Gujarat shadow trails Chandrika, PM’s relaxed

With what face is Prime Minister Vajpayee going to greet Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga when she arrives in the Capital next week? New Delhi has always maintained that Colombo should be ‘‘fair’’ in dealing with the large Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, in fact a large part of India’s power in the island nation stems from the intimate links between the Sri Lankan Tamils and Tamil Nadu. But with the PM voting with both feet in favour of Narendra Modi’s preferred procedures of ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ in Gujarat, the method in New Delhi’s madness seems clear: consolidate anti-Muslim opinion at home, because that’s your core constituency. Meanwhile, brazen it out with foreign visitors who drop in. Still, the MEA seems enveloped in a dark shadow after the PM’s perceived sanction for communal bloodletting in Gujarat. The Foreign Service, which took on the world after India’s nuclear tests four years ago, is dealing with morale that’s at an all-time low. Ironically, Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer’s in Geneva attending the Human Rights Commission these days even as the BJP presides over the death and destruction of innocent people at home. On the border, the Army waits to fight an invisible enemy for reasons which have melted away along with the winter snow. The phrase ‘‘cross-border terrorism’’, nearly three years after Kargil, seems like a little charade played upon the people of both India and Pakistan in order to prevent easier movement across the Line of Control...It’s that kind of a week this week.

Jaswant finds fun in Myanmar

The unmitigated depression at home seems to be hardly relieved by the humorous scenes played out during External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s trip to Korea and Myanmar some 10 days ago. In Seoul, the journalist from Diplomacy magazine asked Singh who his hero and mentor was. Pat came the reply, ‘‘Charles de Gaulle’’. Another gentleman, elderly and president of the Indo-Korean friendship society, threw a lunch for his visiting Indian comrades where he doled out packets of ginseng tea, widely considered to be an aphrodisiac in that part of the world. At last it was Singh’s turn to receive the gift. The Korean gentleman handed it over with a bow, then putting his hand on the minister’s shoulder, said in a stage-whisper, ‘‘And this is better than Viagra!’’

Later in Yangon, the male members of the Indian delegation decided to let their hair down and join in the fun. At a banquet for the India-Thai-Myanmar conference that had been called to strengthen links, minister Singh as well as senior bureaucrats V. Shashank and Pramathesh Rath sportingly arrived dressed in longyis, the Myanmarese version of the homely Indian lungi!

Winds of change to pass Rao by

It's that time of the year again, as the old order gives way to the new. Kanwal Sibal, who returned home from Paris some days ago, took over as Secretary (West) today. He is now the senior-most official in the service and will be Foreign Secretary by the end of June, when Chokila Iyer retires. Kanti Tripathi, and not Nirupama Rao, meanwhile, is being tipped to take over the reins of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations. Rao, currently the government’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, is likely to stay where she is.

Thank God Friday now comes Daily

Pakistan’s best-known media couple, Najam Sethi and Jugnu (the author of the funniest column in South Asia called Such Gup in their weekly daily The Friday Times, and easily amongst the best in the world) recently started, bravely, a daily called Daily Times (daily times.com.pk). The Net edition is beautifully arranged and extremely readable. Najam, as we recall, was badly beaten up by ISI goons for criticising the establishment after Kargil, at a speech he made in Delhi. He must, within himself, bear the scars of those horrendous weeks, but it has only added more sparkle to his writing. Even as we log on — free, of course — to the newspaper, here’s hoping that the Daily Times circulation goes up by leaps and bounds.

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