Preserve water…safeguard optometry

While water-demand increases with every passing day, its availability is becoming scarce…so much so that in near future battles are likely be fought over this issue if immediate steps are not put in place for its proper conservation. Urgent action on water management needs to be taken on many fronts…”we need to worship water like our ancestors did and manage it properly if we wish to have a future”, asserts Brahma Chellany, author of `Water, Peace and War: Confronting the Global Water Crises’. Picture (Hindustan Times, May 3, 2014, Mahendra Parikh) shows women drawing water from the only well at Gorai village, Borivli, Mumbai.

Scant regard is also being paid to optometry by Government authorities who introduced this noble profession of primary eye care in the country more than half a century ago (in the year 1958) but have not cared to bring out legislation to regulate its practice only in the hands of those who are qualified. And, in the interest of people’s efficient visual welfare, there’s urgent need to safeguard optometry by transforming it as the true first line of defence against blindness by establishing the Optometric Council of India.

Dr. Narendra Kumar