Ask External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha which beat he prefers — finance or foreign affairs — and without batting an eyelid he’ll tell you it’s the latter. A year and a half after moving to South Block, many, especially in Pakistan and the US, will concur. Sinha’s reputation has gone up by leaps and bounds after the India-Pakistan summit on the margins of SAARC earlier this month, as well as in his interaction with the hard-to-please establishment in Washington. It was so easy to go wrong on both these oh-so-sensitive stories. But on both counts Sinha didn’t put one step wrong, nor spoke one word out of place. Instead, he handled every prickly question with gravity and sensitivity, never adopting a superior tone in Islamabad, never behaving like a supplicant in Washington. If diplomacy and manners are often the same thing, the ‘‘ayes’’ are with Yashwant Sinha this month. Asked in Islamabad whether India’s vote for the South Asian Free Trade agreement (SAFTA) was merely a pretence to undo the division of the sub-continent, Sinha pointed out that Partition had only affected a few nations. Most others had always followed a different trajectory. Moreover, he added, SAFTA was about facing globalisation together. If there are any fears that this is a ploy to undo Partition, he told a Pakistani journalist, please take it out. In Washington Sinha is believed to have refused to rise to the bait that the ‘‘strategic partnership’’ between India and the US did not have the State Department’s confidence and was being pushed by the White House. In his interaction with the US business community, Sinha promised reform would not be stalled by the elections. The whiz kids of the biz world are said to have been wowed by his presentation. Semantic conference Life after the India-Pakistan summit can clearly never be the same. Two months ago, the MEA disallowed Pugwash, an international body of scientists devoted to peace in the nuclear age, from hosting a track II meeting of Indians and Pakistanis in India — on the grounds a ‘‘third party’’ had no business ‘‘refereeing’’ hawks and doves from both sides of the border. Visas to Pakistani participants were refused. But in the wake of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf writing a new chapter in bilateral relations, it was only a matter of time before the MEA was persuaded to rethink. Last week it agreed Pugwash could hold its conference in the third week of February in the capital, with the proviso that the ‘‘Indian’’ chapter of Pugwash and not the international body would host the meeting. Pakistanis like Jehangir Karamat, former army chief, and Asad Durrani, former ISI chief, can now rub shoulders with Indians like M.K. Rasgotra, former foreign secretary, and K. Subrahmanyam, doyen of strategic analysts. The international Pugwash secretary-general, Paulo Cotta-Ramusino, will be invited but he cannot chair. The chief of the ‘‘Indian’’ Pugwash will do the honours. So where’s the beef, you might well ask? Turns out the Pugwash parent body, headed by Cotta-Ramusino, will still pay the bills. The Afghan connection If fortune favours the brave, then coincidences must surely be the hallmark of the faithful. India returned to its love affair with Afghanistan after 9/11 and the overthrow of the Taliban. In the past couple of years, New Delhi’s been building such a variety of bridges with Kabul that neighbours like Pakistan can’t seem to get over their surprise. Whether it’s the Habibia School for Girls in the Afghan capital or sub-contracting the Amerian road from Kabul to Kandahar or even a micro-hydel project in the backwaters of the Hazara heartland in Bamiyan, the ‘‘Made in India’’ stamp is fast becoming a way of life in Afghanistan. For a change the MEA was not willing to rest on ancient connections, from the Buddhist Kushans to Mahmud of Ghazni to the Mughal king Babur, who died in Kabul in 1530. And so this winter, after a tumultuous loya jirga in which royalists and republicans heatedly debated the parameters of a new constitution, Afghanistan finally passed into law a new document on January 26. India applauded. Guess why. Maldivian pyramid There’s trouble brewing in paradise, also called the Maldives. President Abdul Gayoom hurriedly left Islamabad after the first day of the SAARC summit on January 4 — which is why the Social Charter had to be signed the same day — to return home to edit a report on the prison riots that ripped apart his island nation last September Having ruled for only 25 years, Gayoom’s now banned all opposition parties, with the effect that the Maldivian Democratic Party has had to base itself in Sri Lanka. This week, officials from the MDP are in the capital in an effort to raise awareness about the goings-on in their lotus-eating nation. Among other things, they are seeking an Indian recognition of the MDP, on the lines of the British government’s recognition a few weeks ago.
