I was privileged to be invited by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge to deliver the Rede Lecture in 1993. I was at once daunted and inspired by the antiquity of Sir Robert Rede's endowment which goes back to the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and the dazzling eminence of my predecessors, many of whom have been living legends in their time and age. I was also spurred as well as constrained by the pressure and paucity of time.

In my quest for the theme of my lecture, my thoughts turned to the three great contemporary themes of Environment, Human Rights and the Fundamental Unity of the Religions of the World which have inspired me for many decades and have commanded my moral and intellectual allegiance. These three themes claimed particularly heightened attention of the world in 1992–3. It transpired that three major world conferences were held in Rio, Vienna and Chicago on these themes during 1992–3. I was intimately involved with several pre-UNCED conferences and actively participated in the conferences in Vienna and Chicago. The caption ‘A Tale of Three Cities’ obviously promised more than I could deliver in a single lecture. My tale of three cities is meant only to be a short synoptic story of three major contemporary concerns which loom larger than life upon the horizons of future.