Two ministries and a turf war

Then on Sunday ICCR chief Najma Heptullah asked Joshi to inaugurate a photo exhibition by French journalist Francois Gautier, known for his BJP leanings, on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. The idea, which came all the way from Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal’s desk, was intended to give EU diplomats a sense of the desperation of Kashmir’s minority community. Especially since the more high-profile Hurriyat Conference is seeking to meet EU leaders from Brussels and Rome later this week, when they arrive for the annual summit with India.

Still External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha was nowhere to be seen at the Sunday do. Somewhat incongruous too was the ICCR ‘‘wine and cheese’’ event that followed, perhaps organised to wash down the emotional dissonance experienced by viewing the photos.

Watch this man’s movements

The key to advance insights into the ever-complex India-Pakistan relationship is to keep a watch on the movements of India’s still new high commissioner, Shiv Shanker Menon. He was in Delhi the week before India announced its 12 CBMs, including the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus across the LoC. Of course, he met the prime minister. Menon was here last week as well for ‘‘consultations’’, a word fraught with meaning, at least in the subcontinental context.

Menon was also our man in Beijing when Vajpayee went to China this June and helped deliver a deal, the contours of which range from Tibet to Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh. Interestingly, the India-Pakistan-China connection comes full circle in the person of Aziz Khan, the latest resident of Pakistan House in the capital. Khan is a former envoy to the court of Jiang Zemin, as well as a personal friend of Menon.

Still, the much-maligned MEA must be given its due. Turns out the package of 12 CBMs that won kudos internationally had actually been sent to the Cabinet the month before for approval — but the Cabinet summarily turned it down.

Red Nepal reaches Lucknow

This must be the neighbourhood week, what with Nepal’s Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, in his capacity as SAARC chairman, in town to formally ask Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to attend the January summit in Islamabad. Thapa, who treads a fine line between the traditional, respect-for-the-monarchy sentiment and the fiercely democratic streak that runs through Nepal, is on the first stop of a yatra that will take him to every SAARC capital.

Back home he has had his hands full trying to get a grip on the Maoist insurrection and it must be to his credit — as those of his advisers, including Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, Nepal’s previous envoy to India and now ambassador-at-large at the foreign ministry back home — that the headlines out of Kathmandu are hardly dripping with blood.

Still, New Delhi’s much-vaunted ‘‘eye on Nepal’’ failed to spot a meeting some weeks ago between the very-much-overground leader of the Nepalese Communist Party, Madhav Nepal — foreign minister in the first democratic government after the royal overthrow in 1990 — and banned Maoist leaders Prachanda as well as Babu Ram Bhattarai. Considering the meeting took place somewhere near Lucknow, there must be some red faces in intelligence circles.

Baton change in South Block

This is also crossover week, when a retiring foreign secretary yields place to a new incumbent. Kanwal Sibal will turn 60 on November 30 and hand over the baton to Shashank, perhaps the first IFS officer in the top grade to deliberately drop his caste-revealing surname. Sibal oversaw many new initiatives in the MEA, especially with China. But it can also be said that if it wasn’t for him, India’s troops would have served in some capacity or the other in Iraq.

Still, Sibal’s having a busy week, meeting the Nepalese prime minister, China’s number four man Jia Qinglin and overseeing the EU summit. Meanwhile, Shashank gets into the thick of things on the first day itself, December 1, when he checks out the India-Pakistan civil aviation talks in the capital. Once airlinks are restored — it’s the last step before the prime minister goes to Islamabad in January — Shashank can ready for his first trip abroad as foreign secretary. In early December, he leaves for the Commonwealth summit in Abuja, Nigeria, and a bilateral visit to Ghana.