Dr Singh will not travel to the US in August since Parliament will be in session. September is out since the prime minister will not visit New York and address the United Nations General Assembly's annual session that month. For the second year running, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will do the honours at the general assembly.
"In any case, the Americans dislike a bilateral visit being tagged onto a visit to the UN," a senior Indian diplomat told rediff.com
The prime minister may also not like to steal Sonia Gandhi's thunder at the UN. The Congress party president will address the UN General Assembly on Gandhi Jayanti, October 2, this year to mark the UN's Year of Non-Violence.
The prime minister's visit to the Bush ranch at Crawford -- a privilege the American president has only extended close allies like then Saudi crown prince (now King) Abdullah, then Mexican president Vicente Fox, then British prime minister Tony Blair and most recently, Russian President Vladmir Putin -- is decorative. No offical treaty to mark the conclusion of the 123 Agreement will be signed by Bush and Dr Singh.
"The prime minister's role in the nuclear deal is over," an official at the Prime Minister's Office told rediff.com, "now it is up to the ministry of external affairs to decide who will sign the official treaty -- (US Secretary of State ) Condoleezza Rice and Pranab Mukherjee or (Foreign Secretary) Shiv Shankar Menon and (his counterpart US Undersecretary of State) Nicholas Burns."
Foreign policy is no longer a priority on the prime minister's desk, the official added, now that the nitty-gritty of the 123 Agreement has been concluded with the US.
"The prime minister's priorities for the next few months are entirely domestic," the PMO official said, "He has already begun visiting the states and is working on ways to improve agriculture, education, among other things."
There will, of course, be a brief visit to Washington, DC, to further the new India-US relationship in other areas like the economy and development, followed by the journey to Texas. Crawford -- which may tax the shy Dr Singh's abilities to provide flamboyant photo-ops like, for instance, riding Bush's pick-up truck like the Saudi royal did -- may eventually take place during the early winter.
Dr Singh will also travel to China in November -- the visit is expected to be a business as usual exercise, without any dramatic breakthroughs on a vexed issue like the boundary dispute for instance -- and possibly to an ASEAN summit if that combination of South Asian nations can agree to a new status for India at ASEAN. Something that does not appear likely at the moment since Malaysia is playing hardball.
