Articles by Pankaj Sekhsaria

The challenges in dealing with retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye affecting little children, are multiple and interrelated, involving medical, technological, economic and social factors. This article explores their interrelatedness, through a narrative anchored around the work and experience of two tertiary eye care hospitals in India. It seeks to illustrate that users not only influence care-providers, they can play a key role in forging producer identities. The girl child who comes to the clinic with the tumour is representative of many users. In responding to different complexities, the clinician emerges as an entity with multiple identities— as a “clinician–scientist–social activist.”

The earthquake that triggered the south and south-east Asian tsunami of 26 December 2004 also caused a significant and permanent shift in the lay of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The northern Andaman Islands saw a lift of up to five feet while the Nicobars in the south subsided in places by nearly 15 feet. This resulted in much larger damage caused by the tsunami to life and property in the Nicobar Islands even though the area and population here is much less than that in the Andamans. Huge changes were also effected to the topography of the islands and the coastal and marine ecosystems. The subsequent years have seen increasing defence-related interest in the Nicobar groups and a number of projects have been commissioned, initiated or proposed. The hypothesis presented here is that there is a relationship between the damage and destruction caused, the notion of a wasted and washed-out land and seascape and the heightened defence presence and activity here.