Know your kashmir

The events at NIT Srinagar are sickeningly familiar. Yet, we keep falling prey to these triggers designed to cause more dissension[di'sen-shun(disagreement,असहमति)]. When people are oblivious[u'bli-vee-us(unaware,बेखबर)] and unable to discern[recognize,जानना)] where the national interest lies, it’s up to the authorities to educate them and take necessary precautions. On April 2, I was travelling abroad when a social media message drew my attention. It was someone from the non-Kashmiri segment of NIT sending an appeal. I could discern the seriousness of the issue within seconds. Before boarding my flight, I sent out messages to people I knew in Kashmir, warning them that something very serious was happening at NIT and that it must be nipped in the bud.

Handling sensitive issues with an assessment of future impact is always advantageous. However, in my experience, even more important is decision-making and intervention well before an issue reaches a crescendo[kri'shen-dow(highest,चरम सीमा)]. In today’s social media-driven world, every message, word, emoticon and upload has a contributory effect on opinion. Attempts at dissuasion will hardly connect but everything disruptive will sync in seconds and go viral. Thus intelligence agencies, the police and army have to be sensitive to emerging situations. The JNU events have harmed the political and social fabric and given ideas to those who wish to see India burn.

There are many for whom the strength of India’s unity is a sore. I’m not being escapist by laying the blame at the door of adversaries. In fact, I’m not blaming them at all. They will wish India to be weak, divided and at war within. It’s for us to realise how we get exploited, how we contribute towards weakening the very entity we call our motherland.

I’m relating two examples from my military leadership experience when uncomfortable decisions had to be taken by me to avoid potentially turbulent[tur-byu-lunt(unquiet,उग्र)] situations.

A few years ago, the ICC Cricket World Cup was upon us. I was heading the army in the Valley. My enthusiasm for cricket and conscious understanding that every Kashmiri loves the game but rarely gets a chance to watch it even on TV in an exciting environment, made me take a positive decision. The army made extensive arrangements to put up large screens in some towns and villages and project the live coverage, with continuous power provided by generators. The arrangements were hugely appreciated even by the media because little do people outside Kashmir realise the passion for the game there.

Then came the awkward situation: Pakistan and India faced each other in the semi-final at Mohali. While cricket enthusiasts were falling over each other, I was wearing a crown of thorns because of what could transpire at the public screenings where troops were watching the matches with young enthusiasts. People advised me that pulling down the screens would result in the army being criticised by the media. I did an analysis: We would only gain some temporary accolades[a-ku,leyd(honour,सराहना)] for being brave and not bothering about the consequences[kón-si-kwun(t)s(result,परिणाम)], but my sixth sense told me it could be a trigger for more. We couldn’t afford that when we were seeking to reverse the situation in the street. The decision was made and the screens were taken down. We lost face for a day but kept passions in control.

A second example: I happened to travel to Turkey in 2006. In Ankara, it was evident that nationalism of the Kemal Pasha brand was worn on the sleeve. What impressed me were the massive fluttering national flags that adorned each hilltop. I immediately pictured fluttering tirangas on hilltops. When I was commanding the division at Baramula, I attempted to emulate[e-myû,leyt(follow,अनुकरण)] Ankara’s example by placing four huge tirangas, two on each side of the Jhelum and on the mountain tops. A local Kashmiri friend came to me after three days. He complimented me on the flags but had a word of caution. Did I think the flags would remain undesecrated or even unburnt? Shouldn’t I place a guard for each flag to ensure the sanctity they deserved? I agreed wholeheartedly and planned to deploy protection. It then dawned on me that 40 men would be required to guard my project of selling my enthusiasm for nationalism and it would keep us all on tenterhooks. Was it worthwhile where every man counted? I was mindful that I was instigating, and doing so imprudently[im'proo-d(u)nt-lee(carelessly,असावधानी से)], because there would be attempts to trigger trouble by targeting the tirangas. Our response would create more trouble. The flags were taken down without ceremony. No problems occurred.

