The 28th recipient of the award, Dr Badrinath is the founder of the Shankar Netralaya at Chennai. A premier eye institute, the Netralaya is renowned for its research and treatment. A Padam Shree and Padma Bhushan awardee, Dr Badrinath is known as the ``poor man's doctor'' because of the affordable cost of treatment at his clinic.

Illuminating the highlights of Dr Badrinath's career, Dr B K Goyal, president of the Dhanvantari Foundation said: ``The charm of Dr Badrinath's institution is that everybody is provided treatment here. Whether a patient can afford treatment or not is never a question at Shankar Netralaya.''

Chief guest Dr Alexander added: ``I personally know Dr Badrinath and he is anexcellent doctor. We are all aware that medical treatment is going way beyond the reach of the common man. A concentrated effort is required to make medical aid available to everyone.''

Promising to debate the patents bill, Union Minister for Petroleum Ram Naik said that there would be a concentrated effort on part of his government to look into the suggestions of setting up a medical federation.

In her speech, Union minister of state for power Jaywantiben Mehta said: ``I find it hard to believe that in all these years that the foundation has been giving the awards they haven't yet honoured a woman doctor. I refuse to believe that they haven't found a suitable winner.'' It is here that the true spirit of medicine survives, where economics is not the over-riding factor.

The Dhanvantari tradition began when the foundation was set up in 1971. Recalling the genesis of the foundation, Goyal said: ``Some of us friends got together in my office one day and decided that we needed an organisation where alldisciplines of medicine could come together. Dhanvantari was born and our endeavour has been to maintain the interaction between between different types of medicinal practices like Ayurveda and allopathy.''

The award was instituted by the foundation in 1973 and its first recipient was Padma Bhushan Dr Rustom Jal Vakil. The other winners of this award include Dr Christian Bernard of South Africa, renowned cardiac surgeon Dr Denton Cooley, Ayrveacharya Pandit Haridutt Shastri, vaidya Shriram Sharma, among others.