Mission Kabul

A NEW chapter in the history of Afghanistan begins on December 22, when a new interim administration led by Hamid Karzai takes control of the old country. India will reopen her mission in Kabul on the same day and the MEA is also furiously working on plans to open as many as four more consulates in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat (India’s ambassador to Iran PPS Haer has already met Herat’s governor Ismail Khan, and offered help) and Mazar-e-Sharif. Having been effectively sidelined from the Afghanistan power play for a decade, New Delhi is certainly taking no chances this time.

Meanwhile, as foreign service officers, including a woman, submit their names for the top job in the Kabul mission, it is believed that the MEA is contemplating taking a batch of women doctors to Afghanistan. One more humanitarian flight is on the cards on December 19 before New Delhi’s representatives — most likely to be led by External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh — fly in on Saturday to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Colin vs Donald

The latest joke in Washington is that Colin Powell has a Rumsfeld complex. Both men, one the Secretary of State, the other the Defence Secretary, have strong views and don’t mind airing their differences.

Powell won over the Rumsfeld view when the war in Afghanistan was delayed for three weeks so as to give diplomacy a chance. Rumsfeld won when the Northern Alliance was finally allowed to take Kabul and displace the Taliban; evidently, Powell wanted Kabul to be kept as an ‘‘open’’ city, with all the Afghan factions sharing power along with international peacekeepers.

Now that the war in Afghanistan has been pretty much won, India’s focus at least shifts towards the sponsorship of terrorism emanating from Pakistan. (New Delhi was infuriated when Powell characterised the J&K Assembly in Srinagar as a ‘‘government facility’’ when terrorists struck on October 1, killing over 40 people.) So here’s the latest in the Powell-Rumsfeld divide: while the Rumsfeld camp is said to have assured New Delhi that it would support the action it took in response to the Parliament attack, Powell has bluntly warned against crossing the Line of Control, invoking the Kashmir-as-nuclear-flashpoint theory. Officials here say that Rumsfeld was ‘‘so understanding’’ during his recent visit, even offering counter-terrorism training to Special Forces in India, besides surveillance equipment for Line of Control crossings. No prizes for guessing whom the Ministry of External Affairs prefers.

Our man in Nepal

WITH yet another political appointee sent as ambassador to Nepal earlier this month, the BJP is fast becoming notorious for doling out patronage to its own people rather than depend on the men and women in the business of regular diplomacy. The person in question this time is a gentleman called I P Singh, who served in the Himalayan kingdom more than 30 years ago and after his retirement joined some friendship society that’s the refuge of many an ex-diplomat. He is also said to have close links with the RSS, which is what propelled him to Kathmandu in the first place. So when he was actually named as India’s man to head our ultra-sensitive mission in Nepal, there was shock and consternation in the IFS.

Journalists travelling there this month to cover the Maoist story claim Singh had little or no idea either about who these Maoists were. He was also pretty clueless about both Pakistan and/or China’s role in the whole affair.

Sandrolini’s iftaar

WHILE on the subject of Americans, many an eyebrow was raised when Christopher Sandrolini, the US Consul-general in Kolkata, held an iftaar evening at home last week. Whatever for, presumably asked the Imam of the Tipu Sultan mosque in the city, leading an official boycott of the ceremonies. Sandrolini even kept a waterless roza and broke it with his assembled guests in the evening. Interestingly, he was the only US consul-general in India (there are four) to have done so.)

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