Columnists

Shah Alam Khan

The writer is Professor of Orthopedics, AIIMS, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal.

And Then There Were None: Veteran journalist Saeed Naqvi’s The Muslim Vanishes imagines India without its Muslim population

Sat, Apr 09, 2022

The dystopic play makes a case for empathy while highlighting the politics of identity that is skewered against minorities

The tragedy of Dr Archana Sharma is the failure of Indian society

Fri, Apr 01, 2022

Shah Alam Khan writes: People who drove her to suicide have to be punished. But a society that refuses to condemn daily acts of coercion, injustice and violence is equally culpable for the crime.

Remembering Paul Farmer, a healer and guiding light

Sat, Feb 26, 2022

Shah Alam Khan writes: He worked towards building a world where everyone has a doctor.

UP is staring at a health crisis

Sat, Feb 12, 2022

Shah Alam Khan writes: There appears to be a political determination to induce a collective amnesia about death and devastation, particularly following the brutal second wave of Covid-19.

Hunger isn’t about biology. It’s about politics

Sat, Nov 13, 2021

Shah Alam Khan writes: In the absence of an organised food security net and political commitment, India is being crippled by the challenge of pervasive hunger and malnourishment

What do we do about the hate and violence in our society?

Fri, Oct 01, 2021

Shah Alam Khan writes: To cleanse a society of the kind of violence and hatred seen in the Assam video, we need truth and confession from the highest levels of leadership.

Partition horrors are not for remembrance, but for learning lessons

Tue, Aug 31, 2021

Shah Alam Khan writes: The memories should serve as handbook on how not to divide the nation communally

Chippi the lizard: A tale of human compassion

Tue, Jun 01, 2021

If the pandemic has revealed the ugliness of death to us, it has also revealed the human capacity for love and empathy.

Ramping up medical oxygen production, distribution can save lives

Sat, May 08, 2021

Use of the existing government supply lines, for example, the 5,05,879 fair price shops (part of Public Distribution System), can be one solution. These are distributed through the length and breadth of the country. The use of LPG cylinder distributors can also be explored.

A new Covid wave has crashed on us. We must evaluate what we’ve learnt so far

Sat, Apr 17, 2021

One year into the pandemic, we are still ill-prepared as far as health infrastructure is concerned.

Why ‘Cups of Nun Chai’, by Alana Hunt, needs to be read in urgency to understand the narrative of jingoism

Sun, Mar 07, 2021

A probing exploration of life in Kashmir, caught in an endless spiral of violence and extreme nationalism

Vaccines are powerful but not perfect tools. Application in a diverse country is a challenge

Fri, Dec 04, 2020

Other than adverse effects, many questions have remained unanswered. How effective will these vaccines be in breaking the transmission of the disease? Historically, in many diseases, vaccination models have failed to break disease transmission.

Days of reckoning

Sun, Oct 25, 2020

In this collection of nine essays, writer Arundhati Roy theorises justice in a broken world

Socialism has been a handy weapon in successfully fighting COVID-19 pandemic

Mon, Oct 19, 2020

Countries more successful in curbing COVID-19 are welfare states, ruled by left-of-centre parties. There is a lesson here.

Nation has not given adequate importance to health of its citizens. We need to break from the past

Sat, Aug 15, 2020

It is up to us: Do we want to go back to the “normal” which we thought was normal or use this opportunity to understand the real meaning of freedom and create a new normal that is founded on the principle of equality.

A cure for COVID-19: Only science can combat virus. Scientific community must not remain silent on tall claims

Sat, Jun 27, 2020

Even though COVID-19 continues to rule and ruin our daily worlds, it still does not give the right to the righteous of the land to promote cures, remedies and preventions which are beyond the realm of their understanding and operation. Prudence is the need of the hour and prudence comes from wisdom.

Lack of education, erosion of science has fuelled paranoia constructed around COVID-19

Tue, May 26, 2020

If we want to come out of the ruins of this pandemic and from the consequences of the lockdown, we have to remove fear and stigma from this awful disease. We have to let our minds be governed by science, and not fakery.

Nation’s fight against Covid-19 cannot ignore the chronically sick, vulnerable

Thu, Apr 30, 2020

Physical distancing is imperative to check the spread of the virus. But the lockdown could have been implemented with more compassion. People’s health is the responsibility of the state.

Coronavirus threat is real, but responses to it are bordering on paranoia

Fri, Mar 13, 2020

It is imperative to take action against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But to believe that we are facing an apocalypse and react accordingly is sheer madness.

The deaths in Kota bare the light on a healthcare system founded on apathy towards the poor

Wed, Jan 08, 2020

What is urgently required is not the involvement of private players but a sincere engagement by the state in matters concerning peoples’ health. Reports have shown that most of the babies in Kota died due to suffocation at birth; low birth-weight and infections were the other significant causes of death.

Celebration of Hyderabad encounter, passage of CAA, show the same disquieting desire for vengeance

Sat, Dec 21, 2019

Police murders like the one in Hyderabad are not events to celebrate but occasions to introspect. The total lack of faith of the common people in the judicial system is something which should worry us all. Similarly, total impunity in passing an unconstitutional law should also be an occasion to introspect.

Ayodhya verdict offers justice for some, but not fairness for all

Sat, Nov 16, 2019

We should respect the judgment of the Supreme Court without trying to fit it into the landscape of justice and fairness as explained by Rawls. It is a closure of something perniciously erosive to the idea of India, the idea to which we all owe our allegiance.