Kathmandu, July 31, 2006

Dr Sanduk Ruit, medical director of Tilganga Eye Centre, is among this year’s recipients of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award.

He won the award for work in providing lenses at an affordable price to the partially blind poor people. Dr Ruit is the third Nepali to win the award.

He got the award under the category of Peace and International Understanding of which Mother Teresa, too, was a recipient.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF), in a press release, stated that the award goes to Dr Ruit for “placing Nepal in the forefront of developing safe, effective and economic procedures for cataract surgery, enabling the needlessly blind in even the poorest countries to see again.”

Dr Ruit took the initiative, with the Fred Hollows Foundation, to manufacture these lenses for about US $ 4, making it affordable for the poor people. The cost of an intra ocular lens used for modern cataract surgery is very high — about US$ 100 per lens.

“I am feeling exhilarated to be awarded the Magsaysay which was bagged by Mother Teresa,” Dr Sanduk Ruit told this daily.

“My work for the people who cannot afford to see this world has been rewarded.” “I am hopeful that this award would help boost the morale of the country especially when the image of the country has been tarnished,” he added Hailing from the Olang Chung Gola in Taplejung, he won a scholarship to study medicine in India.

BIMSTEC implementation hits more roadblocks

Despite BIMSTEC free trade area (FTA) agreement having been scheduled to come into force from July 1, 2006, it could not happen due to political situation in Thailand.

Member countries of the BIMSTEC Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC) have failed to meet the deadline on ‘trade-in-goods’ for tariff reduction in the meeting held from July 25 to 28 in Colombo.

ASEAN members, namely Thailand and Myanmar who are alos members of BIMSTEC, are thinking more liberally to boost free trade while South Asian countries are still found to be hesitant about free trade as they are still new in this regard.

Naindra Prasad Upadhyaya, joint secretary at the ministry of industry, commerce and supplies and chief of Nepali delegation informed that discussion on fast track, normal track and negative list that comes under trade in goods is still going on.

Upadhyaya said that it is a continuing process to negotiate trade issues regarding tariff reduction and negative list of products. BIMSTEC trade negotiation committee meeting was held from July 25 to 28.

The four-day long meeting was held in Colombo.

BIMSTEC comprises of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.