A walk in the neighbourbood

For some time now, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been under criticism for not undertaking more frequent visits in the neighbourhood. Apart from trips to Bangladesh for the SAARC Summit and to Afghanistan, Singh has not ventured around much in South Asia. There seems to be some effort to reverse this trend in the last year of his term. The PM is slated to travel to Bhutan in the middle of May as a gesture to a neighbour that has just embraced democracy. There is a buzz that if all goes well in Nepal in the April elections, it may not be a bad idea for the Indian leader to combine a trip to Thimphu with one to Kathmandu. While both these visits are tentative, Singh will definitely travel to Sri Lanka for the SAARC Summit in the next couple of months. And sooner rather than later, he will also decide on a tour to Pakistan with the new government in place there now.