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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.”

The Last Post

France’s final military withdrawal from Senegal closes an era in West Africa marked by colonial hangover, geopolitical missteps and the rise of rival powers like Russia and China.

France’s departure from its last permanent military base in West Africa—Camp Geille in Senegal— was a geopolitical funeral march. After six decades of military entrenchment across its former colonies, France’s final exit from Senegal symbolises not just the end of an era but a profound reckoning with its diminished standing in a region it once considered its pré carré.


General Pascal Ianni, France’s top military commander in Africa, insisted the exit marked a “new phase” in Franco-African military relations. It is more accurately read as a capitulation to the political and popular mood across West Africa, where post-colonial sentiment has hardened into full-blown rejection of foreign troops, especially those wearing French uniforms. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal, elected earlier this year on a platform of sovereignty and pan-Africanism, made clear that foreign bases were incompatible with the republic’s dignity. The French departure, he implied, was non-negotiable.


The move follows a broader pattern. In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, military juntas have not merely expelled French forces but have replaced them with Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group (now operating under a new Kremlin-controlled umbrella). Ivory Coast and Chad saw their last French bases shuttered earlier this year. What remains is a skeleton presence in Gabon and a training detachment in Côte d’Ivoire—pale shadows of France’s once expansive African garrison.


This withdrawal is the culmination of years of diplomatic inertia and military overreach. France’s once-popular counterterrorism operations—first in Mali with Operation Serval and later with the broader Operation Barkhane—began with fanfare but ended in ignominy. Perceived by locals as colonial meddling and marked by limited tangible success, French troops became symbols of both occupation and impotence. Terrorist violence did not ebb; civilian trust in Paris evaporated.


The geopolitical consequences of this exodus are significant. France’s absence has created a power vacuum, swiftly being filled by Russia, which sees Africa as fertile ground for influence, arms deals, and resource extraction. The Central African Republic is already a Wagner-run fiefdom in all but name. Burkina Faso and Mali now openly parade Russian armoured vehicles and advisors. In Niger, the junta that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum—a Western ally—immediately turned its gaze toward Moscow. China, too, is deepening its military and infrastructural ties in the region, though with less theatre than the Kremlin.


By contrast, France’s pivot to a more “flexible partnership model” (as Colonel Guillaume Vernet described it) sounds less like a strategy than an admission of defeat. The promise to offer training and “targeted support” assumes African nations still want such assistance from Paris. Many do not. Even the usually measured Senegalese military, once a key partner in West African peacekeeping, now insists that defence autonomy trumps foreign help.


Yet it would be hasty to see this solely through the prism of France’s failures. The withdrawal also reflects the transformation of African politics. Senegal’s new leadership joins a growing wave of pan-Africanist sentiment, particularly among younger voters. They want not just the trappings of sovereignty but its substance—military, economic and political. This aligns with broader BRICS-aligned rhetoric that pits the Global South against the neocolonial West.


Still, sovereignty has its price. Russia’s support comes with strings—opaque mining contracts, mercenaries with poor human rights records, and alignment with autocratic tendencies. France may be gone, but African nations now risk trading one master for another, especially if the West fails to offer viable alternatives. The United States, too, has scaled down its military presence in places like Niger. If democratic governance continues to erode in the Sahel, no amount of sovereignty will prevent the region’s slide into armed instability.


France’s military pullout is in a sense, the beginning of a new, more uncertain geopolitical story in which Africa is no longer just a theatre for European power projection but an active, if fragmented, actor in its own right.


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