Even as the country is poised to become the third largest economy in terms of purchasing power, there exist people who are marginalised in terms of poverty and separatist attitude, but the vision of India that is marching forward needs to include all of them in one fibre; said Shashi Tharoor, MP, here on Thursday.
Delivering the inaugural address at the 70th annual conference of the All India Ophthalmological Society, Mr. Tharoor said that the people of India manage to reach a consensus in spite of the cacophony of its own diversity and this thread needs to be taken up by doctors in their vision to bring in those who have been left out.
N.S.D. Raju was installed as the new president of the AIOS at the function. Dr. Raju is the second Keralite after Tony Fernandes to become the president of the AIOS.
The function also honoured two doyens of ophthalmology for the service they had rendered to the society and for research in the field. S. S. Badrinath, founder chairman Emeritus, Sankara Nethalaya, Chennai and B. Shukla from Gwalior were given lifetime achievement awards by Mr. Tharoor.
K. Mohandas, Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University of Medical and Allied Services; Adrian Koh from Singapore; V. K. Raju from the US; Lalit Verma, secretary, AIOS; Anita Panda, president-elect; D. Ramamoorthy, chairman, scientific committee; and A. Giridhar, the chief organising secretary of conference, were among those who spoke.
Several foreign and Indian experts along with large delegation of ophthalmologists across the country have arrived to participate in the seminars and scientific sessions that would take place in the next three days. The meet would conclude on Sunday.