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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.”

Putin’s Favourite President

As a fresh CIA review shows, Donald Trump still remains Vladimir Putin’s most useful ally in the West.

Vladimir Putin, hardly a man to tolerate inconvenience, recently excused himself mid-event to field a call from US President Donald Trump, lest the latter take ‘offence,’ or so Putin claimed.


The hour-long call between the two men focused on Russia’s unending war with Ukraine, Iran and Middle East tensions. It yielded no breakthrough, only bromides. And yet, it underscored a strange and durable bond between Putin and Trump. It affirmed that Trump remains the only Western leader who continues to command such theatrical deference from the Kremlin. More worryingly, it signalled the return of an American presidency more aligned with Russia’s worldview than with its own intelligence agencies.


It was in 2016 that American intelligence agencies concluded the Kremlin had reportedly interfered in the US election to tip the scales in Trump’s favour. The findings, backed by all major intelligence services, have been consistently affirmed, including in a fresh CIA review released this past week. That review, commissioned by Trump’s own former CIA director, John Ratcliffe, tried to poke holes in the original assessment. It instead ended up reaffirming that Russia interfered, and it did so with the aim of electing Trump. The report noted “procedural anomalies,” but its substance was that Russia’s preference for Trump was calculated and clear.


Trump’s contempt for these conclusions is longstanding. He has derided them as a hoax, attacked the intelligence agencies that produced them, and elevated conspiracy theories to muddy the waters. His quarrel with the CIA’s former chief, John Brennan, was ideological. Brennan embodied the analytic, bureaucratic and stubbornly empirical that Trump, who preferred flattery and fealty, so distrusted. And in Putin, he found both.


The courtship has paid dividends for Russia. Trump questioned NATO’s relevance, sought to withdraw US troops from Europe, and resisted efforts to punish the Kremlin after its annexation of Crimea. His first term had left the West divided and dazed, which suited Putin’s long game. Trump’s relationship with Putin has always defied normal metrics of diplomacy. It is a study in asymmetric admiration. Putin’s cold authoritarianism has long mesmerised Trump. In Putin, he sees not a geopolitical rival, but a kindred spirit who is unbound by institutional constraints, unbothered by scrutiny and unrepentant about the use of power.


The Kremlin understands this well. Theatrics aside, Putin’s entire strategic doctrine, shaped by years of Soviet collapse and Western expansion, hinges on weakening the cohesion of liberal democracies. As historian Anne Applebaum notes in Twilight of Democracy, the 21st-century authoritarian does not need to defeat democracy militarily. He only needs to convince its citizens that their institutions are irredeemable, their elections illegitimate, and their allies expendable. Trump has done that work more effectively than any Russian cyber-unit ever could.


The US intelligence community, already battered by Trump’s past purges and public scorn, now faces an existential dilemma. How can it speak truth to a president who sees truth as negotiable and loyalty as transactional? Trump’s second term may offer fewer institutional guardrails and more attempts to politicise intelligence, diplomacy and national security with even less resistance this time around.


The call with Putin, then, was not a minor diplomatic courtesy. It was a signal to the world that the Kremlin still sees in Trump a president who does not just reject the Washington consensus but actively undermines it. From the viewpoint of Trump’s many detractors, when the president of the United States sees more to admire in the Kremlin than in his own Constitution, the republic is in trouble.


The latest CIA review offers more than just vindication for the intelligence community. It reveals how close America came (and still comes) to having its institutions bent to suit one man’s political needs. That Ratcliffe chose to declassify the review and cherry-pick its flaws while burying its core conclusion deep inside speaks volumes about the rot within.

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