GARCHA BALWANT S. GARCHA It is with the saddest regret that we announce the death of our beloved friend, father and husband Balwant S. Garcha, on November 4, 2018, in Fairfax, VA. Born in Nagpur, India, Balwant lived an incredible life that would take him the world over. An avid reader and passionate intellectual, he received his MA in Sociology at Nagpur University, where he won several regional and national debating honors. His passion for communications and truth led him to several prominent contributions as founder, editor and publisher of The University Mirror, a campus biweekly; copy editor and chief reporter at The Hitavada, an English daily in Nagpur; as well as Central India Special Correspondent for The Free Press Journal, an English daily in Mumbai, India. In the early 1960s, he moved to New York City, where he worked as Press Officer with the Office of Public Information of the United Nations. His intellectual curiosity also led him to earn an MS in Journalism from Columbia University. As he progressed through his passion and professionalism, he retained increasingly complex and higher responsibility jobs, culminating in a four-year assignment to the Gaza Strip, which would leave an indelible mark and remain one of his most cherished experiences. Back in the US, he worked as Senior Editor for Prentice Hall in NYC, writing in-depth features based on personal interviews with senior managers and chief executives at major US corporations. He later joined the Medical Economics Group, as Senior Editor at Drug Topics, a national magazine for the pharmacy trade. He was promoted to Editor-in-Chief, and later assigned to Washington, D.C. as Bureau Chief. His next assignment was as Public Affairs Consultant to the National Association of Retail Druggists, in Washington, D.C., where he provided editorial and public affairs counseling to senior management. His last job was as Staff Officer with the Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the World Bank, where he was involved in every facet of management from supervision of arrangements for Executive Board meetings to summary of reports, speeches and articles for World Bank/IMF publication, minutes of committee meetings, and coverage of World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Toronto, Canada and Seoul, Korea. Balwant was also an active member of the World Bank Group Staff Association, where he served as a member of the Delegate Assembly and Executive Committees. It was at the World Bank where he found his lasting love, his wife of 29 years, Beatriz. After retiring from the Bank, Balwant and Beatriz enjoyed many years of traveling the world, attending music and arts performances, theater and movies. More importantly, they enjoyed receiving their many friends at home in wonderful dinners that always included the most enjoyable conversations on all topics, and where Balwant demonstrated his keen skills of observation and understanding. Balwant cherished his friendships and was a very generous man of heart and soul. He is also survived by his son Harinder and predeceased by sons Sanjay and Ravi of a previous marriage, and by his grand-daughter, Amanda. A private celebration of life will be held on Sunday, December 9. A private celebration of life will be held on Sunday, December 9.