It was evident throughout that while delivering the SAARC invitation to President Karzai, India was only keen to muster a bigger hand in Afghanistan’s development. Mukherjee did not conceal this when he told members of the Indian community, “I appreciate you have volunteered to come here despite very difficult working conditions and to help establish India’s presence in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, even as sources said a question mark hung over the SAARC summit in early April because of the delay in conducting the Bangladesh elections, the purpose of inviting Karzai was also to fulfil a plan from the Indians to draw Kabul into a greater role in SAARC and finally for its integration with South Asia.

“The theme of the SAARC summit is to reconnect the subcontinent to itself and to the rest of the world and here Afghanistan is very important in the overall scheme of things,” Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said, while giving details of Mukherjee’s meetings with the Afghan leadership.

Help for Afghanistan

• Additional assistance of US$ 100 million, but India wants to approach beneficiaries directly.

• Supporting smaller development projects of less than US$ 1 million, like building schools, to reach out to the community.

• Signing a tripartite agreement for capacity building with the Afghanistan government. The UNDP is a part of this and like India will contribute US$1.08 million

• Handing over of the OPD block of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health and formally opening a road named after Indira Gandhi next to the hospital

... contd.