Srinagar, Dec. 22 -- I first met Syed Shahid Mahdi in early 2000s, shortly after he became Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. I was then serving as Director of the School of Continuing Education at IGNOU, New Delhi.

We sat together over coffee, a few books scattered between us, and soon discovered a remarkable connection rooted in a shared history with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Between 1983 and 1988, Mahdi had served at FAO headquarters in Rome as Chief of Inter-Agency Affairs in the Director-General's office, while I was Director (Training) at the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

CIRDAP had been established at FAO'...