Family, Colleagues and I in AlSahafa Arabic newspaper of Sudan.

100% BIODIVERSITY-FRIENDLY COFFEE

My niece Arshiya (my sister Shukla Bose's daughter) has applied her PhD from Cambridge to start up entrepreneurship.She wants you to understand the intrinsic value of biodiversity and to support traditional shade growth that preserves precious forests.In this motivating talk, Arshiya describes Black Baza Coffee Co., the business she has started to disrupt the coffee supply chain and in doing so, to enable wildlife to return to its natural splendor. Proud of her...

Golden Jubilee of Sudan Association of Physicians

In the year 1966, legendary Physicians of Sudan Dr. Abdel Halim Mohamed, Dr. Daoud Mustafa, Dr. Mohydeen Mahdy, Dr. Abdel Razak AlMubarak, Dr. Mohamed Hassan Abubakr, Dr. Abdel Monem Wasfi and Dr. Mohamed Hassan Gabir formed the Sudan Association of Physicians (SAP). The purpose of the association was to bring the Physicians together both socially and professionally. This association is now 50 years old and the Golden Jubilee was celebrated at the

29th Conference of SAP during 26-29 February’16 at Friendship Hall, Khartoum. In these 50 years there have been 24 Presidents elected in SAP and the present President Dr.Nawal A.Y.Elkurdofani is the first lady head of SAP. At the opening of the conference she mentioned that the theme was ‘Screening and Prevention towards Better Health’. Her vision is to hit on this often overlooked or by-passed important area of medicine. At the inauguration all the past Presidents of SAP, ten of them, were felicitated.

The immediate previous SAP President Prof. Siddig Ibrahim Khalil presented ‘Medicines and Physicians of the Sudan during 20^th Century’. In his presentation Prof. Siddig shared from the archives that the first physician was Dr. J .B. Christopherson and Dr. Hassan Zaki (1902), spoke of the smallpox epidemic in 2003 and later the main diseases were malaria and dysentery. The medicines available were tincture belladonna and carbolic acid. The first graduates in medicines in Khartoum were in 1928, the year Fleming discovered Penicillin, but the drug was available only in 1942.

The visiting doctor who stole the limelight at the conference was Prof. Parveen Kumar, famous co-author of Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine, now in its eighth edition. She has held many posts in medicine and medical education, including chairing the Medicines Commission UK and serving as president of the British Medical Association in 2006 and of the Royal Society of Medicine in 2010-12. Many doctors in Sudan were of the impression that Parveen Kumar was a man and were surprised to find that she was an elegant lady of Indian origin. Prof. Kumar spoke on ‘Diagnosis and management of coeliac diseases’; ‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome’ and ‘Career in Medical Education’.

There were many other speakers both from abroad and Sudan who spoke on various subjects like Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Neurology, Cardiology, Nephrology, Diabetology, Chest diseases, tropical medicine, infectious diseases, Rheumatology, Emergency medicine, Intensive Care, Hypertension, Dyslipidemia and Medical Education. There were more than 500 doctors both juniors and consultants who attended the 4 days conference.

There was a corner where about ten 5th year medical students made interesting poster presentations of their own research which had many revelations. The writer thought these bright future doctors should have been given more prominence.

First Picture is at the inauguration L to R : Prof. Ahmed Makeen –President Elect SAP; Dr. Abdalla Abdel Karim – Vice President Sudan Doctors Union; Dr. Somia Idris Osman- Federal Ministry of Health; Dr.Galal Dignar Presidential Assistant; Prof. Mamoun Homeida- Khartoum State Minister of Health; Dr. Nawal Kordofani-President SAP and Prof.Hamad El-Turabi-Scientific Committee Chairman-SAP. Second Photo is of     Prof. Parveen Kumar co-editor of Kumar & Clark’s Clinical Medicine.

1st Digital Marketing Summit in Sudan

This was the first time in my life when I had the details of the Summit on an App in my mobile handset. This was the first Digital Marketing Summit in Sudan held at hotel Corinthia on 14-15 Feb’16. Hats off to my friend Saif Lutfi and his Consultancy  Centre who organized the Summit. There were key note addresses, panel discussions and workshops on various aspects of Digital Marketing. The topics ranged from social media strategies, content, tactics and measurement; mobile apps and money and Internet Banking covering issues related to regulations and e-commerce.
Speakers came from all over the globe and were specialists in their respective fields.I now have understood the power of social media in business. One needs to have a well thought of social media strategy and different contents and tactics are used for different platforms, and the content is created to link between business,brands and benefits. There must have been more than 200 participants from almost every walk of life. There were Doctors, Pharmacists, Engineers, Bankers, Mobile phone service providers and all those who are involved with Digital Marketing.I have now connected with almost all the speakers on Facebook, Tweeter, LinkedIn and I also hope that this blog will be read by them.

