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Tuberculosis: The Good, The Bad and The Unfinished!

Tuberculosis (TB) has been with humans since time immemorial. We have been trying to get rid of TB since centuries. Have we done enough? Of course not! TB is still the leading cause of death. What can be done to eliminate TB? This could be a wrong question to ask. We must ask ourselves, what have we done till date and what more can be done to prevent huge loss to mankind from TB. This article gives an account of what has been done so far (the good!); where did we go wrong (the bad!); and what must be done (the unfinished!) to decrease the burden of TB, in India. Let’s start with the progress made thus far, or the “good”. India has come a long way from starting a National TB Program in 1962 (mainly for hospitalizing treatment) to rolling out Revised National TB Program (RNTP) in 1993 and Revised National TB Control Program (RNTCP) in 1997 to achieving its nationwide coverage by 2006.  The national programs imbibed the WHO’s Direct Observed Therapy Shortcourse (DOTS) Str
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Prologue



A few months ago I superannuated, after sixteen years of service at CSIR, of which ten years as Director of CSIR-Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology, formerly known as the Centre for Biochemical Technology and six years as the Director General of CSIR. Several of my younger colleagues have been asking me to share the experiences during my long scientific career which began at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1974. 

During these forty years, India has gone through major economic changes, from being a poor country to a developing nation and now an emerging multi trillion dollar economy. At every point of time, the nation has provided me best of it’s support to pursue globally competitive science in the country. Unlike many of my colleagues, of these forty years of journey, I have spent thirty nine years, working in Indian institutions - both academic research institutes as well as national laboratories and for the last six years,   I have had the great privilege of working in broader arena of science and participating in shaping the future of science from policy perspective, under resource limiting conditions.

This long journey, tour de la Science, has been eventful and fulfilling. I have had the privilege of meeting and learning from the stalwarts of science, both in India and abroad. During these years, I have participated in professor centric-student driven small fundamental projects to large coordinated projects like the Indian Genome Variation Consortium and the Open Source Drug Discovery initiative. I must say that I have been extremely enriched, working with large number of young colleagues and associates. 

One of my younger colleagues has inspired me to pen down my views on various topics that I have passionately discussed during this long journey and that inspiration has resulted in this blog. Through this SKBlog, I wish to log in my personal views based on my experiences during forty years in Indian science. I hope that these logs motivate younger generation to believe in themselves and pursue globally competitive science with passion, focusing on novelty and innovation. I would like to add that all the opinions expressed in this blog are purely personal and not in any other capacity.
                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                         
SKBlog-01

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