Who decides what kind of information is needed by any community and its relevance to the lives they tead? How do concerns felt and experienced individually and seemingly at random, gel into a pattern and evolve into national or global issues? Which are the propelling and steering agencies? Who are the people behind these agencies? Are these some individuals who take upon themselves the task of setting right, what in their perception is wrong with the world? Does the work of such people make a difference in how their contemporaries or generations in future live, or in the quality of life in general? Do they make anything actual happen? Shelley, the great romantic, believed that poets are the true, though unacknowledged legislators of the world but his 20* Century counterpart W. H Auden flatly stated "poetry makes nothing happen!"

Anil Agarwal belonged to the Shelteyan tribe and too k upon himself the responsibility of not only forcing the ever somnambulant population of Delhi to wake up to the environmental mess it was creating and existing in, but also infuse a sense of responsibility for the same, in thousands of individuals. His Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) reached out to children and to adults alike, and put air pollution and water harvesting on everybody's conscience. His work will continue to echo and reverberate, to find believes and practitioners for evermore......

He shall be missed by the international community of environmentalists, by our nation in general, and Delhi in particular. Anil Agarwal understood the connection between the state of environment and the hearth of consumers better than anybody else.

Generating consumer awareness about the state of the local and global environment and the responsibility for consumer choices in production and consumption processes is now an established track for consumer activists to pursue. But it Is for the consumer community to ensure sustainabte practices in their homes as well as in the market place.

In this issue we bring you a safe way of celebrating the festival of Holi, our test report on mobile phones, a report on hard drugs and all our usual focus on health, environment and legal issues.

Do get back to us with your responses and we promise to update you on everything of significance around you.