The Moscow chill

Officials who went to Moscow with the Prime Minister for the brief summit have been assiduously denying reports of any diplomatic...

Officials who went to Moscow with the Prime Minister for the brief summit have been assiduously denying reports of any diplomatic chill in the Indo-Russian relations. But there was no denying the actual chill in the weather as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived at the Kremlin on November 12. There was gentle snowfall throughout the day in Moscow with temperature dipping to -7 degrees centigrade. By the time the Prime Minister8217;s entourage left for Vnukovo-2 Airport the same evening, snow was already piling up along Moscow8217;s wide roads. Eventually, it was the Moscow chill that also delayed the Prime Minister8217;s departure by 45 minutes. Air India8217;s VVIP jumbo, Tanjore, had 8220;frozen wings8221;. Tanjore had to be taxied to a side bay and its wings 8220;de-iced8221; with water jets laced with chemicals. Only then, it was cleared for take-off.

For love of the House

Manmohan Singh, unlike many of his predecessors, is known for his preference to keep his foreign trips as short as is possible. He is also known to takes his Parliamentary responsibilities very seriously. This time, his anxiety over the crucial Winter Session was ostensibly the reason behind the one-day annual summit with President Vladimir Putin. In fact, Parliament schedule has also taken a toll on the Prime Minister8217;s next foreign tour to Singapore and Uganda, beginning November 20. The trip has now been officially split into two. Manmohan Singh will return to Delhi from Singapore after the ASEAN Summit on the morning of November 22 to attend Parliament. He will again fly off the same evening to Kampala for the CHOGM Summit and return home on November 24.

Cut short

There were several noticeable departures and short-cuts in the Prime Minister8217;s Moscow trip. For one, the routine pre-visit briefing by the Ministry of External Affairs was dispensed with and no minister was assigned to be present on board Air-India One. The most significant departure was the cancellation of the Prime Minister8217;s official on board press conference, a crushing disappointment for the media delegation. It was left to National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to brief the media during the flight to and from Moscow. Narayanan, unusually, was seen arguing vociferously on the fate of the nuclear deals with the US and Russia with the Chief Editor of an English daily on more than one occasion.

Last-minute pruning

Though brief, the Moscow trip was not bereft of sidelights. So, the 30-member strong media delegation was pleasantly surprised to find belly dancers turn up for a performance at the Khwaja Nasiruddin restaurant where the Ministry of External Affairs hosted its customary dinner on Sunday night. However, the two dancers soon made a hasty retreat after performing a solitary dance, and only a male vocalist was left to entertain the gathering for the rest of the evening with popular Hindi film songs. Later, scribes exchanged notes on how, during an earlier trip with Manmohan Singh to Uzbekistan, a senior official from the PMO had objected to belly dancers performing for the media delegation. The hosts had probably forgotten that faux pas and not fine-tuned the entertainment package this time around.

A rosy retirement plan?

One nugget slipped out from the luncheon banquet hosted by President Vladimir Putin for Manmohan Singh at the Kremlin. At the high table, the Prime Minister8217;s wife Gursharan Kaur reportedly asked First Lady Lyudmila Putin what her husband would do after retirement the Russian President8217;s term ends in March next year. 8220;He will probably spend his time tending to roses,8221; the President8217;s wife had quipped.