Throughout India, we often said, we have only one professional person devoting 100% of the time to tobacco control—Dr Sharad G Vaidya from Goa. Alas Dr Vaidya is no more. He died on 19 October 2000 at Bombay Airport on his way from the UK to Goa.

Dr Vaidya was a surgeon specialising in cancer surgery, a profession perhaps natural for him because his surname means “physician” and because he came from a long line of family physicians. From early in his career, Dr Vaidya became more interested in cancer prevention than in surgery. He founded the Goa Cancer Society, the second such society in India. He took up tobacco education as a part of cancer …