The Nuclear straight hitter

The tricky Vienna weather, known for all the four seasons in one single day, lived up to its reputation on June 5 during my customary round of golf with Mohamed ElBaradei.We had to dry up in the......

Our man in Moscow

D P Dhar was my first political ambassador, though alas, only for a brief while. It was his second stint in Moscow and he was obviously not happy to go there again, after having been a hero of the......

The Fidel Castro I knew

A popular story about President Fidel Castro is about the three-hour (or longer) speeches that he used to make. At one stage, he decided to cut the speech down to one hour to give his audience a......

The charming diplomat

As an aspirant to the foreign service, I had regarded K P S Menon as a role model long before I met him. I eagerly read his books, Delhi-Chunking, Many Worlds and Russian Panorama, and enjoyed the......