The American Jewish Committee, a powerful Washington-based NGO devoted to enlarging the compact between the US and Israel via still virgin territory such as India, was here last week to build bridges on a multiplicity of fronts. In Delhi, Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra dropped into an exclusive dinner and spent nearly a couple of hours chatting with AJC members. In Mumbai, the AJC met Indian businessmen and members of the Jewish diaspora. But it was the trip some of them took to Ahmedabad, en route to Israel — where they had an appointment with PM Sharon over the weekend — that turned out to be the most interesting part of this Indian journey. In Ahmedabad, AJC director of government & international affairs Jason Isaacson had a date with local Jewish leader Benjamin Reuben, to visit a local school that had been run by a Jewish family trust for decades and which had been damaged during the earthquake of January 2001. Turned out the Nelson School, located in the city’s Shahpur Bahai Centre, still educates about 700 Muslim children annually. The AJC had raised a few thousand dollars to fix the building damage and Isaacson was in town to attend a small ceremony in that honour. Energy boost Tiny Qatar, owner of the largest offshore gas deposits in the world, sent the first container of liquefied natural gas to Dahej, Gujarat, on Monday, thereby reinvigorating India’s links with the Gulf region. Worth about $1 billion annually, the LNG deal will run 25 years, bringing 5 million tonnes of gas every year to Dahej (with the potential to double capacity), one-fifth of which has already been claimed by Gujarat. Two cryogenic tankers will bring the gas from Qatar’s Ros Laffan fields to Dahej, from where GAIL will pipe the gas through its network to the rest of the country. With the government building another LNG facility at Cochin, the possibility exists of the Qatar gas also being diverted to service fuel-hungry south India. With India’s energy needs growing by leaps and bounds, one view is that LNG-by-sea rather than overland pipelines, for example from Iran to India via Pakistan, could be the answer for all future imports. Then again, LNG is about 20 per cent more expensive. Also, GAIL and its Pakistani counterpart are now believed to have agreed to do a feasibility survey on the overland pipeline to India. This after the ship doing the deep-sea survey sank last year, thereby setting back the study by a few months. Afghan ties Prime Minister Vajpayee went to see Afghanistan’s former king Zahir Shah in a New Delhi hospital last week, thereby underlining New Delhi’s continuing interest and affection for its neighbour. Zahir Shah’s father was born in Dehradun and young Zahir spent a part of his childhood there. Since his exile in Rome after his overthrow in 1973, the aging ex-monarch has dreamt of returning home to play a more central role in Afghanistan’s affairs. 9/11 allowed him to fulfill a part of his dream, but only in the incarnation of senior citizen. After the ‘Loya Jirga’ in December, especially, its Shah grandson who has the stronger feel for power. India, meanwhile, attempts to diversify its linkages with all the ethnic groups in that country. Assistance on areas like poppy cultivation and training the army, run by the British and the US respectively, has been deliberately shunned. Instead, New Delhi has dug 24 deep wells in the largely Shia area of Herat, and is considering a dam on the Salma river in the same region. In Uzbek land, doctors look at 400 patients a day. Meanwhile, Indian electrical engineers are building the Kabul-Pul-i-Khumri transmission line. Interestingly, the US gave them helicopters to do a survey over the Salang Pass. Clinton effect Former US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott’s revelations about Clinton’s role in curbing Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif’s enthusiasm at Kargil has been endorsed by Clinton’s national security advisor Sandy Berger, recently attending a CII-hosted Track II dialogue between India and the US in the city. On July 1, 1999, at Blair House in Washington, just after Clinton had got Nawaz to withdraw behind the LoC, then Pakistani foreign secretary Imtiaz Ahmad is believed to have, again and again, pressed Berger to get a ‘‘Kashmir linkage’’ out of the deal. The way Berger tells it, Ahmad kept insisting even as the two principals were walking out of the building. At one point Berger is said to have snapped back, ‘‘Your boss has already agreed to the deal.’’ Ahmad had no choice but to withdraw thereafter.
