National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, a veteran Intelligence officer, likes to keep his cards close to his chest. As the pointman for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s dialogue with the Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Narayanan has not shared the government’s strategy even with those involved in bringing the moderates to the talks table. Kashmir expert and Panchayati Raj Secretary Wajahat Habibullah, who was sent to the Valley to engage the separatist amalgam last week, apparently doesn’t know yet whether he will be involved in the talks. Kashmir interlocutor N N Vohra, who was in Jammu last week, seems to be unaware of the roadmap, too. So is the case with Congress MP Saifuddin Soz, who was in the Valley last week to persuade his friend Prof Abdul Gani Bhat to meet the PM. Now for the best part. Government officials said this week that a committee, comprising Habibullah, M K Rasgotra, Soz and Vohra, would take the dialogue process forward. Only, the four haven’t been informed. BJP’s RSS pointman survives Uma storm BJP general secretary (organisation), Sanjay Joshi, found himself facing up to an unprecedented crisis recently. Fiery sanyasin Uma Bharati landed at his room at the party headquarters on Ashoka Road last week and demanded that the Madhya Pradesh chief ministership be ‘returned’ to her. ‘‘Get this issue sorted out,’’ she told Joshi, declaring that she would stay put in the room till then. A rattled Joshi, a bachelor on loan from the RSS, first sought the help of office secretary Shyam Jaju. Realising the gravity of the situation, Jaju rushed there with his wife. The BJP leader then turned to Rajnath Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Bal Apte—both landed up immediately. When their collective efforts to dislodge Bharati failed, Joshi called up party chief L K Advani, whose did some stern talking with Bharati. It worked. No prime slot for Rahul in Kabul Barely days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s departure to Afghanistan, it suddenly dawned on 10 Janpath regulars that Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will have no function of his own to preside over in Kabul. After all, even Gursharan Singh had an itinerary separate from the PM. Phones began to ring and a spate of messages went to Kabul just two days before the PM’s departure last Sunday that something had to be planned. And in a place where India is so involved, searching for an event would not have been difficult except for that little matter called security. Besides, all arrangements had been tied up by then—Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been generous enough to offer seven of his limousines for the PM’s cavalcade. Plus, a thought had to spared for the people of Kabul who were facing a tough time with traffic jams—three separate VVIP routes may have been difficult to handle. The consultations ran late into Friday night, even spilling over to Saturday morning till it was finally felt that any such move may overburden the host. Pick your flick, Mr Hamid Karzai The rulebook is often boring when it comes to selecting gifts for foreign leaders. For instance, a silver memento is a common gift Indian leaders carry when they go abroad. The Prime Minister, however, is said to have been keen on lending a personal touch to the gifts he took for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. So, apart from the regular gifts, 500 DVDs of Hindi movies from different eras were carefully chosen and packed. For, Karzai is known to be a Bollywood fan, a fact that he had mentioned to Manmohan Singh in their previous meetings. Well, the gift-pack must have struck the right chord because when the PM was leaving Kabul, several carpets were loaded on the plane—virtually one for everyone. On a more serious note, the Afghan President has great admiration for India. An incident that is often recounted in his palace is when the tsunami hit the Asian coastline and India said it did not need any foreign aid—it wanted all assistance to be directed to neighbours. Karzai is said to have remarked: ‘‘That’s the country I want Afghanistan to be like.’’ Crossing the ITER bridge Becoming a part of the International Themonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project will be a big achievement for India. It would not only be a recognition of India’s scientific talent, but also mean that it is no longer a ‘pariah’ state in nuclear matters. Hectic diplomacy is underway to cross this bridge in mid-September when the ITER Preparatory Committee meets in Cadrache, France, on September 13, where it will take up India’s request to join the project. A formal invitation from the IAEA is likely to follow. This seems certain because India would be a special observer at the Next Negotiations meeting on September 14, a day after the Preparatory Committee meets. Incidentally, this is the same route that China took to join this multilateral project. Some power play in the Ministry The extension of C P Jain’s tenure as chairman of the blue-chip National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has had its share of drama. His tenure was to come to an end on August 31, 2005, and it’s learnt that the Power Ministry was not keen on an extension. At least that was the recommendation that came from the Ministry on the file to the PMO. But with the search for a new man taking time, the Prime Minister intervened and an extension was granted to Jain virtually at the last minute. The reason: The PM, it is learnt, wants the PSUs to be run in a professional manner—the order issued said that Jain’s tenure is extended ‘‘until further orders’’. It’s learnt that this signal of continuity has been received positively within the company. Boeing vs Airbus: Maharaja scores The buzz is that the Indian Airlines plan to purchase 43 Airbus aircraft will be cleared on Tuesday when the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, will make one last attempt at lowering the prices. It has taken a a long time—nearly five years—for the acquisition proposal to reach this stage. At this rate, Air India ought to have been looking at 2010 to buy its 50 Boeing aircraft, right? But this doesn’t seem to be the case. The Maharaja has two acquisition programmes—50 aircraft for AI and 18 for AI Express, all Boeing—and both made it past the pre-Public Investment Board last week. Officials at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan has been promised that the PIB for the two deals will be done by this month-end. All this would mean that Air India would have its 68 aircraft by October. There is still some way to go but compared to IA’s five years, the Maharaja seems to have made the right choice.
