Gawande who will be the CEO of the yet-to-be-named entity is tasked to reduce the ever-growing share of the U.S. economy that’s taken up by healthcare costs by bringing conglomerates together and using salaried in-house caregivers to provide routine health services. There is no competition, no compulsion to bring in revenues or profits. The ultimate vision, in the words of Dimon, remains clear:

“Our goal is to create solutions that benefit our U.S. employees, their families and, potentially, all Americans.” On our cover we have focused on Dr Atul Gawande and what made the famous troika that includes Dimon choose him. Staying with the Indian diaspora in the USA, we’ve covered the National Spelling Bee and how the annual competition has turned into a winning fortress for Indian-origin children, year after year. In 2018, Karthik Nemmani, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Texas spelt the incredibly unusual word koinonia correctly to beat 12-year-old Naysa Modi—who got bewusstseinslage wrong—into second place. Indian-origin children have won the National Spelling Bee for 11 years in a row, ever since Sameer Mishra won the title in 2008. Not surprisingly, in May 2018, Indian-origin student Venkat Ranjan won the National Geographic Bee in the USA, another event that Indians have dominated for several years. What is it that makes them such masters in these bewitchingly cerebral competitions? Elsewhere in the magazine we’ve segments on Peru—a country on which we’ve run a series—and Cuba. Hope these pages capture your imagination.

(sayantanc@gmail.com)