023
1. You started your journey as a writer and then co-founded your NGO ‘Sahiyo’ for eliminating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in the country. What inspired you to start Sahiyo? It will be great if you could also elaborate on the status of the practice currently in India. I was writing a film on female genital […]
March 21, 2023
1. You have extensive experience in designing and implementing international health programs, including community-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs and adolescent reproductive health projects in India. How do you see the initiative to digitalise healthcare, especially for women? I have always believed that there is a great potential in digitalising healthcare. First, it will make information and […]
February 9, 2023
Disclaimer This article was first published in Indian Express on February 4, 2023. India stands on the brink of a massive opportunity. Quality education and health for the 26 million children born each year and the 65 per cent of the population under the age of 35 could help provide a workforce that would propel […]
February 9, 2023
Disclaimer This article was first published in Indian Express on January 28, 2023. We need an urgent and well-resourced ‘whole-of-society’ approach to protecting, promoting and caring for the mental health of our people. Every other day, we wake up to a disturbing headline of a young person having left us by committing suicide. Suicides rates […]
December 7, 2022
Climate impacts are intensifying to become one of the most significant health crises this century. In the recent times, we have seen examples of extreme weather conditions with constant worrisome news of forest fires, heatwaves, draughts, hurricanes, floodings, earthquakes, winter storms, etc. which have led to widespread devastation, deaths, and displacements – the most recent […]
November 17, 2022
India has been in a serious water crisis for the past 20 years. Per capita availability has declined to about 1,400 cubic meters annually and will decline further as urban and industrial growth accelerates. The issues are well known, but in their thematic and administrative silos.
September 28, 2022
“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.” – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg Today is International Safe Abortion Day – […]
September 12, 2022
These are just some of the alarming extreme weather events in this year alone that have made it to the headlines. As you read this, Pakistan is reeling from unprecedented rain and flooding that has devastated the country. And we can be sure to expect more such weather events around the world that tells us that climate change is very real and is taking place at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.
September 1, 2022
For the longest time, our society has lived in a rigid binary world of men and women and girls and boys. Today, slowly but surely the world is understanding that gender is evolving. My introduction to this colourful world of gender took place when I started working with a CBO who worked for the LGBTQ+ […]
August 5, 2022
World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated from August 1-7 every year by 120 countries. The aim of the week is to remind everybody that each of us have a role in protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding. Keeping in mind this year’s theme – ‘Step up for Breastfeeding: Educate and Support’, we asked Suchi Mahajan, Senior Director […]
July 12, 2022
Persisting and increasing inequalities have been a defining feature of our times. French economist Thomas Picketty, in his seminal work Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has postulated that inequalities are here to stay as they are hardwired into the system. Returns to capital have been, and continue to be, much greater than those that are […]
April 7, 2022
‘Why aren’t people terrified? What do we have to say? What do we have to do?’ - This dialogue, a desperate plea for help, is from the recent movie Don’t Look Up that released in 2021. A satirical take on the climate crisis, an exasperated astronomer, one of the main characters, ask this question while desperately trying to get the attention of the media and government, as a comet, hurtling through space with earth in its path, threatens to end all life in a matter of months. The fast approaching comet is an allegory for climate change, leading the astronomers to desperately attempt to tackle the government, political, celebrity, and media indifference to the impending crisis, much like the struggle and frustration of climate scientists today.
March 9, 2022
The world we live in today is fraught with challenges across the sectors of health, education, livelihoods, gender, human rights, among others. In the past two years, many of them have been amplified as the pandemic swept across the globe, leaving in its wake a trail of disruption, forever altering lives for many.
February 25, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic was just the beginning of it all for me. Insidious and all-consuming, I vividly remember how it began and how, slowly, a constant sense of anxiety took control of every aspect of my life. Amid the ongoing crisis, my family lost five members to COVID. While such desperate times took a toll […]
December 17, 2021
Inequality is arguably one of the biggest challenges of our times, and it continues to grow wider and deeper with some worrying statistics. The richest 1% of the population controls almost half of the world’s wealth and the World Bank estimates that the pandemic has pushed 88-115 million more people into poverty in addition to the nearly 690 million already living in extreme poverty. 2.2 billion people do not get clean drinking water and 45% of the world population does not have access to a safely managed sanitation services. Apart from the inequalities and inequities, the last couple of decades have also seen tremendous ecological and environmental degradation due to adverse climate change effects. Global temperatures are increasing, and 18 of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.
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