There are no lessons from this experience except the use of discretion and the anticipation of trouble when we are managing a situation and don’t wish to unnecessarily charge up the environment. Anyone who has been in Kashmir for even a single tenure[ten-yu(period,काल)] knows how passions run on just about everything. You’ve got to watch your back most times, lest you be surprised. NIT has students from other parts of India. Surely, some intelligence agency would have anticipated the problem. Once it occurred, the situation should have been managed so as not to allow it to get out of hand. Incidents at Meerut last year and elsewhere recently, where Kashmiri students were beaten up, should have been a warning. Everyone knows what Kashmir is all about. Take your eyes off the scanner, and things will get out of control.

There are smart people sitting across the LoC, reading the situation at all times and awaiting or creating opportunities. The NIT incident of virtual revenge for Meerut is bad enough but then social media commenced[ku'men(t)s(start,शुरुवात)] discussion threads on J&K Police. How enthusiastically people with simply no national interest in mind, no vision of India’s future, are painting black the one institution in J&K that has withstood the onslaught of militancy and terror with great nationalistic fervour[fur-vu(energy,जोश)]. J&K Police is a truly professional force, whose men and women have never bothered about personal safety. Through curfew-bound Srinagar and Anantnag, I have witnessed the courage of these bravehearts who were on duty even if they had to carry their uniforms in bags to avoid detection by mobs. Someone has allowed J&K Police to either handle the situation unprofessionally or egged them into making mistakes, if what’s described is actually true. The disenchantment of J&K Police is something every adversary will wish for. Hopefully, the brass is ahead of the situation.

No inquiry is going to satisfy anyone because when passions are inflamed, and no one has the national good at heart, this will become one more issue for point-scoring. This is the new state government’s first challenge. There will be more campus standoffs elsewhere in India now that the scope for a politics of confrontation via such incidents has been established. There’s only one victor in all this — our adversaries, for whom burning India internally continues to be the priority.

Courtesy:indian express

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Fadnavis everywhere, and no water to drink

“People are dying — and you want to maintain cricket pitches,” asked an over-excited TV anchor. But not as morally excited as the learned justices of the Bombay High Court who opined, as quoted in the media, “that this entire thing of the utilisation of water for IPL matches needs to be thought over”. The court also apparently asked the BCCI counsel whether “cricket matches were more important than people or preserving water”. An important question.

The first response to this question, especially by profligate[pró-fli-gut(immoral,अनैतिक)] thinking economists as well as those with a modicum[mó-di-kum(small amount,थोड़ी मात्रा)] of common sense, is to ask a related question — what alternative use is there for water, and what is its price? In the desert, water is worth a lot; and it is also worth a considerable amount in drought-prone areas. An average person consumes 150 litres of water per day or 54,000 litres per year. Assume that a sixth of the population of Maharashtra (around 20 million) has no access to any water for half a year — that is, Maharashtra needs to supply (transport) to the drought areas 540 billion litres of water. The IPL matches in Maharashtra are estimated to use six million litres of water for watering the grounds. But that is an estimate of a corrupt capitalist (and therefore, dishonest) BCCI — so let us double the stated amount. So the honourable justices, and the oh-so-moral NGO Loksatta Movement that brought the PIL against IPL, and our learned TV tripping (as in TRP) anchors believe that saving .002 per cent of water will alleviate the water misery of 20 million people. It is not for nothing that my column is called “No Proof Required” — moving the IPL will only provide water for 400 people for half a year.

The Financial Express editorial, “IPL vs Sugarcane” (April 8) illustrates the utter[ú-tu(complete,पूरा)] stupidity of the position that fewer cricket matches in Maharashtra will “solve” the water shortage problem. If policymakers were serious about alleviating water shortages for the poor, they would first have to blame themselves for the stupidity, if not depravity[di'pra-vu-tee(corruption,भ्रष्टता)] , of the policies they have pursued. In particular, look at the water-guzzling sugarcane crop. Maharashtra encourages the growing of sugarcane: In 2014-15, the estimated sugar output from Maharashtra was 10 billion kgs. Each kg of sugar uses 2,000 litres of water. In other words, the total water used for sugarcane cropping in the state was 20 trillion litres. You do the math. As the FE editorial hints, the savings from not having the IPL matches are not even a minuscule[mi-nu,skyoo(small,छोटा)] fraction of the water used by the sugarcane growers in Maharashtra. By creating a moral song and dance about the IPL, the immoral elite only proves to the world that it is intellectually dead.

