The International School of Photonics and the Centre of Excellence in Lasers and Optoelectronic Sciences at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Cochin recently organized the “LaserFest” from 4th to 9th January. For me, personally, the new year got off to a blazing start, as it was indeed a pleasure to receive an invite for the event from Dr. Reji Philip, vice president, Photonics Society of India, and associate professor, Optics Group, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore. The event was graced by none other than Prof. Kishan Dholakia from St. Andrews University, Scotland, who had the honour of being elected to the status of a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Prof. Dholakia works in the School of Physics and Astronomy, where his interests encompass fundamental science as well as aspects relating to the use of light in biology and medicine. Prof. Dholakia has worked on numerous areas of using light for manipulating objects and cells and his group has been at the centre of many breakthroughs in the field including the ability to rotate cells, separate or sort cells and recently work on placing DNA into cells using light. It is indeed an honour to have you, one of the brightest stars of India, in India, sir! The LaserFest event at the CUSAT was graced by two Nobel Laureates – Dr. Zhores Alfarov and Prof. Roger Tsein – who inaugurated the new Nanocentre of the University on 7th of January. The LaserFest kicked off with an inaugural address by Dr. T. Ramachandran, Vice Chancellor, CUSAT. There was an interesting lecture on the biological applications of lasers on the second day. This was followed by another interesting interaction/lecture on the new trends in biophotonics. The Nanocentre was inaugurated on the third day by Dr. Alfarov and Prof. Tsein. Day four's highlight was a optical tweezers, while the concluding day's highlight was a talk on bioimaging. All of this indicates a brilliant start to the year for photonics in India. I am looking forward to the last week of February. The reason being: the annual conference of the Photonics Society of India is to be held during Feb 27-28 at International School of Photonics, CUSAT, in Cochin. Thanks are due to Prof. V. P. N. Nampoori, general secretary, International School of Photonics, for extending an invitation. I will be there friends, and hope to report on the event. PradeepJan. 13, 2010