Missing minister’s defence

Still, the embarrassing thing about the book launch was that IDSA director K Santhanam even issued invitations in Mukherjee’s name. A member of the charmed circle that conducted the Pokharan tests in May 1998, Santhanam was made director three years ago. It must be too much of a coincidence that his tenure expires later this month. Meanwhile, the Institute seems to be seething with stories of discontent, lassitude and nepotism.

Nepal’s top gun

Nepal’s Crown Prince Paras is in the news again, this time for firing his gun into the air at the Everest discotheque in Kathmandu. Seems Paras was only celebrating his father, King Gyanendra’s birthday on July 7, but clearly the Kathmandu Post wasn’t amused. Now the Nepalese capital is always rife with stories about young Paras Shah, mostly not-so-palatable.

One funny one has Paras threatening a sardarji with his gun also at a Kathmandu discotheque—ostensibly because the sardarji was dancing too close to where he was sitting just off the dance floor. Of course the sardarji got off the floor.

What with Nepal in the middle of a near civil war with the Maoists, who fully control large parts of the kingdom, taming Paras may not be a top priority of the Sher Bahadur Deuba government. Besides Deuba may or may not be willing to take on the monarchy, especially since he was reappointed PM at the pleasure of the King only last month. Still, Paras is only a symptom of what ails Nepal.

His father, meanwhile, is taking his time relinquishing real power to the political parties. For a start, the King and not the PM controls the army. Seems father and son know that real power lies behind the barrel of a gun.

Golden words

The subcontinent never fails to be both stirred and shaken with the juiciest news. Back in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s parliamentary affairs adviser Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury has joined the short list of leaders worldwide who love to mix sexual innuendo with politics in what amounts to a thoroughly unparliamentary cocktail.

At Dhaka airport, on his return from Turkey some three weeks ago where Bangladesh lost a prestigious election to the secretary-general of the OIC, Chowdhury first grumbled about the fusillade of criticism by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League on this issue. Then he lost his composure totally. ‘‘Why is she (Hasina) after me, if she wants my ‘shona’ she should ask her husband first, why drag me into it?’’

As Dhaka’s Daily Star reported, ‘‘shona’’ in colloquial Bangla also refers to male genitalia. In fact, the unfazed Daily Star reporter even asked Chowdhury what he exactly meant by that word. Chowdhury was equally blase. ‘‘I was only answering their accusations made against me about gold smuggling, it is unfortunate if they take the meaning of the word otherwise,’’ he said.

One reason for the Awawi League’s persistent interest in Chowdhury derives from the fact that he fought against the war of liberation in 1971.