Author: akshay
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Repeated Names in NSQ Manufacturing
There’s a 2014-2016 survey of drugs. That’s followed up with smaller surveys by CDSCO. We will compare with March 2023 report. Let’s look for repeated offenders. Skymap Pharmaceuticals Uttarakhand. In the old survey they had 14.04% samples NSQ. In March 2023, they’re NSQ again in 2 samples. (We do not know how many samples from…
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Engaging with the System – A Visit to IISc
When Prasanna heard John and I were leaving Hari’s farewell party to join Ravi in the trip to Indian Institute of Science, PS let out a characteristic sigh and said “all the best”. It probably comes from experience of how incorrigible people in elite institutions are when it comes to thinking about broader determinants of…
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A Community for Online Action in Community Health
Today Guru, John, Swamy, Ravi, and I met in the Health for All – Learning Center workspace at SOCHARA. We discussed an action plan for the next 3 years (with a focus on 2023-24) for the Digital Archives Platform unit at SOCHARA. The archives becomes a core activity for a community of community health activist-scholars…
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Non-violence Wasn’t Gandhi’s Only Message
I have read only one book of Gandhi – “My Experiments with Truth“. I read this when I was 13 or 14. I haven’t re-read the book after that. But Gandhi’s thoughts influences me to this day. “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills.” Today…
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Book Review: Everything is Obvious – Once You Know The Answers
I first saw this book in the Internet Freedom Foundation thread on which books people there were reading. Then I saw it on Scott Young’s blog which I have been following since childhood. I never got around to reading it till yesterday when I got into a 19 hour train ride to reach Sevagram for…
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Personal Is Political in Professional Practice
“Should a doctor treat an alcoholic who is injured due to drunk driving? Would your opinion change if it were just a solo accident v/s injuring/killing other people on the road?” asked @arshiet. The regular controversy. Should doctors judge their patients? Is it ethical to even ask the question of whether it is ethical for…
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History is to Practice
I’ve been in many debates where “science” is accused of being wrong. As if science is a set of things written down in a book or a set of ideas that are arrived at by a group of people. Something that has to be consumed by others. I’m baffled by this argument because, to me,…
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The Overcompensating Sociologists of Public Health
Reflexivity. That’s a word very dear to sociologists. It just means how we look at the world is influenced by who we are. But like many things sociology, you give it a word and then you make a big deal out of it. So much that some of the sociologists reading this post are already…
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Does Medicine Need a Paradigm Shift?
Let’s start with physics As my brother’s T-shirt says “The Pulse of the Earth is in Physics”. Physics is a fundamental science. Also called “pure” science. That is a fancy way of saying it is reductionist. When you think of an apple falling to Earth in physics, all you think about is its mass and…
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Money Matters
Warning: This post discusses money. Like, it’s going to talk about my account balance. Now, for some of the people reading this, their account balance might be much lower than mine. And for others, vice versa. So, if you don’t want to compare lives, you’re better off not reading this. *** Like I said when…