New govt in sight, South Block gets officers ‘up to date’ on Pakistan

This, sources said, is a beginning of a new initiative by Singh wherein Indian envoys from across the world will be required to make a briefing to Indian diplomats based in New Delhi.

According to officials who attended the briefing, the interaction with Raghavan, who flew down from Islamabad, lasted almost two hours. It started with a briefing, followed by a question and answer session.

The interaction was aimed at “deepening” understanding of Pakistan’s society and politics.

In South Block, the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs, officials are known to work in “silos”. There are two kinds of divisions — “territorial” (covering specific regions like Americas, Eurasia, Latin America, etc) and “functional” (covering issues like disarmament, energy security, etc) — and interaction is strictly on a “need-to-know” basis.

Tuesday’s interaction was to bring officers working across every vertical in New Delhi on the “same page” and “up to speed” with the latest situation in Pakistan. “It gave an opportunity to officers to ask questions to Raghavan. Almost a dozen questions were asked,” a source said.

The recent attacks on the media in Pakistan were also discussed, sources said. A top official called the exercise “useful”, especially for those who have never served in Pakistan, since some of them are likely to be part of the foreign policy team of the next administration.