If Shiv Shankar Menon has been made the fall guy for the Indo-Pakistan joint statement in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Shyam Saran, the PM’s envoy on climate change, is blamed for India’s “capitulation” at the Major Economic Forum (MEF) in Italy earlier this month. Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh is upset that Saran did not keep him in the loop before agreeing to be a signatory to the declaration passed by the conference. There was no representative from the environment ministry at the conference. In fact, when the final draft was drawn, the only person representing India was a junior officer in the MEA who is fairly new to the subject of climate change.

Ramesh’s strong words in the presence of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that India would not bow to pressure from the West over emission standards, reflected his annoyance over the way Saran had handled matters at the MEF conference and thus compromised India’s development space. With Saran and Ramesh pulling in opposite directions, it is logical that both of them should not handle the sensitive issue of climate change. Normally the minister should take precedence, but Saran, presumably, gets his instructions from the PM.

Unhappy ending

Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon was expecting to be appointed special envoy for Pakistan after his retirement yesterday. But with parliamentarians and the media coming out strongly against his ill-conceived remark of the possible presence of errors in drafting the Indo-Pak joint statement, the appointment has been withheld, at least temporarily till the dust settles down.

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