Neither drought nor poverty is new to Maharashtra. First and foremost, the responsibility of delivering the much-needed water to all its citizens (and not just the wealthy) lies with the state administration. What was the BJP in Maharashtra, in particular Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, doing for the past two years? Of course, doing nothing except banning beef and moralising about the need to say “Bharat Mata ki Jai” everywhere. What could have Fadnavis done? And, given that he has not done it, what can he do now? Basic water needs of humans (150 litres a day) can easily be transported to the drought-hit areas on a daily basis and expenses paid from all the taxes collected by the state. Then what is the problem? And why hasn’t this solution been offered, and used as yet?

The (non) agricultural policy of the Centre has distorted the food market for decades. The Punjab economy is in a mess because of too much rice production in the state. The Maharashtra economy is in a mess because of the production of too much sugarcane. According to the counsel for the trendsetting Loksatta Movement, the BCCI and the IPL “have the means and resources” to shift matches out of Maharashtra but the state government does not have the means, and/or the political desire, to transport water to its poor drought-hit citizens?

The IPL-versus-water controversy raises a lot of non-sequitur[nón'se-kwi,tur(illogical,नानुमिति)] issues, especially the contention[kun'ten-shun(controversial,विवादस्पद)] that morality has anything to do with it. The need of the hour is to conserve water, and herewith some people who should be honoured for suggesting (moral) rules for water conservation. The top prize goes to Moralist # 1, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, who has recently banned the sale and consumption of all alcohol (except foreign-made liquor) in Bihar. Note how far-sighted and water-saving this policy is. No beer will be sold, so less toilet water needed for flushing beer-induced piss.

Moralist # 2 award goes to the ever- thoughtful and far-sighted Pahlaj Nihalani, the man in charge of the Central Board of Film Certification of India. Sensitive to the IPL-versus-drought conflict, he recently gave a U/A rating to The Jungle Book, a remake of a children’s film. The U/A rating means that children below the age of 12 have to be accompanied by an adult. His reason for the U/A rating (and I am not making this up) was that the 3D effects were too scary for children sitting alone. Note how Nihalani is helping the water cause. Fewer children screaming means less water is needed to calm them down afterwards, and this saved water can be directed to the Maharashtra farmers via the BCCI headquarters and the Bombay High Court, both of which are located in Mumbai.

Herewith are some other Nitish-Nihalani (NN, which can also stand for No and No) type sensible policies to help lessen the need for water, and help farmers and ordinary people in the drought-hit areas of Maharashtra (and elsewhere):

Recommended Policy # 1: Stop asking people to say “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. Think about it — 500 million people not saying “Bharat Mata ki Jai” on a daily basis will save enough water, through reduced thirst, to flood Latur.

Recommended Policy # 2 (which is not only recommended but practised in Fadnavis-land): Maharashtrians were asked to have a muted Holi celebration to save water. Of course, if Holi were not a Hindu festival, Holi would have been banned.

Recommended Policy # 3: Fadnavis could help the poor citizens of his state, and improve governance if he removed the ban on the slaughter of old cows (above 16 years of age). Water consumption will go down. Although, as a Supreme Court (2005) judgment noted, doing so would mean that manure production will also go down — this was the primary reason why the honourable court banned the killing of all cows.

Some questions remain: Why did the honourable court not throw out the morally juvenile petition of Loksatta? And why the argument that the IPL should pay for drought relief? What sense does that make? It is as sensible as placing an environmental tax on the purchase of cricket bats because trees have been felled. Paraphrasing Peter, Paul and Mary: Where has commonsense gone, and when will they ever learn?

Courtesy:indian express

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Panama Papers et al

In the Indian commentary provoked by the Panama revelations, did you read anywhere that the lesson is that it is perilous[pe-ru-lus(dangerous,खतरनाक)] to give officials unlimited charge of creating wealth? Did you hear anyone say that it is dictators[dik'tey-tu(uncontrolled ruler,तानाशाह)] and leaders of totalitarian[tow,ta-li'teh-ree-un(undemocratic,सर्वसत्तावादी)] countries like Russia and China that hide their ill-gotten riches in tax havens? I did not and you will not either because, for the most part, we political pundits remain Nehruvian socialist in our economic mindset, so we become hysterical[hi'ste-ri-kul(aroused,उन्मत्त)] if Vijay Mallya fails to pay Rs 9,000 crore back to the banks but we are sanguine[sang-gwin(optimistic,आशावादी)] about Air India’s losses of Rs 40,000 crore. And even more sanguine about the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money that continue to be poured into unprofitable public sector enterprises. This is money that would have been much better spent on improving our disgraceful government schools and appalling government hospitals, but we prefer not to get into that discussion.

