Party at crosspurpose

India and Pakistan seem determined to restart the cross-border bus from Munabao in Rajasthan to Khokhrapar in Sind, what with talks slated f...

India and Pakistan seem determined to restart the cross-border bus from Munabao in Rajasthan to Khokhrapar in Sind, what with talks slated for the first week of March. Come summer, both Hindus and Muslims will get the chance to get together with divided families, visit the neighbouring 8216;pir8217; and exchange gossip about agricultural produce. New Delhi has already taken the first step to set its own house in order by organising 8216;8216;citizenship camps8217;8217; in the border districts of Barmer Munabao is located here, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur as well as Banaskantha in Gujarat, to give citizenship rights to the Hindus and Muslims who came in after the 1965 and 1971 wars. Now with the election scene hotting up in Barmer, the bus from Munabao to Khokhrapar is once again hitting the local headlines as a major election issue.

Why, then, is Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat resisting the idea of having such a bus? Shekhawat8217;s son-in-law Narpat Singh Rajvi, who is a minister in the Vasundhara Raje government in Jaipur, has gone on record to say that the bus will only mean more terrorism. Earlier, as leader of the state opposition and when he was chief minister of Rajasthan, Shekhawat had also publicly made known his views. Considering that Shekhawat is said to be a close friend of the Prime Minister, the mind boggles at the contradictions even within the 8216;8216;liberal8217;8217; camp of the BJP.

Princely visits

A comparison between South Asia8217;s young royals may be odious8212;but necessary considering the speed with which they8217;re attaining adulthood and demanding to be taken seriously. India8217;s former royalty doesn8217;t count because by virtue of will and circumstance they8217;ve all become Republicans. A few months ago, Crown Prince of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk was in town, and you could never have met a gentler, more impeccably-mannered young man, given to theatre and rounded off with an M.Phil in Politics from Oxford. This week, the Crown Prince of Nepal, Paras Bir Bikram Shah, has come out of his Himalayan closet to descend upon the Indian plains. He8217;s already met Prime Minister Vajpayee and dined with Vice-President Shekhawat. On Wednesday, he will have an audience with the rest of Delhi8217;s elite.

Now all this may or may not be a move to garner respectability for the young man. Paras8217; reputation, of being a royal with a bit of a temper, precedes his present position as heir-apparent to the Nepalese throne. Democratic Nepal can hardly forget his earlier propensity for living life in the fast lane. By all accounts, though, Paras seems to have sown his wild oats. He8217;s now inherited the headship of the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation and in this capacity will experience a different kind of wild life in the Banerghatta national park outside Bangalore as well as in Port Blair. More seriously, it is his father, Gyanendra, who is the cynosure of all eyes in Nepal right now. The King8217;s 8216;8216;audiences8217;8217; with 8216;8216;his people,8217;8217; his refusal to restore the dissolved Parliament and his considerable clout over the Army means that Gyanendra continues to be a major power centre in Kathmandu.

Russian 8216;Admiral8217; sets sail

At long last, after nine years of negotiations, India is this week buying the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier from Russia, at the price of 1.687 billion, with 20 Mig 29K maritime aircraft and 10 Kamov helicopters thrown in. To be sure, after all the price haggling, last-minute lobbying by interested parties and sheer bureaucratic apathy in putting together the enormously detailed contracts, New Delhi8217;s feting Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov with perfect aplomb. He clearly deserves the attention. Not only is he a Petersburger8212;a citizen of Russia8217;s utterly beautiful and historical city that makes Moscow look like a jumped-up nouveau riche cousin8212;and therefore a pal of Vladimir Putin, Ivanov is also one of the most influential men in all Russia. His friendship with India underlines, of course, New Delhi8217;s belief that his heart is in the right place.

But back to the Gorshkov. India8217;s waited with bated breath these last years, hoping for a ship of that size and stature to project power in the Indian Ocean. When ousted Fiji Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhury made an SOS call for help in 1999, New Delhi sighed softly and dreamt of the 8216;Gorshkov8217; merely sailing in the direction of Suva. That would have been enough to scare away Chaudhury8217;s lesser opponents. Back during the Iraq-Iran war in the Eighties, defence analysts point out that if India had an aircraft carrier it could have used it to come to the rescue of the Indian merchant ships that were lost in the Persian Gulf region.