Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof

Vishakha Desai and Rabbi Arthur Schneier

Cynthia and John Whitehead

Carl Spielvogel and Barbaralee Diamonstein

ASIA SOCIETY
Top Leaders Cited For
Promoting Understanding

Story and Photos by Tim Boxer

N

EW YORK Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed the Asia Society at its annual awards dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria and said, "We are the only city in the nation that has its own foreign policy and the only city that needs one."

Dina Habib Powell of Goldman Sachs presented awards to New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof and his wife, author Sheryl WuDunn.

Victor J. Menezes of New Silk Route gave awards to Deepak S. Parekh and Smita Parekh. Smita came from Mumbai to accept; her husband couldn’t make it. In a video Deepak said that she is "exceptional."

"Actually," Smita said, "anyone who marries me has to be exceptional."

Richard Plepler, co-president of Home Box Office, handed awards to Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, and to Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of Sesame Workshop.

Thomas Freston of Firefly3 presented awards to Richard C. Holbrooke and wife Kati Marton. At the moment Holbrooke was in Kabul as the President Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Marton is the author of several books, most recently of Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America.

President Vishakha N. Desai, president, and Charles R. Kaye, interim chairman, helmed the program which was emceed by Daljit Dhaliwal, anchor of Worldfocus on public television. "We raised $900,000 tonight," Kaye announced.