India Sudan Pharmaceutical Business Meet in Khartoum

60 Indian Pharmaceutical companies visited Khartoum for Business meetings with more than 200 Sudanese professionals from the Pharmaceutical Sector at Hotel Regency in Khartoum on 22^nd February 2016. The Indian delegation of 72 people were brought by Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council of India (PHARMEXCIL). PHARMEXCIL is set up by Ministry of Commerce & Industries, Govt. of India. This event was supported by the Embassy of India, Khartoum.

The B2B meetings were held between Indian manufacturers of raw material, packaging material, finished formulations for human, veterinary medicines, herbal medicines, nutraceuticals and Sudanese manufacturers and importers of Pharmaceuticals.

India is the Pharmacy of the World. Every third tablet consumed in the world is ‘Made in India’ because India is the third largest producer of pharmaceuticals in terms of volumes. 70% of patients in developing countries receive Indian medicines. 40% of the generic drugs consumed in the USA is ‘Made in India’. There are 1400 WHO GMP approved manufacturing units in India and 1105 units are approved by Europe (CEP); 950 by Australia (TGA) and 584 sites are approved by USFDA. Outside US, the highest number of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities approved by US is in India. In fact, US FDA has set up an office in New Delhi with many of their staff located in Mumbai. The total exports of pharmaceuticals from India in 2015 was US$ 16.8 billion.

The pharmaceutical market size in Sudan is about US$ 650 million with about 20 local manufacturing units producing 25% of the total demand and the balance 75% is being imported. 16% of the total pharmaceuticals imported are from India. The trend of importing from India is increasing because of quality products at affordable prices. The biggest challenge experienced by both India and Sudan in this trade is transfer of money. Due to US sanctions Indian banks are not accepting payment from Sudan. The higher authorities in India have been briefed about this and they are working towards resolving this issue.

There was an overwhelming response from Sudanese pharmaceutical companies at the business meetings who were genuinely interested to procure from India. Many contracts were signed. Many of them expressed their interest to partner with Indian companies either by establishing manufacturing base or by technical collaboration in Sudan.

ITEC Day in Khartoum

Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) Day was celebrated on 17^th February 2016 at India House, the Indian Ambassador’s residence in Khartoum.

ITEC was instituted by the Government of India on 15 September 1964 as a bilateral programme of assistance. India has made substantial progress and gained useful experience in industrial and technological development after it regained its freedom in 1947. The ITEC programme of the Ministry of External Affairs was an earnest attempt by India to share the fruits of its socio-economic development and technological achievement with other developing countries. As a result of various activities under ITEC programme, there is now awareness among other countries about the competence of India as provider of technical know-how and expertise as well as training opportunities, consultancy services and feasibility studies.

There are 160 partner countries under the ITEC programme and more than 7500 scholars participate in this programme every year from different countries.

There are 150 scholars under ITEC from Sudan every year who are benefitted from various professional courses such as Agriculture, Renewable energy, IT, modern machinery, remote sensing etc.

ITEC Day celebrations in Khartoum on 17^th February’16 comprised of a short film about ITEC ‘Lessons in Friendship’ and two power point presentations, one of these presented by an ITEC participant about his experience ‘My experience with ITEC’ followed by a presentation ‘Pan Africa E- Network Project’ made by the Representative of Telecommunications Consultants of India Limited (TCIL). Besides, there were two other ITEC candidates who shared their experiences.

About 175 guests graced the occasion. Besides 160 ITEC participants, among the prominent attendees were chief guest H.E. Dr.  Somia Idris Osman, Minister of State for health, Mr. Selva Ramachandra, Country Director, UNDP, Dr. Anil Mithani Prominent Indian community member and Mustafa Elradi Ahmed H., Secretary General of Supreme council of Vocational Training, Consultant from National Center for training and President Sudan-India Friendship Association (SIFA) . Representatives of local media were also present in the event.

During her remarks, Dr. Somia Idris Osman, chief guest, highlighted the India-Sudan historical relations and growing cooperation in various fields and particularly mentioned about India’s assistance in recently nationalized Kosti Power plant. Dr. Somia said that the ITEC training  and other scholarships, Vocational Training Centre in River Nile state and the Centre for English Language Training at Khartoum, offered by India will immensely help in development of Human resources in Sudan. Ambassador of India, H.E. Mr. Amrit Lugun had requested all the ITEC candidates to send their feedback and experiences during their training in India so that the existing ITEC programme can be improved further.