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Qatar Tribune
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Qatar Tribune
Former Qatar-resident Dr Muqeem Khan bridges design and healing
Former Qatar-resident Dr Muqeem Khan is an internationally acclaimed transdisciplinary designer, educator, and herbal medicine practitioner whose work bridges Hollywood's visual effects, academic innovation, and Unani healing traditions. Dr Khan brings over a decade of academic leadership to Qatar, shaping design education as Associate Professor at Northwestern University (2010–2014) and Assistant Professor at VCU (2005–2010). His global career bridges continents and disciplines—from VFX contributions to George of the Jungle, Flubber, Armageddon, and Final Fantasy at Walt Disney and Square USA, to founding Hakeem Mursaleen Pvt Ltd, which integrates Unani medicine with preventive care. A PhD graduate from Charles Sturt University and recipient of Qatar's $1 million NPRP grant as Lead Principal Investigator, Dr Khan continues to inspire through multimedia design, indigenous knowledge systems, and holistic healthcare. Unani (Greek) medicine is one of the few ancient healing systems still practiced today. Medicine runs in Dr Khan's blood; it's a family tradition passed down from his father. His father, Hakeem Mursaleen, was a respected figure in this field. After a transformative year as a professor at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, Dr Khan, a design visionary and Unani herbalist, returned to Karachi to uplift communities through his holistic health clinics and dynamic teaching at Aga Khan University. In a recent online interview with the Qatar Tribune, Khan shared insightful reflections on his dual journey as an academic and a practitioner of herbal medicine. Excerpts. You spent nearly a decade in Qatar, how did that experience shape you personally and professionally? My nine years in Qatar were transformative. I arrived with ink-stained fingers from the old fingerprinting process, and watched the country evolve into a tech-driven society. As an academic and designer at VCUarts and Northwestern University in Qatar, I contributed to shaping its creative and knowledge economy. Qatar didn't just offer me a career, it redefined me. As I often say: 'Qatar transformed me from a dreamer with ink-stained fingers to a designer of its knowledge economy.' How did your father's legacy and your early interests shape your path in both herbal medicine and design? My father's mastery of herbal medicine and calligraphy began in Delhi, rooted in a rich family tradition. After partition, he moved to Karachi with support from Hakeem Muhammad Saeed, evolving from pharmacist to practicing Hakeem. Named after the legendary Hakeem Muqeem of Delhi, I was expected to carry on that legacy—while cultivating my own passion for design. In 9th grade, my first computer sparked a love for digital creativity. I designed credits for a Gul Gee documentary, won art awards in Karachi and Geneva, and earned degrees in Interior and Industrial Design from The Ohio State University. Before finishing my master's, I joined Walt Disney as a Special Effects Artist, with my first major project being the digital elephant in George of the Jungle. Can you walk us through your journey from Hollywood to herbal medicine and academia? After years in Hollywood's VFX industry, I returned to family and taught design at the University of Sharjah for five years while studying Unani medicine under my father. I later served as Associate Professor at VCU and Northwestern University in Qatar. During a research residency in Australia, a call from my father reignited my commitment to Unani medicine. With formal education and a government license already secured, I pursued a PhD at Charles Sturt University to integrate traditional healing with design. This shift led to my clinical practice in Unani diagnosis and treatment. I now teach design thinking at Aga Khan University and work as a registered herbalist in FB Area and DHA, Karachi—merging Unani medicine, speculative design, and digital visual culture in a human-centered approach. What was your PhD about, and how does it involve multidisciplinary studies? My doctoral research explored Speculative Design as a tool to engage with intangible cultural heritage, oral traditions, rituals, and tacit knowledge like Unani pulse diagnosis. By bridging design with ancestral epistemologies, I aimed to reframe these practices within modern academic and digital contexts. This included examining how Artificial Intelligence (AI) transforms such knowledge into digital intangible heritage, a focus now recognised by UNESCO. How does pulse reading diagnose disease? The pulse reflects both body and emotion. Originating from Hippocrates' four humors and refined by Galen, ancient physicians read its patterns—frog-like, mouse-like—to diagnose. My father compared it to a sitar string: 'Learn to read