Honorable Justice N. Venkatchala, esteemed Dr. G. N. Rao, distinguished AIOS officers on Dias, seniors, friends and juniors of AIOS family, with permission of the chair, I rise to speak as President of your Organization.
I salute you and express my gratitude for your kind support and the trust you have bestowed in me.

MY JOURNEY TO THIS OFFICE…..
It all began without any plan or strategy to hold any important post but serving the society as its active member had always been a silent dream.
I take pride in reminding this August gathering the reforms that my persistence and perseverance brought forth:

1. The number of votes polled by a candidate in the AIOS election was not disclosed. Resolution moved by me and voted by you all has made it possible to know the exact standing of each candidate.

2. The General Body Meeting used to start 6:30 pm onwards. After a tiring day all of session's members were not keen to attend the GBM. I got the motion voted by you to pre-pone the GBM to 4 pm so as to encourage greater participation of members and not to leave the important decisions to just a handful. Please contribute to the deliberation of GBM.

3. There was a move to stop the publication of the Conference Proceedings. I resisted and got it restored so that the members could proudly display the papers presented at the Conference. Editor Proceedings do owe their chair to my efforts!

4. Upgrading the Academic and Research Committee.

An important Committee had actually got a virtual existence. I fought to enhance the number and amount of various fellowships, CME sponsorships so that the AIOS ploughs back some money for the benefit of its members all over the country.

I introduced the nebula of 'Young Researchers Session' wherein the  research done by a PG student as a thesis is evaluated and awarded. I hope the Professor and heads of the various Academic Organizations will encourage active participation of their students. I am grateful to Dr. Pran Nagpal and Dr. Keiki Mehta who supported me when I was virtually fighting alone to get this idea accepted to the society leaders. Now Academic and Research Committee is a healthy adolescent, its chairman is an OBSC member. I am sure that the next Chairman of ARC, Dr. S. Natarajan shall take it to greater heights.

5. I deserve a wave of hand from the Karnataka members for I fought to get this Conference here when a very agitated and hurt Dr. K .R. Murthy along with his contingent were about to walk out of GBM at Bhopal in protest. You my friends deserve the honour to host this grand Conference. 

6. And last but best for me is the epithet “Brutally Frank & Honest”  I earned from our President Elect 'six and a half footer' Dr. Babu Rajendran a Tamil tiger of soft disposition, who roars but once in a while.

DO I HAVE A PLAN AS A PRESIDENT?
Yes, I have plenty like my predecessors. I went through ten of such speeches and was disappointed to note that none of their beautiful dreams/ thoughts bore fruits. We have a bureaucratic functioning in AIOS where anything new is opposed, be it the electoral reform, Continued Medical Education (CME) or Ethics. Before an idea starts taking shape, a President becomes Ex-President looking forward to a reserved seat in the front row at annual gatherings. I am a different person, friends-I don't give up. I walked three miles to school from my village in Wild Western U.P. My legs became strong enough to stand and fight.

I am putting a few ideas before you and with your support I intend to pursue them as President or no President.

ELECTORAL REFORM
There are more than eleven thousand members in AIOS but only eleven hundred vote to elect their leaders, a mere 10% or so of the total! I and Dr. Babu got the constitutional amendment voted at the GBM in Bhuvaneshwar in 2005 in favour of voting by postal ballots so that a large but are unable to travel far off to Annual Meeting of AIOS can exercise their right to cast vote. The amendment was never allowed to be implemented because of the indifference of most of us & vested interests of few!

Ballot paper voting may have deficiencies but to have only 10% members participating in the election is even a greater deficiency. An alternative could be that members can cast their vote in their respective state conferences which can be added up at the annual conference and final results declared thereof.

SECRETARY AND TREASURER

According to our Constitution as it exists today, no AIOS member from a small town however eminent and popular he might be can ever aspire to become the Secretary as the qualifying criterion only permits metro candidates to fulfill the same. Such rules are against the fundamental rights of the members of a society.

All will agree that we should get rid of such discriminatory Rules & Regulations. My ambition to become the Secretary was murdered by these anarchic regulations as well as political betrayal by friends & mentors similar to the one you watched in Karnataka a couple of months back. On my predicament of failing to become secretary I quote two lines from Urdu poetry:

WOMEN IN AIOS OFFICE
 “The status of civilization in a society is reflected by the position of women in that society”. Since 1930, AIOS had only three out of 77 (3/77) that is 4% women Presidents. These gracious ladies were Dr.(Miss) Laker,
Dr. Sudha Sutaria and Dr. V. Kalevar.

Today out of the 23 elected officers of AIOS we have only one woman officer (1/23~4%) that is Dr. Ruchi Goel. God bless her and may her tribe increase from the present 4%!

We have given them position in Village Panchayats but not in this society. Indeed we shall be judged poorly by Mr. John Stuart Mills who made the observation I have quoted in the beginning. There are excellent lady surgeons, speakers and academicians amongst us. I appeal to our eminent women members to please come forward to lead this Organization.

ETHICS
Almost every President of AIOS in the last ten years has emphasized on the need of a 'Moral code of Conduct' for our members but what we observe is the naked dance of greed, materialism, one-upmanship, advertising, false claims and machine pedalling. In the process humane, caring physician has taken a back seat & this noble, divine profession has taken a nose dive.

