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Time of India
3 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Army Doctor, who treated lakhs of tribals for sickle cell anaemia, to attend President's 'At Home Reception'
PUNE: The deaths of two girls, aged 10 and 12, from sickle cell anaemia at the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) clinic in 2023 deeply disturbed Colonel Dr Y Uday, as he couldn't save them. Upon investigation, Dr Uday discovered that the girls were from a remote village, Shahada, in Nandurbar district, over 500 kilometres from Pune. They came to a govt hospital in Pune when their conditions were worse due to a lack of appropriate treatment in their home district. This troubling revelation prompted Colonel Uday to take action. Guided by the motto of the Armed Forces Medical Services, "Sarve Santu Niramaya" (Let all be free from disease and disability), he went to the village with six final-year MBBS students and four postgraduate students from AFMC. You Can Also Check: Pune AQI | Weather in Pune | Bank Holidays in Pune | Public Holidays in Pune | Gold Rates Today in Pune | Silver Rates Today in Pune He first conducted health check-ups for over 150 tribals aged 6 to 15 and found that their health conditions made them genetically prone to the disease. This drive gave him a glimpse of the severity of the issue. Given the alarming situation in the village, AFMC approached the Nandurbar district administration to carry out extensive medical screenings in tribal villages across remote tehsils. To facilitate this large-scale initiative, AFMC established a satellite centre equipped with advanced testing kits and machines with Col Uday to lead the operations. After receiving approval from the district administration, Dr Uday and his team launched their "mission" in the district. "As part of the mission, 346,107 individuals from the district were screened for sickle cell disorder. Of these, on-site confirmatory testing via capillary zone electrophoresis was conducted for 161,400 tribals, including 130,483 students from 646 schools and colleges, and 19,082 door-to-door tests were conducted across 284 villages," Dr Uday told TOI. Additionally, 9,399 patients were screened at healthcare facilities, including primary health centres, rural hospitals, and district hospitals, along with 2,436 pregnant women, he said. Alongside sickle cell screening, the outreach programme also screened 151,000 tribal individuals for anaemia as part of the 'Anaemia Mukt Bharat' initiative. As part of the Tribal Health Initiative, non-communicable disease screenings were conducted, with 8,527 tribals screened for multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer), 8,464 for diabetes through HbA1C testing, and 10,024 for thyroid dysfunction, said AFMC doctors. As a long-term measure, Dr Uday developed an indigenously built hybrid application, ' for monitoring sickle cell disease, providing marriage counselling, and ensuring long-term follow-up for patients. Lauding Dr Uday and AFMC's efforts, the then-collector of Nandurbar district, Manisha Khatri, told TOI, "Had the AFMC and Dr Uday not stepped in, we would not have recognised the severity of the issue. " "We have prepared a comprehensive health report on the disease and submitted it to the state govt. The report includes several short and long-term measures that will be implemented over the years to mitigate the disease. Long-term strategies need to be developed on the ground to break the genetic transmission of the disease in the district." On August 2, Dr Uday received an official invitation from the President's office to attend the 'At Home Reception' at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre on the occasion of Independence Day. He, along with three other distinguished doctors from the country, will attend the function. "It is a great honour to receive an invitation from the supreme commander of the armed forces. This recognition is a result of the sincere efforts and hard work of my students and the support of my seniors," said Dr Uday, who now heads the Department of Medical Research at AFMC. "We are determined to take this mission to the next stage, and our work continues. This recognition will certainly boost our morale to care for the people in the remote corners of the country," he added. Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Happy Independence Day wishes , messages , and quotes !
