THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At a remote electricity-less village called Olanchungola in the Himalayas, at a height of 11,000 ft in Eastern Nepal, was born a little boy whom his uneducated parents named Sanduk Ruit. Like any other lad in the mountains, he went to a school that was a week’s walk away. And like most of the children of the village, where there were no health posts, he lost his siblings to pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhoea. It was then that little Sanduk gave up his dream to fly aeroplanes.He excelled in his studies to become a doctor and completed a three-year ophthalmology residency at the prestigious All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. He then began his voyage to create a world where no one is needlessly blind. His brainchild, a sutureless form of cataract surgery, has restored vision to hundreds of thousands of poor cataract patients of Nepal and other countries. Dr Sanduk Ruit busted the belief that modern cataract surgery, using an intraocular lens (IOL), to be too expensive, risky and difficult. He, along with his Australian mentor, invented a 3.5-dollar alternative to the existing lens, which cost around 100 dollars. This led to the revolution that made free cataract surgeries possible around the world. Today, he continues to trek through the most remote regions of Nepal conducting eye camps and restoring sight to thousands of the blind through the ‘Himalayan Cataract’ project.This Ramon Magsaysay Award winner will be in city in the coming days to participate in the ‘Erudite Conclave’ organised by the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, which intends to bring together intelligentsia of the world from various fields. The conclave is scheduled to be held on November 8 and 9.At the conclave, Dr Sanduk Ruit will be joined by Nobel Laureate Dr Rolf Zinkernagel, who, along with Australian Peter C Doherty, received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells. Anil K Gupta, founder of SRISTI, that focuses on making sure that indigenous innovation gets the due credit and market it deserves, would be another expert to attend the conclave. Hosting a wide range of innovations, including ones like arecanut dehusking machine, and Enfield Bullet-driven tilling machine, to new varieties of crops developed by farmers, SRISTI brings to the forefront the innovators of the country. If you thought it was all science, you are way off the mark. The conclave will also bring together dancer, choreographer and Padma Shri award recipient Ananda Shankar Jayant, who uses classical dances to communicate anything from mythological stories to contemporary gender issues, National award-winning actress Sobhana, renowned violinist and music composer Balabhaskar and public policy analyst Shaffi Mather. Registration is now open and is available to undergraduates and post graduates from all fields, including practising doctors. For details, log on to www.eruditeconclave.com.
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