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By:

Bhalchandra Chorghade

11 August 2025 at 1:54:18 pm

Healing Beyond the Clinic

Dr Kirti Samudra “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” This thought by Mother Teresa finds reflection in the life of Panvel-based diabetologist Dr Kirti Samudra, who has spent decades caring not only for her family but also thousands of patients who see her as their guide. As we mark International Women’s Day, stories like hers remind us that women of substance often shape society quietly through compassion, resilience and dedication. Doctor, mother, homemaker,...

Healing Beyond the Clinic

Dr Kirti Samudra “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” This thought by Mother Teresa finds reflection in the life of Panvel-based diabetologist Dr Kirti Samudra, who has spent decades caring not only for her family but also thousands of patients who see her as their guide. As we mark International Women’s Day, stories like hers remind us that women of substance often shape society quietly through compassion, resilience and dedication. Doctor, mother, homemaker, mentor and philanthropist — Dr Samudra has balanced many roles with commitment. While she manages a busy medical practice, her deeper calling has always been service. For her, medicine is not merely a profession but a responsibility towards the people who depend on her guidance. Nagpur to Panvel Born and raised in Nagpur, Dr Samudra completed her medical education there before moving to Mumbai in search of better opportunities. The early years were challenging. With determination, she and her husband Girish Samudra, an entrepreneur involved in underwater pipeline projects, chose to build their life in Panvel. At a time when the town was still developing and healthcare awareness was limited, she decided to make it both her workplace and home. What began with modest resources gradually grew into a trusted medical practice built on long-standing relationships with patients. Fighting Diabetes Recognising the growing threat of diabetes, Dr Samudra dedicated her career to treating and educating patients about the disease. Over the years, she has registered nearly 30,000 patients from Panvel and nearby areas. Yet she believes treatment alone is not enough. “Diabetes is a lifelong disease. Medicines are important, but patient education is equally critical. If people understand the condition, they can manage it better and prevent complications,” she says. For more than 27 years, she has organised an Annual Patients’ Education Programme, offering diagnostic tests at concessional rates and sessions on lifestyle management. Family, Practice With her husband frequently travelling for business, much of the responsibility of raising their two children fell on Dr Samudra. Instead of expanding her practice aggressively, she kept it close to home and adjusted her OPD timings around her children’s schedules. “It was not easy,” she recalls, “but I wanted to fulfil my responsibilities as a mother while continuing to serve my patients.” Beyond Medicine Today, Dr Samudra also devotes time to social initiatives through the Bharat Vikas Parishad, where she serves as Regional Head. Her projects include  Plastic Mukta Vasundhara , which promotes reduced use of single-use plastic, and  Sainik Ho Tumchyasathi , an initiative that sends Diwali  faral  (snack hamper) to Indian soldiers posted at the borders. Last year alone, 15,000 boxes were sent to troops. Despite decades of service, she measures success not in wealth but in goodwill. “I may not have earned huge money,” she says, “but I have earned immense love and respect from my patients. That is something I will always be grateful for.”

New Silk Roads

Beijing’s push into Central Asia signals a redrawing of the region’s future along Chinese lines.

In a spectacle rich with ceremony and geopolitical symbolism, Xi Jinping touched down in Kazakhstan this week to attend the second China–Central Asia Summit. His hosts, led by Kazakhstan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev - a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat in Beijing - rolled out the red carpet. Held in the very heart of Eurasia, the gathering marks the first time all five Central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - have assembled on their own turf for a summit with a foreign power. That the guest of honour was China’s strongman president speaks volumes.


The optics and the timing are significant. Amid growing tensions in neighbouring Iran, a distracted United States, and a Russia preoccupied in Ukraine, China sees a golden window to cement its long-gestating ambitions in the region.


Central Asia, a vast land of deserts and steppes, has always been more than a geographical curiosity. In the 19th century, it was the central theatre of the ‘Great Game’ - the strategic tug-of-war between Tsarist Russia and imperial Britain. Following the Soviet collapse in 1991, the five newly independent republics remained in Moscow’s strategic backyard, their politics entangled with Russian interests. But China, slowly and methodically, has changed that script.


The latest summit in Astana is the second in just over a year. The first, held in May 2023 in Xi’an (historic terminus of the ancient Silk Road) was designed with imperial nostalgia and modern ambition in equal measure. The fact that the current conclave unfolds under a “C5+1” format (first floated by Washington under Barack Obama but never truly embraced) shows how China is appropriating and accelerating a model others merely sketched.


Beijing’s overtures come dressed in the language of mutual gain. China offers roads, rails, markets and loans; Central Asia, in turn, offers oil, gas, uranium and rare earths. A planned $8bn railway connecting Xinjiang to Uzbekistan via Kyrgyzstan is expected to begin construction next month. The railway will bypass Russia, cutting freight time and cementing Chinese logistical dominance. China is the top trading partner for each of the five Central Asian nations, accounting for over half of Tajikistan’s imports and nearly two-thirds of Turkmenistan’s exports.


The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has naturally been central to this transformation. First launched in 2013 in Kazakhstan, it treats the Central Asian heartland not as a periphery but as a pivot. The routes crisscrossing the region form the spine of China’s overland access to Europe. Railways, pipelines, customs zones and digital infrastructure are already altering the region’s economic geography. Meanwhile, China’s rhetoric, which frames the relationship as one of equals and free from the coercive instincts of Western diplomacy, is finding a receptive audience among post-Soviet elites wary of both Moscow’s imperial muscle and Washington’s moralising.


Yet geopolitics casts a long shadow. Russia, though bloodied by its misadventure in Ukraine, is not out of the game. Nor is the United States, which held its first presidential-level summit with the C5 leaders in September 2023. But the West’s footprint remains tentative. President Trump’s flat 10 percent tariffs on imports from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and an earlier 27 percent slapped on Kazakhstan have alienated potential partners.


For Xi, the Astana summit is a staging ground for China’s deeper Eurasian entrenchment. That Tokayev, fluent in Mandarin and vocally pro-China, is at the helm in Kazakhstan only smooths the road ahead. Xi’s presence, his first in the region since 2024 and third since 2020, is both a signal of continuity and a message of intent.


China’s ambitions are vast. But they are not uncontested. India has tried to forge its own ties with the region, with Modi hosting C5 leaders virtually in 2022 and in-person in 2025. Yet it lacks the economic muscle and infrastructural clout of China.


The original Silk Road, stretching from Chang’an to the Mediterranean, was a conduit for empires, religions and revolutions. Today’s ‘New Silk Roads’ are no different. With each summit and railway spike, China is not only redrawing trade routes but redrawing influence itself.

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