In the good old days, IFS officers — and their spouses — were said to have (wo)manfully accepted the postings they were offered. No one refused for fear of the absence English-medium schools (there were none in places like the Soviet Union or the former Eastern Europe or China) or parental health, or simply, because they didn’t want to go. So children grew up speaking all kinds of languages, including Czech, Russian and Chinese, besides English and Hindi and sundry other mother tongues, and they were far more interesting for it. No longer, although last heard, Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal is said to have taken a dim view of officers trying to wriggle out of postings. The prize, meanwhile, for the Best Reasons Not To Go must be shared by P V Joshi, currently ambassador in Guyana, and C M Bhandari, till recently our consul-general in the very comfortable post of Toronto, Canada. The story goes that about a year ago, Joshi was posted to the Maldives but refused to go, saying his mother was ill. Then Bhandari was named, but he came up one better. Evidently, he wrote to the ministry, saying he couldn’t go because he had, guess what, hydrophobia. That was that. Then Joshi was named again in February, and the MEA’s now waiting for him to proceed to Male. The question: Male or not Male Should he, shouldn’t he? Just as he had decided that the Maldives would be his first stop abroad as External Affairs minister last week — and never mind that Male has had no High Commissioner from India for about two years now — Yashwant Sinha got word that the Maldivian foreign minister Fathulla Jameel would not be in town to receive him. Evidently, the latter’s wife was having a baby in Singapore and he was flying there, pronto, to be with her! For a few hours, South Block was thrown into a bit of a quandary. Should Sinha go, or skip Male altogether? That was when Maldivian president Abdul Gayoom intervened with his rescue plan. He would be around, went the message, and would be really glad to receive Sinha. Loving our neighbours In keeping with his we-love-our-neighbourhood approach, Yashwant Sinha is likely to soon also visit Nepal and Bangladesh, and rumour has it, take the first Airbus — which India is gifting — to Kabul, Afghanistan. With British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw coming here on July 18-19, US Secretary of State Colin Powell on July 27-28 and French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arriving on August 2 (Richard Armitage comes in only around Independence Day), Sinha has a full calendar ahead. All three ministers were also the only ones who called the minister on Sunday, Powell as late as 11 pm, to condole over the Jammu massacre. Still, there’s nothing like a controversy, that too over personnel matters, to draw attention to a new minister’s office. Seems that Sinha requested, and received, a list of very able people from the MEA as the new director in his office. Now a director is key because he acts like a post office for all communication from the ministry to the minister and vice-versa. But with two weeks over, the shortlisted panel remains in limbo. Rumour has it that Sinha’s IAS staff — including a young officer barely a decade old in the service — are resisting the appointment of an MEA hand and would like to manage things themselves like they did before. To see if the MEA strikes back, watch this space! Meeting Moscow Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal will meet his first foreigners on Wednesday, under the rubric of the Indo-Russian joint working working group on Afghanistan. Vyacheslav Trubnikov is arriving here for the fifth meeting on the bilateral commission, signalling New Delhi’s continuing interest in its extended neighbour. The gamut of ideas, events and action is on the table, with Russia being a key player in Afghanistan and India trying its best to get there — if only Pakistan was not in the way. New Delhi has just sent another 25 buses to Kabul and more aid is on the way. Still, although Sibal’s first meeting as FS with the Russians is coincidental, all eyes are on how India’s newest top diplomat — currently making shock waves with his statements on how US interests with New Delhi do not necessarily coincide — will deal with the Russians. Not that Sibal is a Moscow hand, although the signs are that he would like to pay lots more attention to that part of the world. Drastvuyite, anyone?!
