A seminar on Dr. Henry Norman Bethune was held in Jadavpur University, Kolkata by Bethune Institute of Geriatrics Research & Rehabilitation Centre on March 3, 2009. Mr. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, Mayor of Kolkata, Mr. Joseph Caron, High Commissioner of Canada to India, and Mr. Zhang Tiejian, Deputy Consul General of China in Kolkata, attended the seminar to commemorate the 119th Birth Anniversary of Dr. Bethune.

Dr. Bethune, a Canadian communist, travelled to China in 1938 to help the Chinese Communists in their struggle against the Japanese aggression. He performed emergency battlefield surgical operations on war casualties and died on November 12, 1939, of blood poisoning. Dr. Bethune received international recognition when Chairman Mao Zedong of the People's Republic of China published his essay entitled In Memory of Norman Bethune.

In his remarks, Mr. Zhang Tiejian emphasized Dr. Norman Bethune’s contribution to the Chinese revolution and said that Dr. Norman Bethune had been remembered with reverence in China, with museum, medical school and hospitals dedicated in his name.

A documentary film on Dr. Norman Bethune was shown at the function.