Sonia Gandhi inaugurates South Asian Autism Network (SAAN) conference

Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated a conference of the South Asia Autism Network in New Delhi on Monday. Representatives from India, Bangladesh, Thailand and WHO, SEARO will participate in the daylong conference. "It is simply not acceptable that we perceive people with autism as people who don't have any understanding. We need to change. We must make the world a comfortable place for those with autism. We need to learn to respect those who may perceive and experience the world differently from us. We need to empathize with them" said Sonia Gandhi. "We need to focus on not what is different about them, unfamiliar movement, unexpected expressions, unusual silences, uncommon imagination but on the vastness of what we have in the common as equal members of one humanity" she added.