Mr. Charles Gould, Director-General of International Co-operative Alliance was invited by National Cooperative Union of India to deliver the 17thVaikunthbhai Mehta Memorial Lecture on 16 June 2014 inNew Delhi, India on the topic: Co-operatives: Global perspective and the road ahead. He Said, “This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of Vaikunthbhai Mehta, whose memorial lecture I am privileged to be able to deliver today. The honour is not only in associating my words with the life of Shri Mehta, but also with the words of the 16 individuals who have delivered the memorial lecture in years past — individuals like the legendary Dr. V Kurien and the International Co-operative Alliance’s own IvanoBarberini, our immediate past President, may he rest in peace. There is a tendency, when we reflect back on history, and this is also true of co-operative history, to recall the Rochdale Pioneers and Friedrich Raiffeisen and Alphonse Desjardins — the towering figures of the century before last — and to imagine that there was a time when giants walked the earth. And while these were all inspiring figures, who left a lasting impact, we see in the lives of individuals like Vaikunthbhai Mehta that there is a continuity in co-operative history, that the inspiration passes from generation to generation, and from country to country, each making their own mark to advance the co-operative idea while ensuring that it is relevant to that particular place and in that particular time. Shri Mehta, as his biography claims, was the doyen of the Indian Co-operative Movement, but we need not limit his fame to this country. He stands with Raiffeisenin Germany and Desjardins in Canada and Toyohiko Kagawa in Japan and others around the world in having an impact that was intended for their own country and yet which has inspired and influenced others far beyond the ground they personally trod. And so I applaud NCUI for its efforts to keep his story alive and well-known through these lectures".read full speech here