All posts by Mahalanobis Club

Happy New Year!

As we step into a new year, it is a good time to look back at a time nearly 200 years ago and know about a nearly forgotten hero, a pioneer of medical education in India, Pundit Madhusudan Gupta. In the words of the great philanthropist Drinkwater Bethune, “The 10th day of January, 1836, a day forever memorable in the annals of Bengal, was the great day, on which Madasuden Gupta rose up superior to the prejudices of his earlier-education, and boldly flung open the gates of medical science to his countrymen.” He not only was the first Indian to dissect a human dead body, he had been an extraordinary student, teacher, researcher and author on medical science and education in India. Bold personalities like Madhusudan Gupta took tremendous risk upon themselves to build the tough bridge that helped the nation to cross over from the indigenous to the modern medical science, a trajectory which is more fashionable of late to be traversed in reverse direction.

As always, we curate from the public domain to present this remarkable story.

Deucha Pachami has been in the news in recent years for disputes around the proposed coal exploration there. However, the locality has been the hotbed of illegal mining for several decades now. The rampant, mindless stone crushing going on in the area had a devastating impact on the health of local population, predominantly from tribal communities. A recent BBC report, re-produced below, is truly an eye-opener.

https://www.bbc.com/bengali/articles/c258v9722ezo

Shubho Bijoya!

As we gradually cross over from the festivities to usual routine, we can take some time to watch this two-part interview with Ashapurna Devi, conducted in 1989. There is a quintessential old-world charm in the air that is impossible to miss. Her amazing personality is captured nicely in this fascinating conversation. Worth a watch.

The first Dilip Mahalanabis Memorial Oration was delivered by Professor Dr. Richard Cash, distinguished Global Health Scientist of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in Kolkata on 31st July 2023. The lecture was organised by Liver Foundation-West Bengal. Professor Dr. Richard Cash spoke on the theme titled “The Development of ORT and Implementation of programs : Taking Science to the people”. Professor Dr. Richard Cash delivered oration lecture in the form of story telling. A documentary film titled “Dr. Dilip Mahalanabis and ORS” made by the Mahalanobis Club was also screened. Here is a a video recording of the proceedings. Links to a couple of newspaper stories on the event are also given below.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/news/scientist-recounts-stories-behind-use-of-oral-rehydration-solution/cid/1955790

https://www.anandabazar.com/west-bengal/kolkata/a-special-writeup-about-dr-dilip-mahalanabis-and-his-initiative-to-cure-people-with-the-help-of-ors/cid/1449020

A qualified engineer from the Nineteenth Century, and the first Bengali to be so, Nilmani Mitra was the man behind many of Kolkata’s heritage buildings. At a time when the colonial builders were busy changing the skyline of the white town of Calcutta, Mr Mitra architected some of the historic buildings in North Kolkata, which competed in their grandeur with the British contemporaries. The following report in The Telegraph last week brought the story to our attention, only to make us realise how little we remember, or even ever heard, of such gifted people and proud moments from our own history. The least we could do is to amplify the message. So here it is:

Since day 1, public health has been one of the topics of high interest here at Mahalanobis Club. Happy to introduce a book, and an author who is rooted in a remote West Bengal village for over two decades, has dived deep into health-related issues of the population and has now presented his findings in an exquisitely written book. The book is well-researched and will help anyone with a scientific temper to gain a fresh insight into her/his own health.

Dr Dilip Mahalanabis was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2023, posthumously.

https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/explained-the-life-and-career-of-dilip-mahalanabis-whose-ors-saved-millions-of-lives-11467251.html

A quiet doctor-scientist lived among us unnoticed, far away from media spotlight. Someone who literally saved millions of lives worldwide. Mahalanobis club was privileged to pay its little tribute in our limited capacity by making the first and possibly the only documentary on his life and work while he was alive. The film can be viewed here.

Shubho Bijaya Dashami!

In this festive season, we are sharing an interesting discussion on agriculture, with specific emphasis on rice cultivation. In this interview with The Wire, agri-ecologist Debal Deb shares his rare insights on genetic diversity of indigenous rice-varieties; their natural resilience – time-tested over centuries; how we almost lost them due to policy decisions (including the famed green revolution) designed to kill diversity; the very serious implications of these developments; and what he personally has done to turn the tide. The findings are backed by Deb’s field-research, and rooted firmly at the intersection of agricultural and ecological science.

Department of Biotechnology has produced documentary films to keep on record the unsung, if not entirely forgotten, achievements of some of the great Indian scientists. They named the series “Written Out Of History – Forgotten Indian Scientists” – a commendable initiative, and does so much resonate with our own little effort toward similar end when we went on to make the film on Dr Dilip Mahalanabis.

Today we are happy to share two such films, on Dr Sambhu Nath De and Dr Sipra Guha Mukherjee respectively – two scientists from slightly different era, different cities, different branches of life science and uniquely inspirational in their own way.