Ideological blinders prevent us from noticing that if officials and politicians had not had total control of our investments for decades, some of our poorest states would not be poor. We hesitate to acknowledge that the only prosperity India has seen came when the licence raj ended and Indian industrialists were allowed freedom to grow their companies and create jobs and wealth. Within a decade, despite the constraints of shoddy[shó-dee(cheap,घटिया)] infrastructure and a half-skilled workforce, Indian companies showed that they could compete with the best in the world.

If some of our best companies are in dire straits today, it is because the Sonia-Manmohan government in its last years in office started treating businessmen once more like criminals. Since by then jobs had dried up and the economy had gone into a downturn, public opinion turned Nehruvian socialist once more. Some of the leading lights of Anna Hazare’s movement lent raucous[ro-kus(harsh,कर्कश)] voices to the cry against ‘looters’ looting the resources of the people.

Is it not time to start asking who the real looters are? Is it not time to start questioning why every enterprise run by officials ends up in the doldrums[dówl-drumz(inactivity,मंदी)] even when economic times are good? And most importantly, is it not time to ask what kind of money oils the wheels of our election machinery? If there are those who believe that this is ‘white’ money, they need their heads examined. But these are things we do not talk about in our ancient land because the idea that great leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi could have been wrong frightens most Indians. It shakes the very foundation of their faith in this country, so even a powerful Prime Minister like Narendra Modi has so far hesitated on his Mann ki Baat to explain to ordinary Indians why economic reforms are necessary.

During the 2014 election campaign, he said often that it was not the business of government to be in business, but after becoming Prime Minister, he has been much more cautious. With his extraordinary oratorical skills, it should be easy for him to say what the Governor of the Reserve Bank said in Mumbai last week. This is what he said in the context of the Panama papers, ‘Increasingly, this talk about whether entrepreneurial wealth is illegitimate, whether self-made people should have what they have and whether that is fair game. I think this is dangerous.’

It is important for the Prime Minister to say this kind of thing repeatedly because only if he does will he be able to change the ‘socialist’ ideas we have been bequeathed[bi'kweedh(leave,छोड़ना)]. He needs to use his conversations with ordinary Indians to explain to them how they have been fooled into believing that it is because some Indians are rich, that the vast majority are forced to live on less than Rs 20 a day. The real reason why India has remained mired[mI(-u)rd(entangle,फॅसा)] in horrific poverty is because of an economic philosophy that has failed everywhere.

If India remains today a country in which more than half our people live in hovels[hó-vu(slum,झोपडी)] instead of homes and live without clean water and electricity, it is because instead of governance, our political leaders and officials have been busy doing business. Some have been very successful businessmen, and I had hoped that the Panama papers would reveal their names or the names of their friends and family members. This would have gone a long way towards making ordinary Indians understand who the real looters are. They sense this anyway because no sooner does one of their own finds his way into Parliament or into a state Assembly, than they notice how his lifestyle instantly improves. They notice how he begins to live in a fine house and how his progeny drive around in fancy cars. They are too economically illiterate to ask questions so they express their rage at election time.

Courtesy:indian express

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The problem of secretive tax havens

In popular Indian imagination, a tax haven is generally associated with Switzerland and its numbered bank accounts. But tax havens are numerous[nyoo-mu-rus(many,बहुत से)], have grown in importance, and are the routes through which half of international trade now takes place. Apart from high-net-worth individuals, tax havens are liberally used by multinationals and their army of accountants and lawyers for tax planning and transfer pricing. They are also wonderful places for money launderers.

Tax havens come in all shapes and sizes. Each has its own comparative advantage, whether in terms of cost or time taken to set up structures, discretion[di'skre-shun(free will,विचारशीलता)] used, or links to particular countries. Nevertheless, they have some common characteristics such as ease of setting up companies/trusts/foundations, minimal disclosure requirements, the possibility to hide beneficial ownership, and low or no effective taxation on income or wealth.

