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It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to welcome you—our dear and esteemed reader—to another issue of
Diplomatist. Among the topics covered in this issue, we have two summits—one economic, the India Economic Summit, and the other political, the SAARC summit—and the state visit of Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic to India.
One year on since the catastrophic tsunami, followed by devastating earthquakes and hurricanes, has reinforced the fragility of life in the face of the nature’s wrath. The reassuring aspect, though, and, in fact, a very heart warming one was to see the natural kinship that arose in the face of adversity: a kind of selflessness that arises, I suppose, in the hour of need. In some cases, despite the apathy of authorities or, perhaps, lack of preparedness for disaster exigencies, people showed a remarkable spirit of altruism; something that I have emphasised in my review of Mistry’s
A Fine Balance. (Do, however, note that this is not supposed to be a literary critique of any sort—just my simple and humble opinion of this outstanding book.) Our regular article ‘Empowered Vision’ features the self-effacing Aruna Dalmiya, a remarkable individual whose indomitable spirit reinforces the belief that “giving: truly is receiving.” Our managing editor William Hawke’s piece on Bharatpur’s bird sanctuary is complemented with striking photography: He shot those photographs himself! So, do expect many more such visual treats in future. There are, of course, many other features in the issue, which I shall leave for you to discover.
Finally, I would like to wish you all a very happy new year …
Happy 2006!
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