Foreign Affairs Editor, Archis Mohan, narrates how the battle for the position of India’s foreign secretary is to be decided by the government’s discomfort with the perceived proximity of S. Jaishankar to the United States, leaving the field open for Sujatha Singh.
For the first time since a civilian government took over in Myanmar, India will hold a high-level engagement with it when External Affairs Minister Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna will be on a three-day visit to Yangon and new capital Nay Pyi Taw beginning Monday.
Sri Lankans have often complained that Indian leaders rarely visit Colombo despite the many trips made to New Delhi by their leaders.
Menon and Rao, both former envoys to Sri Lanka, are likely to allude to the statement agreed on between Rajapaksa and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in May 2009. “A devolution package, building upon the 13th Amendment, would contribute towards creating the necessary conditions for such reconciliation,” says the Krishna-Peiris statement.
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns and Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert O. Blake are leading a delegation to India in advance of President Barack Obama’s expected visit to India.