Threats posed by tax havens

Panama fits the bill perfectly. In Panama, there are firms that can help set up a company within 48 hours and provide nominee directors/shareholders. Many international banks operate from Panama, and banking confidentiality is guaranteed. Panama follows a strict territorial system of taxation. Consequently[kón-si-kwunt-lee(resultant,परिणामस्वरूप)], all foreign incomes of non-residents are not taxable. Further, Panama has no official central bank and no exchange control.

The Panama papers are raising a storm across the world.the terabytes of data released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists do not tell us anything new about the modus operandi[mow-dus ,ow-pe'ran-dee(procedure,कार्यप्रणाली)] adopted by the high and mighty to hide their assets.

The one definitive conclusion that one can draw from the Panama papers is that those in charge of designing the rules in the fight against such tax havens also took advantage of the same for diverse motives, whether for tax avoidance/evasion, masking conflict of interest, or for corrupt practices and money laundering.

It is not as if the threats posed by tax havens are not known to regulatory authorities. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development never tires of proclaiming that due to its revised standard for exchange of information, the days of secrecy are over. Indian politicians and administrators say the same. As the current leaks show, the utility of such agreements in discouraging tax havens from offering their services, or for foreign clients from using their services, is rather limited.

OECD’s initial project on harmful tax practices, including the use of sanctions, came unstuck due to American opposition. While there has been improvement in the monitoring mechanism over time with a peer review process, jurisdictions carry on with business as usual even after declaring their intention to comply with OECD standards. OECD’s initial list of non-cooperative jurisdictions has been empty since 2009. Of course, following the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, OECD has come up with an automatic exchange of information and apparently only four jurisdictions have not committed to its standards — Bahrain, Nauru, Panama and Vanuatu. But does that mean that there are no worries about other tax havens such as the Channel Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands? As the Panama papers show, the truth is far removed. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is the policy followed by many tax havens.

While examining the history of tax havens, Gabriel Zucman in his book The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge[skurj(terror,आतंक)] of Tax Havens has shown that action against them works only if there are credible sanctions, which he proposes in the form of trade tariffs. Considering the storm created by the Panama papers throughout the world, his proposals, including that of a global finance register of all financial securities in circulation, are worth considering at the international level.

Inviolability of corporate structure

The Panama papers prove the ease with which companies can be formed in jurisdictions which make a mockery of the concept of separate corporate existence. For example, the papers show how banks registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with only one law firm, and how difficult it is for the tax administration to get meaningful information. In the circumstances, one can question the concept of almost total inviolability of the corporate structure as propounded by the Supreme Court in the Vodafone case: “When it comes to taxation of a Holding Structure, at the threshold, the burden is on the Revenue to allege and establish abuse, in the sense of tax avoidance in the creation and/or use of such structure(s).” The Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team now oversees the investigation of all the Indian cases emanating out of the various leaks. In two years, it does not seem that the SIT has made any significant headway in investigations of all the cases involving tax havens.

There are some apologists who believe that tax havens serve some important functions. Mauritius is often mentioned in this connection as being one of the largest foreign investors for India. Any action against the tiny[tI-nee(small,छोटा)] nation is stonewalled. The Panama papers show that tax havens are used overwhelmingly for secrecy and dissimulation[di,sim-yu'ley-shun(fraud,धोखा)], putting distance between assets and owners thereof. Corporate structures help such dissimulation. Therefore, countries and jurisdictions that help in such efforts of tax planners, avoiders and evaders need to be put on alert. In the Indian scene, much of the alleged foreign investment apparently comes from Mauritius through Global Business Companies-1 that Mauritus allows non-residents to set up. If we are serious about tackling tax evasion and avoidance, there needs to be a rethink about the way these companies are allowed to be operated. There are many Mossack Fonsecas that specialise in offering their services for setting up such structures, including supply of directors and shareholders for routing investments through Mauritus (and others) and for availing of its treaty benefits. Panama is a tax haven, but Mauritius is a tax haven with which we have a comprehensive double tax treaty. That complicates the matter even more by allowing rampant[ram-punt(uncontrolled,अनियंत्रित)] ‘treaty shopping’, double non-taxation, and erosion of India’s tax base. It is therefore time to bury the Azadi Bachao theory of treaty shopping being good for developing countries. Nobody should believe in that theory.

