The General and his ladies

President Musharraf and his Begum were in mutual agreement about the beauty of the Taj Mahal, about the ‘lajawaab’ food on offer and the lovely Amar Vilas hotel. But Pakistan’s First Couple could find themselves differing on perspectives with respect to Indian women.
While the Prez’s lady can correctly claim to have had an enjoyable, if somewhat, limited interaction with our women — she was profusely complimented for ‘being aware and intelligent’ by a bunch of women intellectuals — her husband wasn’t so lucky.

He was first rubbed the wrong way by Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj — who inadvertently omitted to spell out the K-word while detailing the discussions between the two leaders — and then by a lady who kept referring to him as ‘that man’, on a television talk show.

Will his Begum, who is known to offer the General solace and advice when he’s in need of the same, attempt to smoothen out those ruffled feathers back in Islamabad?

Academic diplomacy
While the external affairs ministry brass was busy in Agra, some of its top officials were not having a good time in Delhi but in fact went into a learning mode, sitting through a low-profile but highly important seminar on India, China and the United States of America. Organised by a couple of high brow and highly influential US think-tanks, the seminar had some of the best American brains on India exchanging views with India’s best brains on China about Sino-US relations. Whatever the outcome of the Agra summit, these diplomats seem to have thought, the big game in Asia is the one revolving around India, China and the US.