Removal of IAS officer Ashwini Bhide, who’s been heading the important Mumbai Metro project, smacks of vindictiveness. Aaditya Thackeray’s pet pre-election activism campaign of saving Aarey Colony trees should not become a reason to punish efficient officers, especially those who are working to improve the maximum city’s woefully inadequate infrastructure.
Indians need not lose sleep over Donald Trump’s remarks on Pakistan and Kashmir
Donald Trump’s words on closeness with Pakistan or Kashmir mediation needn’t rile Indians up. It’s not a report card on Modi government’s foreign policy outreach to the US or efforts to alienate Pakistan. Trump’s effusive, over-the-top utterances don’t always signal significant shifts. He may say the exact opposite in India.
One thing is for sure. Our effort to isolate Pakistan diplomatically has seen a huge investment of diplomatic capital with Zero profit. Not one country of note, least of all the grandmother of all, has left Pakistan in the lurch. We have stopped buying sensibly priced Malaysian palm oil, which the poor use to fry their pakoras, and are advising their better off fellow citizens not to travel to Turkey to check out their doner kebabs. 2. There were 3,000 persons of consequence for President Trump to meet with in Davos. The fact that he chose to meet PM Imran Khan was a conciliatory gesture, to compensate for not stopping by in Pakistan, another long standing Indian sensitivity which does not appreciate how time effective it is for a western leader to cover both countries in one 20,000 kilometre round trip. 3. We should set our web of diplomatic relationships in order, based on what we have to lose or gain, not allow Pakistan to dictate so many of our approaches.