The Hindu Editorial Analysis
08 January 2026
Fine-tune this signal to sharpen India’s AMR battle
(Source – The Hindu, International Edition – Page No. – 8)
Topic : GS Paper – GS-3 : Health, Science & Technology, Public Health Policy, Governance
Context
The editorial analyses Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent remarks on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) during the December 2025 edition of Mann Ki Baat. By explicitly flagging irrational and indiscriminate antibiotic use as a national concern, the Prime Minister has elevated AMR from a technical public health issue to a mass awareness challenge. Drawing upon Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data, the speech highlighted declining antibiotic effectiveness against common infections and called upon citizens to avoid self-medication. The editorial views this as a crucial signalling moment that must now be matched with systemic policy action.
Core Issue
The central issue is whether public awareness alone can curb India’s AMR crisis, or whether it must be complemented by deeper surveillance, regulatory, and institutional reforms.
While behavioural change is essential, AMR in India has evolved into a complex, multi-sectoral problem requiring:
- Robust data systems,
- Health system strengthening,
- Regulatory enforcement,
- A coordinated One Health approach.
Mainstreaming AMR as a Public Concern
AMR has long been confined to:
- Medical journals,
- Hospital corridors,
- Policy documents.
By invoking national data and addressing antibiotic misuse directly, the Prime Minister’s speech has:
- Brought AMR into mainstream public discourse,
- Linked individual behaviour with public health outcomes,
- Reinforced that antibiotics are not casual remedies but regulated medical tools.
Past interventions such as the National Action Plan on AMR and the ban on colistin as a growth promoter succeeded partly because they combined policy action with awareness. The editorial argues that this public signal can have a similar catalytic effect.
Limits of Awareness Without Systemic Action
At India’s current stage of the AMR trajectory, awareness alone is insufficient.
- AMR has grown into a “hydra-headed” challenge,
- Resistance emerges across humans, animals, agriculture, and the environment,
- Addressing it requires a One Health framework that recognises interconnections across sectors.
Without structural interventions, public messaging risks becoming symbolic rather than transformative.
Gaps in Surveillance: The Non-Urban Blind Spot
A critical weakness lies in AMR surveillance coverage.
- Surveillance sites are concentrated in urban, tertiary care centres,
- Non-urban and primary care settings are largely under-represented,
- This skews national estimates and masks community-level AMR prevalence.
India’s National AMR Surveillance Network (NARS-Net) feeds data into the WHO’s GLASS system, but:
- As of the 2023 reporting period, data came from only 41 sites across 31 States/UTs,
- GLASS currently relies on 60 sentinel medical college laboratories.
This network is insufficient to capture India’s vast geographical and demographic diversity.
Expanding Surveillance Beyond Public Institutions
The editorial stresses the need to:
- Include secondary and primary healthcare centres,
- Integrate private hospitals into surveillance networks.
Experts argue that excluding private facilities—where a large proportion of antibiotic use occurs—produces an incomplete resistance picture. Including them would yield:
- More representative national data,
- Better policy targeting,
- Improved monitoring of prescribing practices.
Aligning with Global Best Practices
The WHO Global Action Plan on AMR (2015) outlines five core objectives:
- Raise awareness,
- Strengthen surveillance and research,
- Reduce infection incidence,
- Optimise antimicrobial use,
- Ensure sustainable investment in diagnostics, medicines, and vaccines.
India’s public messaging aligns with the first objective. However, progress on surveillance expansion and enforcement remains uneven.
The Role of Political Will and Investment
Expanding AMR surveillance is not merely technical—it requires:
- Sustained financial investment,
- Inter-governmental coordination,
- Regulatory enforcement,
- Political commitment at both Centre and State levels.
Without these, India risks underestimating the scale of the problem and delaying corrective action.
Conclusion
The Prime Minister’s Mann Ki Baat message has sent a powerful signal by framing AMR as a collective national responsibility. This awareness push is a necessary first step, but it must now be fine-tuned and amplified through systemic reform.
To truly sharpen India’s AMR battle, the government must:
- Expand surveillance networks beyond urban public hospitals,
- Integrate private and primary care institutions,
- Operationalise a comprehensive One Health approach.
Only when behavioural change is reinforced by credible data, robust institutions, and sustained political will can India hope to reverse the rising tide of antimicrobial resistance.