After Powell, Ivanov’s turn

It's now the turn of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to come to town and give his assessment of the Indo-Pakistan situation. But unlike his American counterpart, Colin Powell, Ivanov is in town for less than a day. He arrives on the afternoon of February 3 from Tokyo and is off to Kabul by noon the next day. External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh will meet Ivanov, but Brajesh Mishra, the government’s main interlocutor with Russia — and now France and the UK — is not in town, so there’s only a limited call on the PM.

Shocker for Singhvi

Sent to London as India’s High Commissioner in the early nineties by Congress PM Narasimha Rao, more recently given Cabinet rank by the BJP government to put together a report on the Indian diaspora, L M Singhvi’s clout obviously cuts across political parties. The big rumour in town is that Singhvi sa’ab is now working on becoming the next President (even the newspapers are talking about it), or even the Vice-President, a post that would suit his high-profile just fine. So it must have come as a bit of a shock when a security guard, just doing his job, refused to let Singhvi into President K R Narayanan’s afternoon reception on January 26, since he wasn’t carrying his invitation. I left it behind by mistake, argued Singhvi, but the guard wasn’t impressed. Until someone with authority came up and rescued the situation. ‘‘He’s an MP,’’ he told the guard, and pulled Singhvi into Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Jaswant’s hard-soft talk

External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh clearly has a thing for the interesting turn of phrase, even if he doesn’t have too much time for the Indian media (TV sound bites don’t count). The foreign press, not that we grudge them, must be different, so over the last fortnight Singh lost little time in meeting influential members of the ‘phirangi’ Fourth Estate. Jim Hoagland, a columnist with the International Herald Tribune was in town for a seminar on India-US relations and was so impressed with Singh’s ability and willingness to look at the world differently — including the fact that the Americans should stay on in Central Asia — that he described him in his piece as ‘‘Anthony Eden in a Nehru jacket.’’

This week’s Newsweek carries another interview with Singh with editor Fareed Zakaria. Predictably, among the questions is one on Indo-Pakistani relations, and predictably, the answer revolves around how close the two countries are, born of the same womb, etc, etc. That’s when Singh has a new take on bilateral body language. We’re so close, he goes on, that even our ‘‘intestines are intertwined together.’’

Qazi, still at large

Pakistan's high commissioner to India Ashraf Qazi must be a blind spot with the government of India, but he’s certainly not PNG (persona non grata) with former diplomat-turned President K R Narayanan. At a reception for the city’s diplomats last week, Narayanan and Qazi were an item for a full five minutes, their hands in each other’s palms. Those who eavesdropped on the conversation said the Prez was warm and affable and sought to reassure the Pakistani diplomat that things were not as bad as could have been. Not that he need have worried. Qazi remains a fixture on the social circuit and reappeared at the President’s annual reception on Republic Day in full form. Pity, cameras were not at hand to shoot the best picture of the afternoon : High Commissioner-on-recall (from Islamabad) Vijay Nambiar chatting with Qazi under the warm, winter sun, as if their two armies were not confronting each other elsewhere. Either the current, bilateral animosity had not translated into antipathy between these two sophisticated individuals. Or, the warmth of their encounter may have been a sign of what we may possibly expect in the near future.

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