Opinion A ready pawn

Undiplomatic moves

Indian ambassador to the US,Meera Shankar,did not invite Hardip Puri,chief of the permanent mission of India at the UN to Washington for the PM’s visit last month. The two Indian diplomats are not on the best of terms and it was left to a senior official of the PMO to insist on Puri’s presence. Shankar was also chided for setting up meetings for Manmohan Singh with middle-level professional forums whose stature did not merit a meeting with the head of the Indian government.

MPs’ club class

The young heirs of political dynasties—Milind Deora,Jitin Prasada,Deepender Hooda and Sachin Pilot—usually hang out together in Parliament. Senior party colleagues,envious of their proximity to Rahul Gandhi,sometimes refer to them as “bachcha log” or “baba log”. Now,an elite women’s club of young political heiresses in Parliament too has emerged. Supriya Sule of the NCP and Kanimozhi of the DMK have been close chums for a while and now Harsimrat Kaur Badal,wife of Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab Sukhinder Singh Badal,has joined them.

Match point

Even before a single ball was bowled,it was taken for granted that the Parliamentarians had Saturday’s cricket match with Delhi journalists tied up. The Parliamentarians XI has never lost to the Journalists XI in the past. And this year the team had a large number of heavyweights including former professionals Mohammed Azharuddin,Kirti Azad,Chetan Chauhan and Navjot Singh Sidhu. But the journalists led by Rajdeep Sardesai defied the odds and won by one run in a nail biting finish. Years ago,there was another unexpected defeat. The Indian Women’s cricket team,captained by Diana Eduljee,beat the Parliamentarians by three runs. However,some MPs maintain to this day that it was chivalry and not lack of skill which made them lose.

Chinese checked out

With the Indian government cutting down on the number of visas issued to the Chinese,it’s not just engineers and technicians who are affected but also academics. The Home Ministry,more than the Ministry of External Affairs,wants to take a tough line. Recently a Chinese student who applied to do his PhD in a university in Delhi on caste and class in Malgudi,R K Narayan’s fictionalised vllage,was turned down on the grounds that there is no caste system in India ever since reservations were introduced.

Mysterious haste

There is some mystery over why the Congress high command pushed through the demand for a separate state of Telangana with such speed. When UPA-1 was in power,the group of ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee sat over the Telangana demand for five years without reaching any conclusion. IB warnings of a major fallout if KCR continued his fast may have been a factor for the haste.

Actually KCR’s medical condition was not as critical as it was made out. While it’s true that the TRS leader is diabetic and had developed a slight fever but his vital signs were within acceptable limits and the Nizam Institute of Medical Science had put him on a medically supervised daily 750-calorie

intake.

The five who took the decision—to initiate the process of forming a separate state—were the Prime Minister,Sonia Gandhi,P Chidambaram,A K Antony and Ahmed Patel. Jaipal Reddy,the only minister from Telangana,was not consulted. Pranab Mukherjee was present at the second meeting that was held on the issue.