ABSTRACT
EVELYN KHANNAN is assistant secretary at the TNAI headquarters in Delhi. When author met her in January, she spoke knowledgeably and comprehensively of plans to expand the organisation's capacity for advanced education and of its role in creating and maintaining a professional community in India. The topic of greatest interest for Khannan, however, was that of community health. Her career in community health nursing practice had allowed her to practise this central family ethos of social service. Khannan had taken her GNM course at the Christian Fellowship Hospital in Oddanchatram, Tamil Nadu, after that a post-certificate course in community health nursing at CMC Vellore, and then a post-basic BSc in Nursing from the Indira Gandhi National Open University. Khannan gave up her work in community health only when her husband, who worked for the Planning Commission, unexpectedly died at a young age, leaving her with two children to raise alone.
