Ashok Bahadur Verma

Verma studied for a BSc at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, where his classmates included Suresh Gupta and Jitender Kapoor. A leg injury during his undergraduate years led to difficulty walking and to a diagnosis of haemophilia. In 1979 he suffered a severe bleed in the leg that could not be treated in India.

His younger brother, then a senior officer in the Indian Navy, met the haemophilia specialist Professor P. M. Mannucci by chance on a flight, and Mannucci offered to treat Verma in Italy at no cost. Verma's family and friends raised the funds for the journey, and three months of treatment in Italy saved his life, although his leg had to be amputated. Before his career in advocacy he ran a small photographic studio in Delhi.

Encouraged by Professor Mannucci to establish haemophilia chapters in India, Verma returned home and began contacting doctors and families affected by the condition across the country. He proposed a seminar-cum-clinic open to people with haemophilia and to interested doctors, which was held in New Delhi in November 1983 and attended by Rev. Allan Tanner, chairman of the World Federation of Hemophilia, Professor Mannucci and clinicians from France, the United States and Sweden. The meeting resolved to create a national federation, with Verma recognised as founder, Suresh Chand as first president and Jitender Kapoor as first chairman. The Hemophilia Federation (India) gives its founding date as 24 November 1983, and its constitution was modelled on that of the World Federation of Hemophilia.

Verma travelled widely in India to locate families affected by haemophilia and to encourage them to form local chapters. Under his leadership the federation worked on setting up blood banks, importing factor VIII and IX concentrates in collaboration with partners in Italy, establishing a medical advisory board, and building links with the Danish haemophilia society and the Royal Free Hospital in London. By its silver jubilee in 2008 the federation had expanded to 87 chapters.

In 1996 Verma became the first Indian to be elected to the executive council of the World Federation of Hemophilia. The Hemophilia Federation (India) commemorates his birth anniversary as Founder's Day, observed by its chapters on 24 November.[2][3][4]