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Arun Kumar has been watching the Indian poll scene for thirty years as a professional journalist. Since 1989, he has organized the election coverage of the Press Trust of India, the country's premier news agency – on five occasions for the Lok Sabha, besides numerous polls to the state assemblies. This is the fifth in the series of election books by the author. His works include, The Tenth Round: The story off the 1991 elections, The Battle for the Heartland, on the 1993 assembly elections, The Turning Point telling the 1996 poll story and On Coalition Course after the 1998 voting exercise. A Master in Political Science, with international relations, in 1980 he became the first Indian correspondent to serve in Pakistan after the 1965 Indo-Pak war. From one closed society, he went to another – China before returning back to India in 1988. Born in Delhi in 1946, Arun Kumar worked for a Delhi magazine and a newspaper in Ahmedabad before joining PTI in s1969. He now works as a Public Affairs Adviser.

Dr. Q.H. Baqri (Born 2nd January, 1944), Ph.D., D.Sc. has recently retired as the additional Director & Officer in-Charge, Desert Research Station, Zoological Survey of India, Jodhpur after a highly meritorious and decorated service of over three decades. Educated at Muslim University, Aligarh and State University, Gent, Belgium, he has devoted most of his research to plant and soil mematodes on which he has published over 300 research papers, two monographs and two books covering different disciplines both in invertebrata and vertebrata. A member/fellow of various national and international scientific societies, he is currently editor for several national journals, including the famous Indian Journal of Parasitology. An astute administrator and a dynamic crusader of scientific pursuits, Dr. Baqri has been instrumental in initiating a large number of highly significant multi-disciplinary scientific programmes at the DRS (ZSI), Jodhpur under his stewardship, besides organizing successfully the 6th National Symposium of Parasitology, at Jodhpur during 2002. Dr. Baqri has extensively traveled many countries across the world.