WHY HEALTH WRITING ?
You live with your body 24 hours a day – but how well do you really know it ? How much you value your life is a powerful indicator of your physical and mental state of health. Quest for knowledge, once, used to begin with grand theories but today, it is all about massive amounts of data available, making it difficult to separate the good science from the hype. Science is regularly updating and sifting through this maze is arduous as well as a challenge.
Being passionate about health has geared my life into perspective.
Having forayed into healthcare for over two decades, i enjoyed my stint as editor of various health magazines in B2C and B2B arenas. I also gave shape to the portals of these magazines which included a weekly newsletter. I have a fair understanding of the complex profile of the Indian healthcare scenario and i enjoy my work in this direction.
Published more than 1000 healthcare industry interviews in online and print publications, besides three books on drugs - Ramagra, Celadrin and SAMe were published by a pharma company in the UK.
Oct 2014 to present,
Editor, The Economic Times Online Healthcare (ETHealthworld.com)
Started the B2B portal from scratch and today it has culminated into one stop platform that caters to the pulse of the pulsating healthcare industry. It commands a 1,50,000 plus readership of decision makers, policy makers, Hospital CEOs, senior doctors and professionals in health industry in India.
Be it business, policy, research or simply news and analysis, the portal keeps you abreast of the latest developments in almost all verticals of healthcare – hospitals, devices, diagnostics, pathlabs, medical tourism, insurance, infrastructure and allied service associated with the healthcare industry. Have interviewed over 800 healthcare leaders and catalogued some of their leadership qualities.
Managing the B2B Portal that caters from anything to everything in Healthcare space.
The day begins with a comprehensive daily E-newsletter that i roll out at the dot of 8 am. Next comes editing the features, planning the interviews, organizing the webinars, events and usual routine associated with the website.
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In conversation with Dr. Ashok Seth, Chairman, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi. -
In conversation with Dr. Deepak Chopra, Co-Founder, JIYO & Chairman, Chopra Foundation, California. -
In conversation with Dr Naresh Trehan, Chairman & Managing Director, Medanta. -
In conversation with Dr. David Cosgrove, Prof. of Clinical Ultrasound Imperial College, London, UK.
Feb 2013 - Sep 2014
(Senior Assistant Editor, eHealth, Elets Technomedia)
At eHEALTH, a premier print and online, B2B monthly publication focusing on the latest and most cutting-edge info in healthcare ICTs and medical technologies, my job and responsibility included supervising the three media platforms (viz. monthly print magazine, weekly e-Newsletter and the web portal) delivering rich, relevant and up-to-date information for its readers and consumers spanning across the entire healthcare industry.
Jan 2007 - Jan 2011
(Executive Editor @ Via Media Health Communications)
It was an honour and privilege to launch HEAL India in Sep 2007, a health and wellness magazine. The magazine not only focused on innovative medical science but also shared complementary therapies and lifestyle issues.
Here i specialized in the whole editorial gamut... from ideation to editing, writing, interviewing, designing and greasing the little nuts and bolts that finally culminated in the final proof for the printer.
It was a wonderful experience to learn and liaise with the all those to promote healthy life and living.
- As Executive Editor, rolled out almost 40 issues between Jan 2006 and December 2010.
- HEAL India magazine won the prestigious Gold Award presented by the Public Relations Council of India.
- Received HEAL HONOUR 2008 for distinguished services in the field of health writing.
TRAVEL WRITING . . .
Besides health writing, I enjoy traveling and find it an ideal escape from the rigmarole of everyday cycle of bonded life and living. It is fun exploring places, walking the extra mile in the sun to stand in the shade where thousands of years ago other people lived whose spiritual insights informed the tradition of which we are now a part.We encounter such people through books but it is not until we find ourselves at precisely these places where they lived can we really imagine a physical encounter with them.
My first column was “Stories in Stones” that sketched the beauty of historic buildings in and around Delhi. From a remote Bahlol Lodhi’s tomb to well known Qutb Minar, things had to be presented with a touch of history and flare up of “did u know ?” trivia.
The column concluded with invitations and assignments from various travel and leisure magazines. Having written for almost all Indian travel publications, I was commissioned by ITDC in league with Bihar Tourism to tour the state and prepare travel booklets and brochures. It was an assignment which required writing, traveling and research by way of digging deep into history. The toughest part was to get my works approved and attested by the authorities in Archaeological Survey of India.
My tryst with Yatraindia.com was the next best thing in life. The company wanted to showcase the beauty of India in an encyclopaedic way. As the travel editor, I explored various states, district by district. Thanks to my luxurious and customized Mahindra Voyager. Again, it was not writing prose but a good deal of fact finding, history digging, getting a whiff of the cuisine, besides the monumental details were to be catalogued and chronicled. A tough and challenging job, but it had a perfect bonding with my writing genes. States like Bihar, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Haryana, Karnataka and Kerala were explored extensively and in detail. In between came overseas trips and writing assignments from Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, UK, Myanmar, Singapore,Taiwan, etc…
