In The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan analyses the first official talks between India and Pakistan since the 2008 Mumbai attacks:
So accident-prone and politically fraught is the relationship between India and Pakistan that conventional diplomatic metrics for measuring the success or failure of a meeting between them must invariably be discarded for more esoteric markers.
The absence of a joint statement or joint press conference at the end of Thursday’s meeting of the two foreign secretaries clearly meant the bilateral gulf was still enormous. But the fact that Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir spoke of taking small first steps, stopping the “regression” in the relationship and rebuilding confidence and trust suggested their encounter had served its original purpose: of opening a path for a new process of engagement. More:
Nirupama Rao, currently India’s Ambassador to China, has been named the country’s next Foreign Secretary. She will succeed Shiv Shankar Menon.
From the Hindu: Prior to becoming India’s woman in Beijing, she was High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. Her other diplomatic jobs included being Ambassador to Peru, deputy head of the Indian embassy in Moscow, and Minister (Press) at the Indian embassy in Washington, DC. At the headquarters, she ran the East Asia desk for several years but her most high-profile assignment was as spokesperson of the MEA, a job she performed with distinction and flair during a difficult period in the bilateral relationship with Pakistan: the Agra summit of 2001 and the military stand-off of 2001-02. More:
From Hindustan Times: Our foreign secretary designate’s many accomplishments don’t end with poetry. Trained in Carnatic music, she prefers Western classical. Mother of two sons, Nikhilesh (31) and Kartikeya (21), and wife of Sudhakar Rao, currently chief secretary in Karnataka, Rao appears to have found work, family, poetry and music an easy juggle. More:
