Grave Error

ASSUMING that all publicity is good publicity, Delhi’s transport minister Haroon Yusuf took advantage of the burial of the unclaimed bodies of the Pakistani terrorists who attacked Parliament House to grab media attention. Yusuf, as chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board which owns the burial ground acted as master of ceremonies.

He was happily giving a running commentary on the proceedings to three dozen-odd journalists when he was interrupted by a call on his mobile telephone. The minister abruptly ended his discourse and vanished in double quick time. It seems the phone call was from Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit who ordered him to disassociate himself from the proceedings forthwith.

Dikshit was alerted about Yusuf’s presence at the burial by Delhi’s Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor, who had received an urgent complaint from the Delhi police entrusted with the task burying the bodies.

On the other hand, some Shiv Sena activists sensed an opportunity to grab publicity and announced to the media that they would dig up the corpses from the burial ground. Their plan fell through when news photographers, feeling the idea was in extremely bad taste, called for a boycott of the Sena’s antics. A tip-off to the police ensured that the trouble makers were whisked away before they could do any damage except for breaking a cameraman’s flashlight.

Full circle

THE MEA has changed its mind yet again about the appointment of our high commissioner to Great Britain, after the agreement has already been dispatched to the host country.

A new proposal, cleared by the PMO and forwarded to President K R Narayanan for his approval, reverses the previous order appointing Gopal Gandhi as high commissioner in London. Second thoughts emerged because of resistance from the MEA lobby to Gandhi’s appointment and the fact that it was only former president R Venkataraman and not President Narayanan who was Gandhi’s sponsor.

Ronen Sen, our ambassador in Bonn, will take over the London assignment and Gandhi will continue as high commissioner in Colombo. Ironically Sen was selected for the UK high commissioner’s post a year ago, but the order was subsequently changed and his name mooted for Islamabad instead.

Vivek Katju, recently posted to Rangoon as our ambassador, is being transferred to Kabul. Katju’s advantage is that as joint secretary in Delhi he had interacted with Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance leadership. Shashi Tripathi, the popular consult general in New York, is being posted as our high commissioner to Canada.

Enigmatic Chinese

THE spokeswoman for the Chinese government during Prime Minister Zhu Rongji’s visit to India was articulate, precise and smartly dressed. At the press conference in New Delhi, however, she insisted on speaking in Chinese and the interpreter had to translate her words into English. But when a journalist raised a query about Indo-Tibetan relations, the spokeswoman suddenly responded in perfect English.

‘‘What about Indo-Tibetan relations,’’ she asked agitatedly and launched into a harangue against the Dalai Lama whom she said was hell bent on splitting China, of which Tibet was an integral part.

Political heat

BACK in the eighties Amitabh Bachchan resigned his Allahabad parliamentary seat and swore to keep miles away from politics when he found the media hounding him about his foreign investments, even accusing him falsely of being mixed up in the Bofors payments.

But, when Amar Singh, his newfound friend who bailed him out of his recent financial woes, pressed him to campaign for Mulayam Singh Yadav in the UP assembly elections, the superstar could hardly say no. Bachchan hoped he could steer clear of controversy by claiming he was simply inaugurating social welfare projects at which Samajwadi Party candidates were also present.

But, already Mulayam’s political rivals, including the Congress, are on the warpath. SP rebels Sakshi Maharaj and Balram Singh Yadav, plan to write to the PM demanding that the probes into various cases against Bachchan be pursued more vigorously and that he cough up his tax arrears and the huge sums he owes Doordarshan.

Divided house

RAJNATH Singh, who is keen for an amicable settlement of seat distribution in the Terai with Maneka Gandhi, dispatched a helicopter to Pilibhit to bring her to Lucknow to negotiate. But the plane arrived so late that Maneka had left on the campaign trail. It was 21-year-old Feroze Varun who was deputed to discuss the ticket sharing agreement. Singh was enchanted by young Feroze, but the state party president Kalraj Mishra was less understanding.

Mishra remains adamant that the NDA allies be granted only a minimum number of seats and the UP BJP seems spoiling for a fight with both Gandhi and Ajit Singh.

Unseated diplomat

AT the US secretary of state Colin Powell’s press conference in New Delhi last week there was an uninvited guest: the Pakistani minister (press), Kamran Ali Khan. He left halfway through the briefing perhaps because there was ð a shortage of chairs and he had per force to stand like other scribes who arrived late.

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