Surgeon gave sight to thousands

The death of the most prolific eye surgeon in the world, who once performed 833 operations in a day, is being mourned by his former patients and India's medical fraternity.

M. C. Modi, who entered the Guinness World Records by performing the most eye surgeries in a day, died in his sleep last week in Bangalore. He was 90.

He set the world record at a free eye-operation camp during the annual Pongal festival when devotees throng to Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

The doctor once said: 'A friend aptly compared me to Henry Ford, saying that I had brought conveyer-belt technology to the field of eye care.'

In a career spanning six decades, he performed a mind-boggling 700,000 eye operations. Most of them were for cataracts, a major problem in India.

Cataract disease in India does not afflict only the elderly. It blinds people in their 30s and 40s, ruining lives and causing economic hardship for families.