Kochi, Nov 02: The World Ayurveda Congress 2002 was inaugurated here today amid Vedic invocations before an audience comprising medical and allied fraternity from across the world. The importance of Ayurveda and other indigenous systems of medicine in modern times was stressed by speakers belonging to the medical, scientific, social and political spheres. Inaugurating the congress, the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Shatrughan Sinha, said that referral hospitals practising the Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) would be modernised. Specialty clinics would be set up in modern hospitals and green industry status given to ISM industries. Efforts would be made to secure fiscal incentives and tax concessions to the ISM industry within overall taxation policy.