The diplomatic skills of Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and his team are being tested by Trump
| Photo Credit:
ANNEGRET HILSE
The US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims of brokering peace between India and Pakistan following the recent military conflict between the two countries have posed big problems for the the External Affairs Ministry. Confronted at various forums, both within the country and outside, with the question on the US’ role in the peace talks, the diplomatic skills of Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and his team are being put to the severest test.
Maintaining that the ceasefire was reached by the two countries through bilateral talks was difficult and creditable.
So much so, Jaishankar was forced to come up with the quip that the “US was in the United States”, when recently asked about the country’s role in the Indo-Pak cessation of hostilities by Dutch TV, indicating that it was too far away to have made a difference.
Will India’s polite rebuttals need to become more direct? Well, that may depend on how seriously Trump pursues the matter in the future. If he is hoping for a Peace Prize, we may have not heard the last on this yet!
Hogging the limelight
At the keynote of the SAP Sapphire event organised by German IT company SAP at Orlando in the US last week, there was a strong line-up of top Indian executives of large global multinational.
Joining on the stage with the IT company’s CEO Christian Klein and other top SAP executives were Abhinav Gupta, SVP, Enterprise Product, NBC Universal; Anand Radhakrishnan, CIO, KIND; and Aravind Srinivas, Co-Founder and CEO, Perplexity. Praveen Moturu, Global Vice President–Digital Platforms, Mars Information Services, Inc, addressed the customer success keynote. They shared their respective company’s association with SAP to a packed audience at the Orlando Convention Centre.
Letter to father
Sibling dispute is common in a family-owned business or political party which is synonymous with a family. Kalvakuntla Kavitha, the daughter of BRS Founder-President KCR, dropped a bombshell last week, sending shockwaves among the party cadre and leaders. In a letter to her father, which was “leaked” to the media, she gave a scorecard of his speech at the party’s foundation day. While praising him on a few counts, she flagged some negatives that “disappointed” her. She even questioned his decision to go slow on criticising the BJP, which is cutting into the party’s vote bank across the State. The party cadre wished that the leadership would dismiss it as a fake letter.
The timing of the leak was intriguing. It was released to the media when she was in the US for her son’s graduation ceremony. On her return, she said that KCR was a god and that some “demons” had cast their evil influence around him, keeping him away from reality.
Her brother, KTR, who is also the Working President of the party, tried to douse the fire, saying that the leaders should discuss issues, if any, internally. Our Bureaus
Published on May 25, 2025
