The 2005 Hindustan Times Leadership Summit not only brings to New Delhi from overseas statesmen who have worked towards this goal, but also a diversity of people from other walks of life, who have sought the same goal.

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, and William S. Cohen, former Pentagon chief during the Clinton administration, have arbitrated between war and peace at the highest levels. Barak is best known for his courageous initiative to untangle the Gordian knot of West Asia. Cohen was defence secretary during the Balkan wars.

At the other end, the summit will be hosting Anita Roddick and Sir Roger Moore. The former, founder of Body Shop, showed how building a global business and helping the developing world are wholly compatible endeavours. The latter leveraged his celluloid career as a superspy to become an articulate and forceful ambassador of the world's underprivileged children.

The latest Miss Universe, Natalie Glebova, will also be there to describe how celebrity can be a force for good. Another guest at the initiative, Senator John Edwards, is best known for having shared the ticket with presidential candidate John Kerry. However, before he is a politician, Edwards is a lawyer with a long record of fighting for consumer rights.

Charlotte Crosswell, head of the online stock market NASDAQ, will explain how corporations can survive and prosper in an increasingly competitive world.

And in the business of building a better future, the theme that will be covered over the next two days starting Monday, there can be few entrusted with a more difficult task on that front than Zalmai Rassoul, National Security Advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.