it, and you'll understand a person completely.' What is the philosophy behind the Unani medicinal system? Unani medicine emphasises restoring the body's natural balance, considering individual temperament—hot, cold, moist, or dry—alongside lifestyle, digestion, and emotional well-being. Based on the four humors (Safra, Balgham, Soda, Khoon), it parallels systems like Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, relying on deep observation over lab tests. What's the core difference between Unani and other systems? Unani medicine treats root causes through a holistic mind-body-spirit approach. I think it should not compete with allopathy but complement it, especially where surgery or emergency care is needed. Together, both systems can offer more comprehensive healthcare. What else would you like to achieve in your life, and how does it relate to your work? I aspire to advance Unani medicine through the Hakeem Mursaleen Foundation ( inspired by my father's legacy and my journey in design and healing. The foundation seeks to preserve Unani's holistic principles, offering educational programs, awareness about health and lifestyle diseases, digital archives, and community help in Karachi and beyond. By blending traditional knowledge with design innovation, I aim to create culturally resonant, human-centered healthcare solutions that promote wellness globally.
The Hindu
6 hours ago
- Health
- The Hindu
Letters to The Editor — July 30, 2025
On Ayurveda We write this letter as the President and the General Secretary, respectively, of the Ayurveda Medical Association of India (AMAI). While the question of 'integration' and the extent of clinical practice by practitioners of Ayurveda is open for public and policy-level discourse, the article, 'The medical boundaries for AYUSH practitioners' (Editorial page, July 29), unfairly singles out a globally recognised and government-approved system of medicine. It selectively quotes legal provisions, ignoring judicial pronouncements and the evolving nature of India's medical pluralism. Under Indian law, the terms doctor, vaidya, and hakim are considered synonymous when it comes to legitimate and recognised systems of medicine, including Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani. This recognition has been established through court rulings and government notifications, especially after the enactment of The Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970, and policies supporting AYUSH. The article fails to acknowledge the acceptance Ayurveda enjoys today, as a scientific and evidence-based holistic medical system. To present the prescribing rights of Ayurveda doctors as illegitimate or dangerous, without acknowledging the training, curriculum, and government regulation they follow, is not just irresponsible journalism but also a misrepresentation of facts aimed at misleading the public. Furthermore, implying that Ayurveda lacks a scientific foundation is both factually incorrect and intellectually dishonest. The article conveniently avoids the fact that many allopathic interventions have themselves not been subjected to rigorous traditional evidence hierarchies. This kind of journalism undermines not only our national heritage but also the constitutional and legal framework that allows multiple systems of medicine to coexist and serve diverse public health needs in India. Dr. K.S. Vishnu Namboothiri, Dr. P.K. Haridas, Thiruvananthapuram New queen That Divya Deshmukh is the new chess queen is wonderful news. Parents and teachers need to identify children with an interest in chess. Gudipati Anirudh, Secunderabad
The Hindu
a day ago
- Health
- The Hindu
The medical boundaries for AYUSH practitioners
The recent controversy on X between a hepatologist and an Indian chess Grand Master, on whether practitioners of traditional medicine can claim to be doctors, has sparked much commentary on the role and the status of practitioners of traditional Indian medicine systems such as Ayurveda and Unani, in India. Committees, governments, perspectives The burning issue here is not merely whether practitioners of Ayurveda can refer to themselves as doctors, but rather the scope of medical activities permitted under Indian law. This is an issue which has consequences for public health. A starting point for this discussion is to understand the framing of the debate over the last 80 years, beginning 1946, when the Health Survey and Development Committee, better known as Bhore Committee, batted in favour of modern scientific medicine based on evidence. The committee had pointed out that other countries were in the process of phasing out their traditional medicine systems and recommended that states take a call on the extent to which traditional medicine played a role in their public health systems. The Bhore committee's lack of enthusiasm for the traditional medicinal system did not go unnoticed by practitioners of traditional Indian medicine