Today the present Director of our Institute Dr. K. Mohandas is retiring from service. I attended the farewell meeting. He had served the Institute for 33 years and out of that the last 15 years he had been its Director, the CEO. It was a poignant moment and rarely such momemnts arrive. I would say that this was a moment of reckoning, when the career of a man had been the destiny of an Institution. Where does an individual's agenda stop and the Institutions agenda begin, or can both be the same, or can the former become the latter. What makes a leader a leader?

The meeting also gave a warm welcome to the new Director, Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, who is now my HOD. He mentioned that this is the fulfilment of a dream that he had set up in 1993, when he declined the post of a consultant in Mayo Clinic in USA and left for India. He challenged us to think, what we could do for the Institute rather than what the Institute or the Director could give to me. (A paraphrasis of President Kennedy's inaugural speech, although he did not mentin that). Let me ask myself again, Where does an individual's agenda stop and the Institutions agenda begin, are can both be the same, or can the former become the latter. What makes a leader a leader?

The meeting was well attended and all category of staff participated.