The Big Story: Border Crossing

Home Minister Rajnath Singh will on Tuesday travel to Islamabad to attend a meeting of home ministers from the South Asian Association on Regional Cooperation. The government has insisted that this is a purely multilateral trip: Singh will only be going to engage with the other SAARC nations, and there will be no exclusive meeting between him and the Pakistani home minister. To make this evident to Islamabad, and his own supporters in India, the government downgraded its contingent to just a few people; National Security Advisor Ajit Doval isn't among them.

This represents a slight change of plans. Murmurs from the government suggest that the original idea was to include something of a bilateral where Singh would use the opportunity to remind Pakistan about its obligation to permit a reciprocal Indian team visit Pakistan to investigate the Pathankot attacks. But domestic concerns, including protests in Kashmir and worries that any misstep on this front, would add to the impression that Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who visited Lahore just days before the Pathankot incident – was being played by Islamabad.

Singh will inevitably be criticised at home for going to Pakistan, and the Modi government has not exactly been consistent in its approach to India's northwestern neighbour. Yet the choice to keep talking represents a surprisingly sensible approach. The official stance seems appropriate: India is by far the biggest player in SAARC, so a meeting of home ministers without Rajnath would not be productive and represents an abdication of India's regional role. India-Pakistan troubles should not come in the way.

Moreover, despite all the insistence that there will not be a bilateral, this offers the now-downgraded Indian contingent a chance to again talk to the civilian leadership in Pakistan. For what its worth, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also displayed more forthright tendencies over the last year of India-Pakistan deliberations, and keeping the channels open through high-level visitors always increases the chance of a breakthrough. This also allows Singh to test the waters and prepare the ground ahead of the bigger SAARC meeting in November, when the question will be: Should Modi go back to Pakistan?

The Big Scroll
Cooling down Kashmir is important for India and Pakistan, says Pervez Hoodbhoy. By lazily blaming Pakistan, Delhi shows how little it cares for a Kashmir solution.

Political Pickings

  1. Information & Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu says the attacks on Dalits in Gujarat and elsewhere are the Congress' fault, not the Bharatiya Janata Party's. 
  2. Sheela Bhatt of the Indian Express tells the story behind Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel's resignation letter: She was losing grip and feeling isolated within the party.
  3. Tamil Nadu has a slapgate: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Monday expelled Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Sasikala Pushpa from their party, two days after the latter slapped a rival MP at an airport.
  4. Parliament watch: The Goods & Services Tax Bill is expected in Parliament on Wednesday, with the Congress now behind the major tax reform legislation. 
  5. Former Kerala minister K Balakrishna Pillai has sparked controversy by making derogatory remarks against Muslims and Christians, prompting the ordering of a probe. 

Punditry

  1. Gurgaon might be one of the most visible examples of the shortfalls in Indian urbanisation, says a leader in Mint. 
  2. Sonalde Desai and Amit Thorat in The Hindu insist we need to rethink social safety nets in India to focus on accidents of life in addition to accidents of birth.
  3. There is something very wrong with Donald Trump writes Robert Kagan in the Washington Post. 

Giggles

Don't Miss

Aarthi Gunnupuri tells us how newborn babies are being fed formula for their first meals, often without their mothers knowing.

Three months ago, I delivered a healthy baby boy at a private hospital in Bangalore. However, I didn't get to hold or feed him until several hours later, and much to my disappointment and without my consent, he was given infant formula for his first meal.

Turns out I’m not the only new mother to whom this has happened. Two years ago, 31-year-old photographer Sannika Chawla delivered a child in a reputed private hospital in the city. Although she had had a normal delivery, hours after the birth hospital staff fed formula to Chawla’s baby as the exhausted mother rested a few feet away.