The Hindu
26-04-2025
- General
- The Hindu
At Home in Sittilingi: Making a case for the rural feminine
At Home in Sittilingi is an exhibition of embroidered textile art created by 10 women artisans from the Lambadi community. The works are stitched on organic cotton and draw from memory and immediate surroundings — trees that surround them, stories heard from elders, birds marking seasonal change, millets grown in their fields, and the intricacies of domestic life. Held at Sabha, a thoughtfully restored 160-year-old home in Bengaluru with quiet floors and sunlit corridors, the open, home-like setting lends the show a sense of intimacy. Visitors leave their shoes at the threshold, entering barefoot — an unspoken gesture of reverence and groundedness. This simple act changes the way we engage. We step softly. We pause longer. We meet the works not as distant observers, but as listeners in a room full of stories. The anecdotal texts accompanying each embroidery, written by the women themselves, add texture and voice, making the gallery feel less like a display and more like a gathering. An 'at home' residency The works were developed through a four-month artist residency hosted by the Porgai Artisans Association during an 'at-home' residency, an artist support model where the women continued to live and work within their own context (at a studio at the Porgai centre) rather than being displaced into unfamiliar institutional settings. Curated by designer Anshu Arora, the residency invited the women to reflect, remember, and reimagine from within their own ground. Lalitha Regi, co-founder of Porgai, meaning pride and dignity in the Lambadi dialect, and a senior doctor at the Tribal Health Initiative, offers insight into the complexity of participation: 'The women had to make many choices in their domestic lives before committing to the residency. It required them to travel 12 kilometres — an unremarkable distance for us, but a world of variables for them. Catching the one bus, ensuring people at home are fed, children taken care of, chores and farm labour attended to… each of their lives holds its own intricate challenges. Once they were made to feel safe, financially and emotionally, and given ownership over their work and creativity, we saw magic.' That atmosphere of trust and co-creation shaped the work itself. Over the months, hesitation gave way to confidence, and the familiar grammar of Lambadi embroidery transformed into something layered, narrative, and imaginative. Many of the embroideries carry a playfulness that feels both deliberate and deeply personal: a crooked-beaked bird, a smiling cow, a parrot with twinkling eyes, a bee-eater offering a subtle wink. These are not naive embellishments, but visual signatures of a relationship with the natural world that is familial, reciprocal, and full of mirth. The flora and fauna in these textiles are not passive scenery. They are kin. There is humour, memory, and mischief sewn into the leaves and wings — suggesting a way of being with nature that is less about dominance and more about camaraderie. Rejecting curation as an act of control The Association has been active in Sittilingi for over 18 years. It began with the revival of Lambadi embroidery and has grown into a cooperative model that centres the artisan not as labourer, but as knowledge holder, designer, and cultural custodian. Today, the collective has 60 women. They are paid fairly, retain control of their process, and make decisions as a group. The curation of this exhibition reflects that ethos. 'Too often, curation becomes an act of control — an exercise in authoriality,' says Arora. 'With Porgai, I wanted to hold space without shaping it. The artists already know what they want to say.' Each artist began with a six-inch square. The modest frame served as scaffold and possibility. From there, they embroidered both independently and together, shaping works that were at once singular and collective, a total of 26 pieces — the smallest being 21' x 11.5' and the largest being 50' x 36.5'. In some cases, they stitched their imaginations side by side: 10 interpretations of the sky, each in a different hue, texture, and mood, were sewn together into a larger tapestry of atmosphere. In another, they explored the ground beneath their feet, rendering stones, shadows, leaves, and soil with a sensitivity to texture and light. Other works emerged through collaborative storyboarding: large pieces of fabric were mapped and divided among them to depict scenes of daily life — a wedding, an agricultural routine, the choreography of water collection. They used more than 21 traditional Lambadi stitches (such as the maki and bhurai) and some newly invented ones by the artisans. Each work is accompanied by a note from its maker. Neela speaks of ancestors. Lavanya dreams of bees. Parimala embroiders the Porgai centre so her grandchildren might remember it. Selvi's stream flows with layered fabric mimicking rock undulations. Arora also situates this ethos within a broader design discourse. 'The definition of luxury is changing. It now is about objects with a story and human connection — handcrafted, speaking of the person behind the item, made slowly and deliberately, with care, ethics, and non-exploitative systems in place. The rich textiles and crafts of our subcontinent are coming alive beautifully in this light.' Beyond revival In India, the art world continues to reflect caste and class divides. 'Art' is gallery-validated, urban, and elite. 'Craft' is rural, feminine, lower-caste — and systemically undervalued. Porgai rejects this binary not through argument but through assertion. These are embroidered works with conceptual clarity, formal integrity, and cultural density. They are art. They are testimony. They are systems of knowing. As Arora notes, 'A lot of textile designers and professionals in allied fields are doing revival work. I hope we all keep up with nourishing these communities in ways that make them self-sustaining. As designers and facilitators, the success of our work is when it is temporary — when we can step out eventually, and what we started has a life of its own, runs itself, and blooms and prospers by the people at its core.' Porgai holds precisely that promise. It is a body of work where process and product align, where care is not an afterthought but the method. It reveals that aesthetics need not be detached from ethics. That making can be mutual, and beautiful things can be made without violence. At Home in Sittilingi is on view at Sabha till tomorrow. The essayist and educator writes on design and culture.
