The day NAM lost its founder...

As diplomats from across Asia, Africa and Latin America begin a two-day meeting in Putrajaya today, host Malaysia urged member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) not to question the continued relevance of the 45 year-old movement. Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the 114-member NAM's relevancy had persistently been questioned, both by NAM members as well its critics, since the end of the Cold War. "There is no doubt in my mind about the continued, indeed increased relevance, of NAM for a number of reasons," he said when opening the Preparatory Meeting of Senior Officials for the Ministerial Meeting of the NAM Coordinating Bureau (NAM-CoB). It was not the first time for the minister to voice the concern . Ironically, it was on this day that NAM lost one of its founding fathers with the death of India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964. He died of a heart attack at the age of 74. As India’s first prime minister since it achieved independence from Britain in 1947, Nehru refused to align the country to either Soviet Union or United States in the Cold War. Representing the interests of developing countries, NAM has its origin in the Asia-Africa Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955. The meeting brought together leaders of 29 states, mostly former colonies, from the two continents of Africa and Asia, to discuss common concerns and to develop joint policies in international relations. Nehru, along with Indonesian President Sukarno and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, led the conference. At the meeting Third World leaders shared their similar problems of resisting the pressures of the major powers, maintaining their independence and opposing colonialism and neo-colonialism, especially western domination.