MEA's LoCk down

News of the killing of five Indian soldiers on patrol by Pakistani troops in the Poonch area of Jammu and Kashmir early Tuesday morning, a few weeks ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's talks with Nawaz Sharif next month, has the Indian establishment scrambling for answers. No better indication of this came from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). On Tuesday, as TV channels started playing up the news at around 11.30 a m, the MEA's routine weekly briefing for journalists scheduled for that afternoon was postponed to Wednesday afternoon. But come Wednesday morning, as Parliament adjourned over the incident and the political heat on the United Progressive Alliance ratcheted up, the briefing was postponed again - this time indefinitely, if the cryptic MEA text message was anything to go by..