Antimicrobial resistance is often described as a global crisis, but in places like India, and increasingly in Kashmir, it is no longer a distant or abstract concern. It is unfolding quietly in clinics, pharmacies, and households, altering the way infections respond to treatment and, in some cases, making them far more dangerous than they used to be. What makes this phenomenon particularly troubling is that it does not arrive with the urgency of an epidemic. It grows gradually, almost invisibly, until the point at which familiar medicines begin to fail.

At its simplest, antimicrobial resistance refers to the ability of microorganisms to survive drugs that were once effective against them. Yet this biological process is deeply shaped by human behaviour. India today is among the largest consumers of antibiotics in the world, a position driven not only by the burden of infectious diseases but also by patterns of use that are often unregulated or inappropriate. The result has been a steady rise in resistant infections, including those caused by organisms such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter baumannii, many of which are now showing resistance even to powerful, last-resort drugs.

The situation in Kashmir reflects these broader trends while also revealing local specificities that deserve attention. Evidence emerging from tertiary care hospitals suggests that multidrug-resistant infections are becoming increasingly common, particularly in intensive care settings. What is equally........

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