There have been many important advances in the Tokamak field since the last IAEA Fusion Conference held in London in 1984. A number of new devices have been brought ihto fulloperation ranging from JT 60 with a well established and mature fusion programme, to HL1 medium sized tokamak from t:tie Republic of China, a country who' s fusion programme has recently embarked on a considerable expansion. We congratulate our Chinese colleagues on havihg achieved fullohmic tokamak operation, with allthe usual features and on providing a useful plasma for future research. The tokamak has always been an enchanted system. Through the years it has proceeded from success to success despite the ineptness of experimentalists and in spite of the clevemess of theoreticians. It may be that the secret of this success has been that, so far, fate alone has had controlof the current density distribution: in the tokamak, it is this current density distribution which controls the magnetic shear, the stability properties and indeed the form of the magnetic configuration itself. Many physicists now believe that further advances depend upon securing extemal controlof this vital feature. That is, ih being able to impose a current density profile rather than having to accept the one given by inductive current drive and ill defined wall boundary The obvious approach is to replace at least some of the plasma current with non inductively current, the difficulty is that the available methods are rather