•Hello and welcome to Walk the Talk. My guest today on this very cold afternoon in Delhi is P Chidambaram, who has made North Block his home. You move 50 yards from left to right, or right to left depending on where the crisis seems to be bigger.

Well, I was in this office 22 years ago.

•Yes, yes. In fact, that’s when I first met you. You had your office this side as a minister for internal security.

And now, of course, it’s déjà vu, in a sense.

•In fact, I first met you when you were setting up the NSG.

Yes, NSG, SPG, and now we are setting up another organisation, the NIA.

•Am I right in saying — I mean at a time when the economy was facing such challenges globally — if the Government, if the Prime Minister has seen it fit to move you from the stewardship of the Finance Ministry to Home. It shows you are needed where the sense of crisis is stronger.

Well, in the minds of the people security ranks higher than prospects. Fear, I think, is a bigger emotion than anything else.

•But fear is justified?

Fear is justified. If you take a historical view of what has happened since 1999. Clearly, there has been a rising trend in violence of three kinds: one is terrorist-induced, the other is Left-wing extremism, and the third is perpetrated by Indian insurgent groups.

... contd.