India, June 19 -- "Sickle Cell Disease is a disease that impacts tribal sections of societies significantly. The government is committed to eliminate the disease before India celebrates its Amrit Kaal in 2047." This is what Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi said while launching the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission (NSCEM) in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, on 1 July 2023.

Late one summer afternoon in a remote village in Jharkhand, 16-year-old Asha sat under a neem tree, her textbooks in her lap. The youngest of five siblings from a tribal family, Asha had spent much of her childhood battling crippling bouts of pain that would leave her bedridden for days. It wasn't until a government screening camp reached her village that she l...