Our policy was to keep N-option open: Pranab

• Then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee: ‘‘If Clinton talked to Rao, then only the two can clarify...As far as our ...

• Then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee: ‘‘If Clinton talked to Rao, then only the two can clarify…As far as our policy, the govt worked for a consensus on total disarmament. And until such time the consensus was achieved, the country kept the nuclear option open…that was the policy till the 1998 tests.’’

‘It wasn’t so dramatic’

• Naresh Chandra,

Rao’s principal secretary: ‘‘I was in the PMO and aware of these things. What Talbott has said has come out somewhat overstated. It was not so dramatic. It never came to such a pitch. There was general exhortation by the Clinton administration, urging India, Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil (not to test). This was nothing new.’’

• K. Santhanam, then key in N-programme, now director, IDSA: ‘‘There were reports about US satellites picking up Indian preparations. The Govt denied it at that time. That’s all I can say right now.’’

BJP plays it safe

• Minister External Affairs Yashwant Sinha:

I’m not aware of what he (Talbott) has said.

• BJP gen secy Pramod Mahajan: No comment.

‘Grave insult to wounded people’: Cong lashes out at PM Modi amid his first Manipur visit

India5 hr ago

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Manipur for the first time since ethnic violence hit the state in May 2023, the Congress on Saturday called it a “farce, tokenism, and a grave insult to a wounded people”.

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