Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley is having a dream run at Cancun, positioned among the top five faces at the WTO meet. He’s in good company: The list has EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy as the No 1, followed by US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi and host Mexican trade minister Luis Ernesto Deberez. Jaitley has been ranked No 5 among the 146 ministers present here, but it is his description on the Financial Times website that could be the envy of all his contemporaries back home. Jaitley has been dubbed ‘‘the wealthy corporate lawyer who is a rising star of Indian politics and potential future Prime Minister of India’’. Not bad, Mr Jaitley! Size does matter! WHETHER it was Jaitley’s efforts at uniting the G-20 countries or Brazil’s power punches, the fact is that the G-20 has emerged as a group to reckon with at the WTO. The G-20 group had called a press conference at a small media room at the Convention Centre at Cancun. After EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick’s conferences in the largest media rooms, the G-20 briefing was being seen as literally a ‘‘poorer’’ countries’ affair. But media interest in this conference was so high that organisers had to switch the venue at the last minute to the same room where the US and EU briefings had been held just a few hours earlier. Three cheers — or should it be 20? — for the developing countries. Pressure vs principle WHEN USTR Robert Zoellick met Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, subtlety was certainly not on the cards. His opening remarks to Jaitley were: ‘‘President Bush has had a word with Prime Minister Vajpayee on Cancun.’’ Observers say, Jaitley did not blink even once but decided to stick to the stand protecting the interests of 650 million Indian farmers. Whether it was conviction or the polls around the corner that made Jaitley stand his ground is something only time will tell. Quaking Dragon THE Chinese Trade Minister’s interpreter had a tough day on Tuesday. At a media conference of G-20 countries, she fumbled with the minister’s replies as she forgot midway on what the minister had actually said. Later she got nervous when the audio system failed. It clearly wasn’t China’s day. especially as India has anyway upstaged the Chinese as de facto leaders of the developing world.
