Biscuit Wars

Still, the biscuits needed to be taken from New Delhi to Kabul, so WFP asked Islamabad. Pakistan couldn8217;t very well turn down the UN, and gave grudging permission for Indian trucks to transit through its territory. Meanwhile, New Delhi had told the WFP that it would happily give the wheat in kind, but would not pay for its transportation in cash. WFP officials racked their brains for a solution.

Eureka! It was decided to buy 30,000 tonnes of rice from India to send to Indonesia as part of another food programme, and use the money from those proceeds to pay for the transport of the Indian wheat biscuits to Afghanistan.

It seemed so perfect, until two weeks ago, when Islamabad came back to the WFP and said transit permission had been withdrawn. So now the biscuits will go by ship to Bandarabbas, the Iranian port and then wend their way by road to Afghanistan.

The P S Club

By virtue of their proximity to the ministers they serve, private secretaries must belong to among the most exclusive clubs in the country. They not only have access to information8212;and, therefore, power, as Napoleon pointed out a long, long time ago8212;but also wield the kind of influence their more mortal counterparts in the administrative steel frame would go to quite a few lengths for.

So when Raghavendra Singh, an IAS officer from the West Bengal cadre and a former PS to former External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh, won the job to go as head of the cultural centre in Berlin8212;an IFS appointment8212;a couple of years ago, the IFS cried foul.

India8217;s embassy was only just reverting from Bonn to the reunited city, the city so famously eulogised by Christopher Isherwood, by the long-legged American actress Lisa Minelli in the film Cabaret and by none other than John F Kennedy with his phrase Ich bin ein Berliner!

Raghavendra Singh has now finished his coveted term at Berlin and is reverting to Delhi. Big question that8217;s doing the rounds in the MEA is, who8217;s his lucky successor? Does the IFS have enough resilience to bring the position back to the ministry, or will the clout of the Private Secretary8217;s club keep the job? PS. Watch this space.

Blowing Hot And Cold

With the world rotating so furiously by, the impending visit of Russian President Putin to New Delhi from December 3-5, has hardly stoked enough public interest to set either the Moskva or the Yamuna on fire.

Problem with the Indo-Russian relationship is, that the real meat is buried within the covers of 8216;8216;top secret8217;8217; and 8216;8216;confidential8217;8217; files that neither side likes to divulge for fear of third-country pressure putting a spanner in the works of ongoing cooperation. One of these deals revolves around the sale and refitting of the aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov, that has been in the pipeline for more than eight years. When Putin last visited India two years ago, the deal was almost finalised, but price negotiations have continued. Last heard, both sides were planning to agree to anything between 500-600 million for refitting a ship that New Delhi hopes will replace the ageing INS Vikrant.

Still, Putin8217;s coming to New Delhi from Beijing, his travel itinerary an indication of how the world has changed. Certainly, Moscow and Washington have come much closer together8212;American President George W Bush flew to St Petersburg from the NATO summit in Prague last week, before going on to Lithuania, among the newest of NATO members.

All this jet-setting is at least a reminder to the Indian political class, largely grown up on a diet of anti-Americanism, of the chameleon-like nature of the post-Cold War world.

At Large In Hong Kong

India8217;s ambassador-at-large for NRIs Bhishma Agnihotri is travelling the globe again. Last heard he was in Hong Kong, trying to whip up some interest in the Pravasi Divas that New Delhi is organising from January 9, 2003. Agnihotri wants to make it a gala affair but few Indians are biting.

Even in Hong Kong, India8217;s consul-general Ashok Kantha was believed to be getting quite harried trying to rustle up a home-grown crowd to meet the ambassador8212;who reportedly travels only first class and stays at the top hotels, all on government expense.