India is ready to lead technology driven diabetes care, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here on Sunday.

Addressing the three-day World Congress of ‘Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics 2023’ (DTechCon 2023) here, Dr Singh, who is also a renowned Diabetologist and Professor, said that India is being looked up to by the rest of the world in the field of healthcare after the successful handling of the pandemic. ”Technologically and in human resources, we are much ahead of most other countries,” he said.

He said India is fast becoming more and more tech savvy, particularly after Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister because he is personally promoting science and technology innovations.

The PM has a natural temper for science and having worked closely with him for the past nine years, he can very well say that Modi gives his team a free hand in developing ideas and getting them implemented, the minister added.

”This is evident from the fact that there were just around 350 StartUps before 2014, but after Prime Minister Modi gave a clarion call from the ramparts of the Red Fort in his Independence Day address and rolled out a special StartUp scheme in 2016, there has been a quantum jump in StartUps to more than 90,000 with more than 100 Unicorns,” he said. India is also rated no. 3 in the StartUp ecosystem of the world, he added.

Jitendra Singh said, similarly Prime Minister Modi opened up the space sector for private participation leading to more than 100 StartUps in the Space sector within just about three years. Biotech StartUps went up from around 50 in 2014 to nearly 6,000 today, he said.

Recently the Union Cabinet approved the launch of the National Quantum Mission which will also boost medical diagnosis and treatment in the country. The minister said that India is one of the very few countries in the world to have launched a National Quantum Mission.

He said that in the field of Telemedicine, India has some of the best StartUps in the world. These StartUp groups have developed AI doctors. Citing an example of its application, the Minister said that his team selected about 60 remote villages in his constituency and engaged a telemedicine van called ‘Doctor on Wheels’. The team ran it for three months in all 60 villages and the best of consultations were provided in a very short time, he said.

The minister said that India is not only becoming a technology leader but also a huge medical tourism hub.

He said as India is in the frontline of diabetes research in the world, the prevention of diabetes is not only its duty towards healthcare but also its duty towards nation building.