Since 2011, we have a provision in the Income Tax Act in Section 94A to deal with jurisdictions that do not effectively exchange information. So far, only Cyprus has been notified. There are reports that perhaps Panama will also be put on that list. But considering that in almost all collusive international deals at least one tax haven is involved, there needs to be a review of all tax havens and the provision used effectively. Otherwise, the promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad will remain a chimera. We are smug about the relative lack of political names from India being disclosed in the Panama papers. But had the leak occurred elsewhere, things might have been different. We should not wait for another leak to break out, but need to take proactive actions both internationally and domestically.

Courtesy:the hindu

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The importance of listening to patients

At a recent event to mark World Tuberculosis Day in New Delhi, two TB survivors shared their stories of how they fought and survived this terrible disease. In a closed room filled with experts, international funders, and doctors, their stories resounded with resilience and courage. What did they need to fight TB? Not just free diagnosis and treatment, but care with dignity, individual and family counselling, nutritional support, and reduced stigma[stig-mu(symbol of disgrace,कलंक)]. They wanted the world to know that despite the toxic drugs and other challenges, they could fight TB if they were supported and respected.

Over the last several years, TB has come to be recognised as one of the world’s severest health crises, with India as its epicentre. It kills close to a 1,000 Indians every day, causes extensive human suffering, and pushes families and communities into poverty.

Yet, rarely do we ask survivors and their families about their needs for fighting TB. After all, surviving an infectious disease such as this is both an individual and social experience. Unless we understand it, how can we provide the necessary support?

Important stories

Contrary to popular belief, TB survivors are the real experts in fighting the disease although their perspectives are rarely heard. Even when patients do speak, their stories are chopped to fit mechanically into news articles and policy papers — for analysis or to shock. Rarely do their inputs shape policy or programmes as they should.

The stories of the TB-affected are not just their own stories but narratives that tell us how patients interact with doctors, health systems, in families and communities. The descriptions of their lived experience in fighting TB are critical in order to meaningfully understand their lives both at an individual as well as a social level. They are of particular relevance to policymakers, as they provide insights into where programmes fail to meet patient needs. Through these stories, we understand experiences, memories and feelings. In the process, we understand how decision-making takes place in the mind of a patient.

While storytelling and patient narratives are not considered ‘reliable’ evidence, they are undisputedly invaluable insights into the mental and physical experience of fighting any disease. These stories demonstrate the many challenges that the TB-affected continue to face, irrespective of whether these patients seek care. These insights are critical if we wish to achieve the oft-used term ‘patient-centric’ care.

Even our finest strategies to fight TB guided by scientific evidence and medicine will fail until we understand the patient experience. Our effort to find transformative drugs and tools to fight this disease is meaningless until we understand the simpler demands of patients such as social and economic support, dignity, and acceptance. If we wish to defeat TB, we have to begin by addressing the social, economic and cultural circumstances in which those affected by TB fight this disease.

Fighting stigma

Perhaps the most important, yet neglected, challenge for patients is that of TB-related stigma. Irrespective of economic and social backgrounds, literacy levels or awareness, most TB-infected people choose to remain silent about the disease to extended family, friends, and their communities. Women in particular continue to remain quiet due to fear of social ostracisation[ós-tru,sIz(banish,निष्कासन)], discrimination[di,skri-mu'ney-shun(favoritism,भेदभाव)], and abandonment[u'ban-dun-munt(forsake,परित्याग)].

Another critical aspect is patient literacy about TB. Despite undergoing treatment for months, patients lack a basic understanding of what the disease means, and their families are unable to comprehend the significance of the problem. In many cases, families and communities mistreat patients.

As India gears up to fight the growing epidemic of drug-resistant TB, it must recognise the fact that TB patients and communities need cognizance[kóg-ni-zun(t)s(awareness,जागरूकता)], empowerment, support, and reduction in stigma. These are decisive[di'sI-siv(crucial,निर्णायक)] factors in determining the ability of a TB-infected individual to fight this disease. The role of family and community as an enabling force is critical.

Patient stories are a charter of demands from patients that we have ignored for a long time. It is important for all of us to listen and understand their needs and address them. Until we do so, we are unlikely to succeed in fighting the disease.

Courtesy:the hindu

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