Udhampur (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], November 21 (ANI): Union Minister Jitendra Singh visited the three-day mega cataract surgery camp at the Command Hospital in Udhampur, highlighting the Army's significant yet often not mentioned role in community welfare.

During his visit on Thursday, Singh said, 'Usually, the operations of the Army are discussed. But their peacetime activities, their social work, are usually not mentioned. A good example of that is before you. The speciality of this three-day camp is that such machines are used for cataract surgery, which are available in India for the first time now.'

Accompanied by Lt Gen Pratik Sharma, Northern Army Commander, the Minister toured hospital wards, interacted with patients who had undergone successful cataract surgeries, and personally distributed post-operative kits to the beneficiaries and spoke with them about their experiences.

Meanwhile, Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that Operation Sindoor was one of the best vindications of India's achievements in the space sector.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the India International Space Conclave here in the national capital, he underscored how the warfare scenario has changed and is driven by technology.

Jitendra Singh, who is also Minister of State in the PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, said India has high-quality startups, and many of them are becoming very lucrative entrepreneurs.

'India has now started attracting engagement and investment in the space sector from across the world. India is fast emerging as a preferred global destination for space sector engagement and investment. From a decimal economy, today we are an eight-million US economy...We hope to go up four, five times in the next eight, ten years, which means around 40-45 billion...Space will be an important contributor to India's future economic growth,' he said.

'The entire warfare has been totally transformed into a technology-driven warfare. The contact warfare is now on the decline and Operation Sindoor was one of the best vindications of India's achievements both in the space sector as well as in the atomic energy sector and we have succeeded in demonstrating our capacities, which would not otherwise be easy to demonstrate because you can't blow up missiles and just test how efficiently it works. But incidentally, Pakistan gave us an opportunity to test our capacities,' he added.

India had launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 night in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 innocent civilians. India hit terror infrastructure in Pakistan and PoJK through precision strikes and repelled the subsequent Pakistani aggression by pounding its airbases. (ANI)