Delhi Confidential: US & Them

FORMER FOREIGN minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid took an indirect swipe at External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s 2022 comment on EU: “Europe (thinks their) problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems”. Speaking at the release of his book ‘India’s Tryst with the World’ in the Capital Thursday, Khurshid said, in the context of the US-EU divide over Greenland, that now Europe’s problems are act­ua­lly the world’s problems. Asked how he would have dealt with the US tariffs, Khu­rs­hid said he was happy he didn’t have to deal with it.

Pat on the Back

UNION MINISTER Shivraj Singh Chouhan hosted a New Year lunch at his residence on Thursday for senior officials from his two min­is­tries — Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and Rural Development. The guests were served a winter-special vegetarian meal. The star of the gathering were Rural Development Secretary Shailesh Kumar Singh and his team who received special praise from Chouhan for their contribution to the passage of the VB-G RAM G Bill, 2025 in Parliament. He urged the other officials to take inspiration from their efforts.

No IDEA

AMONG THE 66 internat­ional organisations that the US withdrew from Wednesday was the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a Sweden-based non-profit group that just named India, represented by CEC Gyanesh Kumar, as its chair for 2026. In fact, the EC is set to hold a conference for International IDEA’s member states and some other countries this month. As of Thursday, the US was still expected to attend the three-day conference, said sources.