It was the last week of April, fifty-four years ago, when the head of UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan met with the Secretary General of the United Nations, U Thant in Bern, Switzerland. The meeting agenda was the rapidly changing situation in South Asia. As many as 100,000 refugees were crossing what was then East Pakistan, into India every day. A new humanitarian crisis was unfolding at an astronomical pace. As a result of the meeting between Prince Aga Khan and the UN Secretary General, for this first time in its history, UNHCR became the 'focal point' for all UN assistance for a particular crisis. The mandate of UNHCR as a 'focal point' was not simply aid delivery, but also coordination with local governments of Pakistan and India and international mobilisation of aid. The refugee crisis went unabated for months to come, and by December 1971, there were approximately 10 million refugees who had been displaced and needed support.

In the months that........

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