IN 1985, I was fortunate to be among a group of mid-career professionals to join the Fulbright Hubert Humphrey Fellowship programme in the United States of America. Three were selected from Malaysia, one of the more than 75 countries who participate in the fellowship.
A selected number of universities in the US hosted us, and I went to Cornell University in Ithaca, upstate New York. My stint at Cornell, which was spent at the faculties dealing with the environment, did a lot to shape my interest on environmental issues.