who mounted a vocal protest. They managed to convince the Government of India to set up the Committee on Indigenous Systems of Medicine, which submitted its report in 1948. This committee unabashedly wrapped up its conclusions in communal language, framing the issue in terms of Hindu nationalism by linking Ayurveda to the Vedas and its decline to 'foreign domination'. While the Nehru government took no action to formally recognise these practitioners of traditional medicine, the Indira Gandhi government in 1970 enacted a legislation called The Indian Medicine Central Council Act recognising and regulating the practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani. This law was replaced in 2020 with a new law called The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act. The syllabus for aspiring practitioners of Ayurveda is an absolute mish-mash of concepts that span everything from doshas, prakriti, atmas (which includes learning the difference between paramatma and jivatma) with a sprinkling of modern medical concepts such as cell physiology and anatomy. These are irreconcilable concepts — the theory of tridosha attributes all ills to an imbalance of doshas, while modern medicine locates the concepts of some diseases such as infections in 'germ theory', among others. There is no middle ground between both systems of medicine which is why concepts such as integrative medicine make no sense. Point of friction Nevertheless, the legal recognition of this new class of practitioners led to questions on the exact boundaries between the practice of traditional and modern medicine. The major point of friction has been the prescription of modern medicines by the practitioners of traditional medicine. Ayurvedic practitioners, in particular, while claiming the superiority of their art over modern medicine, have consistently demanded the right to prescribe modern medicines developed by evidence-based modern science. Pertinently, this dispute revolved around the interpretation of Rule 2(ee) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 which defined the class of 'registered medical practitioners' who can prescribe modern medicine. This definition is complicated since it is not limited to doctors with a MBBS degree. It delegates a certain amount of power to State governments to pass orders declaring medical practitioners on their State medical registers as persons 'practising the modern scientific system of medicine for the purposes of ….' the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940. Many State governments have used this power under Rule 2(ee) to allow registered practitioners of Ayurveda and Unani to prescribe modern medicine such as antibiotics. The constitutionality of these orders was challenged before the courts and the first round of litigation concluded in 1998 with the judgment of the Supreme Court of India in Dr. Mukhtiar Chand & Ors vs The State Of Punjab & Ors. The Court concluded that 'the right to prescribe drugs of a system of medicine would be synonymous with the right to practise that system of medicine. In that sense, the right to prescribe allopathic drug cannot be wholly divorced from the claim to practice allopathic medicine'. Simply put, Ayurvedic practitioners had no right to prescribe modern medicine. That judgment never stopped the lobbying by Ayurvedic and Unani practitioners with State governments for the promulgation of orders under Rule 2(ee) allowing them to prescribe modern medicine. Several State governments have continued passing these orders in defiance of the Court's judgment. This inevitably leads to litigation before the High Courts, usually by the Indian Medical Association, which often wins these cases. Unsuspecting patients too have often sued practitioners of Ayurveda before consumer courts on the grounds that they were deceived into believing that they were being treated by a doctor with a MBBS degree who can prescribe modern medicine. While much of the litigation has revolved around the right to dispense modern medicine, there is also the issue regarding the medical procedures that can be conducted legally by practitioners of Ayurveda and Unani. For example, can a registered Ayurvedic practitioner 'intubate' a patient? This is an important question to ask since it is an open secret that many hospitals purporting to practise modern medicine are hiring Ayurvedic practitioners with Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree at lower pay in place of graduates with a MBBS degree. Further, a notification by the Indian government in 2020 has allowed Ayurvedic practitioners (post graduates) to perform 58 minor surgeries, including the removal of the gall bladder, appendix and benign tumours. The constitutionality of this notification is pending before the courts. If the notification is upheld, the question that arises is whether these Ayurvedic practitioners can now use anaesthetic agents and antibiotics required