Where is Paras?

A stealthy quiet seems to have descended upon Nepal. King Gyanendra’s attempt to buy peace as well as the loyalty of his critical subjects has meant that the inquiry into the royal massacre has been extended by four days. Slowly, though, key witnesses seem to be disappearing. The first to melt away and out of sight was the man who would be Crown Prince Paras Shah — the Nepalese openly prefer far more uncomplimentary descriptions about him. Following suit is said to be Captain Rajiv Shahi, whose impromptu press conference on the events last week, where no questions were allowed, was seen to be yet another Palace attempt to control the story.

So where is Paras Shah? He hasn’t been seen since that dark, dismal night in Kathmandu, and at least publicly his trail seems to have deliberately gone cold. Early speculation had suggested that he had secreted himself away in the royal Winter Palace — another unfortunate allusion to Russia’s last Tsars — in Pokhara, where father Gyanendra, now King, had been staying that deathly night of June 1. Evidently, people heard an exchange of fire between the Palace and outsiders and assumed... that Paras was here and up to no good again.

Caribbean cruise

Where in the world is St Lucia? Ask Minister of State Krishnam Raju — or those in the ministry who ordained that the gentle, softspoken, first-time minister from Andhra Pradesh should get up and go — who is currently in the middle of what must be called a lotus-eating trip in the Caribbean Sea. The atlas puts St Lucia south of Martinique, north-west of Barbados and north of St Vincent and the Grenadine Islands. Roll the word ‘Castries’ around your tongue and you have the name of its capital. Clearly, with its white, sandy beaches and African-Caribbean bloodlines, India’s foreign policy with St Lucia — population 154,020, probably one-tenth of Krishnam Raju’s own constituency, Narsapur in eastern, coastal Andhra — must be terribly important.

Incidentally, this is not the only pit-stop on the minister’s journey. He’s also going to Panama — famous for its canal — and Guyana, where boatloads of Indian indentured labour were shipped in the mid-1800s to work on its sugarcane fields. Perhaps, when he returns and finds time from the hurly-burly of AP’s civic elections that are immediately upon him, Raju’s keen eye — in his earlier incarnation he was a film actor — will capture a scintillating travelogue that has none of babudom’s dreariness in it.

Meanwhile, it may not be fair to ask who pays for journeys like these — you and me of course — but Raju too might just prefer onomatopoeic towns called ‘Thimphu’ and ‘Colombo’ and ‘Kathmandu’ that are only a hop and a skip away.

Advisory roles

The title of ‘advisor’ is fast catching on in MEA. First there was Arun Singh — first officer on special duty to the ‘mantri’ during Kargil and since the Lok Sabha elections ‘advisor’ on security affairs. Then, when former Secretary (east) K V Rajan retired, he was asked to stay on as ‘advisor’, so as to continue to share his worldly experience, especially on the India-Iran-via Pakistan-pipeline project. Now S K Lambah is going to return to Delhi when he retires from Moscow as ambassador in July as ‘advisor’ on East European affairs... Incidentally, New Delhi sent political appointees to key capitals earlier as a reflection of their importance, now they’re retired foreign service officers. It seems as if an administrative exhaustion is afflicting the elite, IFS corps.

Handing over

Journalists will over the next 24 hours adjust to at least one small change in their copy : MEA’s ‘spokesman’ will become ‘spokesperson’ as Nirupama Menon Rao takes over from Ramindar Singh Jassal. She was joint secretary in the Economic Relations desk and is known to be an expert on China. He speaks Russian fluently and is bound to find it an asset in Israel — where he’s going as ambassador in early July — where one-sixth of its population is from the former USSR. Swagatam, shukriya, halom, ni hao, das vidanya, take your pick.

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