As Federal Minister he is tasked to improve India’s healthcare delivery and work out remedies in infrastructural shortcomings at an enormous pace. The world has acknowledged his untiring efforts—in May he was elected chairman of the 34-member executive board of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the premier body that governs the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHA itself has representatives from 194 member states across the world, so Dr Harsh Vardhan’s election is a measure of the unstinted support and respect he has from the world’s medical community. Also, with the scientific community firmly behind him, Dr Harsh Vardhan is abreast of the latest global developments insofar as finding a vaccine for COVID-19 is concerned. Surely, during his tenure at the WHA, we should see one, and also find more answers on the origin of the coronavirus. We found this an appropriate moment to celebrate his success and put him on our cover.

In this sea of pandemic, there are islands of success. One such success story is related to the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED). We’ve an interview with the organization’s Managing Director, Mr Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, under whose leadership NAFED has been able to script an amazing turnaround story after being in the red for several years. NAFED has over the past three years increased its procurement of pulses and oilseeds from farmers, and has remarkably continued doing so even during the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown. It has stabilized prices of pulse and oilseeds at a national level, and created a healthy buffer that prevents hoarding. Middlemen have been weeded out from the procurement process. The story finds a mention on our cover.