US ignores Pak hand

Scores of Pakistanis, both commissioned and irregular soldiers, are said to have been amongst the many Arabs and Afghans killed in last week’s revolt by Taliban prisoners in the Kala-i-Jangi prison near Mazar-i-Sharif. If the US needed proof of Islamabad’s complicity with the Taliban, here it was. But Washington chose to turn a blind eye, preferring instead to lock into Musharraf’s gaze and express its heartfelt gratitude.

But here is information that is far more significant. As the prison revolt brewed, Islamabad flew in fixed wing Hercules aircraft—at least four sorties, carrying 400 men altogether—as well as helicopters to retrieve Pakistani soldiers flagrantly caught in the Kunduz act. New Delhi is said to have taken the independently collected evidence—not on the basis of Western newspaper reports or Northern Alliance claims—and showed it to the masters of the international coalition waging war in Afghanistan. But to no avail. All they received in response was either a stony silence or outright denials. Although some US officials reluctantly agreed that while helicopters can fly beneath radar cover, fixed-wing aircraft needed air cover to land and take-off. With the Mazar region under the control of the Alliance and the US, who allowed the planes in?

Gurpurab in Kabul

The mellifluous tones of the shabad kirtan rang out in a Kabul gurudwara on Friday, November 30, when the 500 remaining Sikh and Hindu families in that devastated city came together after years to publicly celebrate Guru Nanak’s birthday. India’s liaison officer Gautam Mukhopadhyaya attended as did the Northern Alliance’s religious affairs minister—who vowed that people of all faiths would once again participate in the rebirth of a new Afghanistan. Nobody spoke about those horrendous days not so long ago when the Taliban had issued a fatwa to these minority groups to wear a distinguishing yellow band on their arms.

These Afghans of Indian origin—none of whom, incidentally, has been part of any of the fancy diaspora committees being undertaken by the MEA—have requested New Delhi for educational material in Gurmukhi, Pashto and Dari. They read the Granth Sahib in Gurmukhi, but those who have recently been to Kabul and back say that the Sikhs and Hindus, who migrated to Afghanistan a couple of centuries ago are actually only fluent in Dari and Pashto.

Jaswant-Bhutto cough-up

External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh and Benazir Bhutto met for a good 45 minutes last week and guess what they talked about for at last the first many minutes of their conversation? Their sore throats! Evidently, Singh apologised for his (someone remarked sotto voce that he’d got his from his shouting matches across the LoC), but Bhutto was equally gallant and offered him a zinc-based remedy she’d picked up in London and even fished out a lozenge from her handbag. Needless to say, the discussions that followed were much warmer. Clearly, just what the doctor had ordered.

The PM and a royal birth

The Japanese are not the only ones really thrilled that their King finally has an heiress—even though she is never going to ascend the patriarchal Chrysanthemum throne. MEA, it seems, is equally delighted as well. Officials had kept their fingers crossed that the baby, who has made all of Japan wait for eight long years, would not be born to the Crown Princess (a former member of the Japanese foreign office) during the prime minister’s visit to Tokyo from December 7-11. Clearly, the Foreign Office realised that if the birth had taken place then it would have blanked out all the pro-India publicity they had striven so hard to achieve.

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