Happy New year to our Readers!

Our Previous year has not been the pleasant one, rather the world has suffered with a turbulent named Covid- 19. We have been covering this turbulent since day one. No sector was left unaffected and instead crores of citizens got affected and humanity became the prey of the ill fated virus. As per the John Hopkins University tracker, the global caseload of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is close to 88 million, while nearly 1.9 million people have been succumbed to the infection.

But there is a saying after every dark night comes a glorious morning of a new day. Our glorious day had been the vaccine, which we all are waiting for to defeat the dreaded virus. At present, the immunisation drives are currently underway in several countries, with most countries taking the initiative and clearing the vaccine one of which is America’s Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE, as well as that of Moderna, another American firm. The other vaccine is developed by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, in collaboration with Oxford University, too, has been granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) by several countries.

Amid gloom, the whole world is now delighted with new vaccine being evolved and has evoked a ray of hope in all to get rid of this disease as soon as possible and begin with the new normal. In India, the two vaccines were given approval, initiated by the Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and the Covishield from Serum Institute of India, as a New Year gift to the people of India, by Indian Scientists. Similarly, our cover story is based on the New Year…New Normal amid covid-19 gloom written by K. V. Venugopal.

India has been sharing the significant relationship with its neighboring countries. Every now and then, our country had been tolerant and keeping the mutual understanding causing no unrest for its neighbors. India had been long time withstanding the border issues whether it’s with Pakistan, China and recently with Nepal. In the wake of the Ladakh standoff, India needs to become even more sensitive to Chinese defense inroads into Bangladesh.China is the biggest trading partner of Bangladesh and is the foremost source of imports with the trade heavily favoring China. This time our special story reports about the bilateral talk between India and Bangladesh, regarding the Teesta River making headlines for the water sharing between the two countries. The negotiation has been going on since 1972. Bangladesh wants a higher share than it gets now. Considering the strategic importance of Bangladesh and as a responsible upper riparian state, India needs to take proactive steps for early conclusion of Teesta agreement before the agenda is utilized by the third party to erupt into violence.

Amid these ongoing issues, we hope this New Year turns out to be fruitful and resolve the issues at the earliest.

Dr. K. K. Jhunjhunwala