Can't we toe the lines of our noble seniors & leaders like Dr. B. Shukla, Dr. D. K. Sen, Dr. Pasricha, Dr. Ranbir Mukherjee, Dr. Madan Mohan, Dr. Tony Fernandez, Dr. Pran Nagpal, Dr. S. Kalevar, Dr. I. S. Jain who all have spoken about importance of ethics in the noble profession of medicine. Mr. N. Vittal Ex-chief vigilance commissioner once commented that Hippocrates Oath of doctors has become a Hypocrites' Oath. However he rated three most ethical hospitals in the country & all of them are Eye hospitals & all three are situated to the south of Vindhyachal.

Friends join your hands together to clap for- L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad; Aravind Eye Institute, Madurai & Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai. Our hospitals from north have lot of catching to do. 

Friends if we emulate Americans then we should not mind being dragged to courts like them, but once the Ambulance chasers or lawyers get on you, life may be difficult.

PUBLISH OR PERISH SYNDROME
This is another disease which is making our members cheats, liars & forcing our youngsters in medical schools to cook up data and publish fictitious papers. We need to strengthen our Ethical Committee of AIOS constitutionally to punish a few wrong doers. I shall request the AIOS Secretariat to supply you the copy of '2002-Regulations of MCI on ethics' which shall enlighten you about your duties, rights and punishment for the violation of enshrined codes.
 
MEDICAL COLLEGES & OPHTHALMOLOGY
We have 245 Medical Colleges and attached hospitals. Most of them are in a dismal state as far as teaching, training and equipment are concerned. I shall get data through state societies on the number of teachers, necessary equipment & training facilities. As an Additional Director General Health I shall do my best to convince the Central/State Governments to improve their Ophthalmic establishments. We in AIOS shall attempt to set up AIOS learning centers/hands on training/wet labs to supplement the practical skills of our members.
Dr. T. P. Das has accepted my proposals and I hope he shall take it to a logical conclusion.

MONITORING EQUIPMENT SUPPLIERS
Some of the equipment vendors are cheating our Members. We need to strengthen our Products Committee so that the Committee can in reality check the misdeeds of blacksheeps of industry and provide relief to wronged member.

BALANCE OF TECHNOLOGY & COMMERCIAL INTEREST
Globalization, stark capitalism & liberalization have produced a large number of multibillionaires in shining India. But, let us not forget that 30% of urban population lives in slums, 70% in villages. The upper crust of the latest gadget owners rule the roost every where even in our society. I am in support of technology balanced by the need of our economy & training variations. A large chunk of our population needs a treatment which is reasonably priced and delivers reasonable quality of service. A burning example is Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery which has transformed the quality of cataract surgery in country like ours. 70% chatter in the conference is created by those supersonic phaco propagators who operate only 10-20% of cataracts in this country.

Please remember, we have numerous districts with Ophthalmic centers lacking even a good microscope. Whatever the Government statistics may speak, ICCE is still practiced in large numbers. Our Scientific committee should cater to the needs of these small town, less trained brethrens who feel too overwhelmed to even ask questions or clarifications from five star speakers. My advice to members is to shift to smaller towns where there is enough work and renumeration plus an opportunity to serve those who cannot pay for Torsional Phaco or so called Bladeless surgery.

REMEMBRANCE AND THANKSGIVING
I am indebted to Almighty for giving me the opportunity to heal the suffering humanity. To my parents, who blessed me with the art of loving & giving, my wife Dr. Shashi Prateek, who is busy organizing National Gynaecological meets at Delhi right today, my daughter, Dr. Kokil Malik who is pursuing residency in Psychiatry at East Virginia Medical School, my son Aditya Malik, an IIM, Ahmedabad graduate working at Mumbai. All of us helped each other in achieving the chosen paths.

I remember all my teachers at my village schools & those at the Medical Institute. One unforgettable was Sh. Chandulal Gupta, my math's teacher in 9th class, who slapped me so hard on my right ear that I still carry a scar of perforated ear drum. My father went to thank him the next day for keeping a check on one of the most fidgety of his eight sons!

I also fondly remember my two postgraduate teachers, who as internal examiners insisted that I fail in my M.S. exam as all other three students were failing! I thank the rigid external, Sardar Dr. Dhanwant Singh of Patiala who stood his ground and ensured that the deserving should pass and helped me to maintain a clean record.

To mention few more names Dr. Sriramamurthy, Dr. Sambasiva Rao for Family Benefits Scheme with a Membership of over 2000 & benefits of Rs. 10 lacs to the family of deceased members. I appeal to everyone that more members should join.

Dr. Ashok Garg a product of my college i.e. Rohtak, Haryana for compiling & publishing 15 Ophthalmology books in one year. This stupendous effort has been recognized by Guiness Book of World Records.

Lastly, I thank Dr. Ruchi Goel a Scientific Committee Member of AIOS, my ex-student, a colleague who persuaded me to co-author a book on Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery which has been purchased by the Government of India and has been distributed all over India among Ophthalmologists practicing in the districts.

Thanks to you all, again, for electing me and listening to me patiently.