to conduct surgeries. The stakes are high for public health in India since the likely strategy of Ayurvedic practitioners will be to argue that these surgeries were known in traditional Indian medicine. In these times of heady Hindutva, it will be difficult to find a judge who will ignore these claims. The political factor The larger political backdrop to this entire debate regarding Ayurvedic practitioners is 'Hindu pride', which has fuelled claims of fantastical achievements by ancient Indian civilisation, be it the pushpaka vimana or the claims of the Kauravas being test tube babies. When a policy issue such as Ayurveda is cynically draped in the language of 'Hindu pride', it is not just the Bharatiya Janata Party but also the Indian National Congress which feels compelled to support an obviously dangerous approach to public health. The last election manifesto of the Indian National Congress, in 2024, promised that the party would 'support' all systems of medicines instead of a promise to support only rational, evidence-based medicine. This blind faith in traditional medicine is going to cost every citizen in the future since the government is actively considering the inclusion of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) treatments under the Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme funded by tax-payers. This is in addition to approximately ₹20,000 crore of tax-payer money spent on research councils functioning under the Ministry of AYUSH with a mandate to research AYUSH. They have very little to show for in terms of scientific breakthroughs. Twitter outrage notwithstanding, the joke at the end of the day is on the tax-payer. Dinesh S. Thakur is the author of 'The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India'. Prashant Reddy T. is the coauthor of 'The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India'
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- General
- New Indian Express
KEA releases mock seat allotment list
BENGALURU: The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) on Friday released the mock seat allotment results for the first round of admissions to professional courses, including medical, dental, engineering, agricultural sciences, and Nursing and allied health programmes. The mock allotment uses the merit list and reservation roster. The results are available on the official KEA website. KEA Executive Director H Prasanna clarified that this is only an indicative allotment meant to help candidates assess the likely outcome of their current preferences. Courses like Ayurveda, Unani, Naturopathy, Yoga, and Homoeopathy have not been included in this round, as their seat matrices are still awaited. The candidates can enter their preferences. Candidates may add, delete, or rearrange their choices until 5 pm on July 29. The provisional allotment results will be declared on August 1 at 11 am, and the final results will be published on August 2 at 2 pm. Candidates will have to make their final choice between August 4 and August 7.
The Hindu
4 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
UGCET/NEET: Mock seat allotment results for first round announced
The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has released the mock seat allotment results for the first round of admissions to professional courses, including medical and engineering. Candidates can access the results through the link provided on the KEA website. KEA Executive Director H. Prasanna said, 'Eligible candidates' entered preferences/options have been considered, and the mock seat allotment has been done based on merit and the roster system.' The preferences/options entered by candidates until 6 p.m. on July 22 have been considered for this mock allotment for courses such as Medical, Dental, Engineering, Agricultural Sciences, Veterinary Sciences, BSc (Nursing), BPharm, Pharma-D, BPT, BPO, and Allied Health Sciences. However, courses like Ayurveda, Unani, Naturopathy, Yoga, and Homeopathy were not included in the mock allotment, as the seat matrix for these courses has not yet been received. Once the seat matrix is available, candidates will be allowed to enter their options for these courses as well. Following the publication of the mock allotment results, candidates will be allowed to add, delete, reorder, or modify their preferences from July 26 to July 29, till 5 p.m. The provisional allotment result for the first round will be announced on August 1 at 11 a.m., and the final allotment result will be published on August 2 at 2 p.m. Candidates will then have the chance to exercise their choice from August 4 to August 7. Candidates who have not entered any preferences so far can still do so by paying ₹750. However, once the deadline for the first round closes, no further options will be accepted for any future rounds. Therefore, candidates are advised to carefully check course fees and select their preferred colleges/courses now.
