T N Ninan: Stray thoughts

WEEKEND RUMINATIONS

In a week packed with high-wattage events in New Delhi, what ruminations should one focus on? The first is about positioning for photo ops. For those who haven't read up on body language, the rule about handshakes is that the power position in a handshake is the one on the left of the viewer or camera. That way, your hand is pushing down while the chap on the right has his palm facing up in the handshake""a position of weakness. The shoulder angle is also more comfortable for the person on the left, since it is the right hand that you are shaking, so your entire body seems more at ease when the cameras click away. Which is why you will almost always find the US President on the left side of the frame in a handshake. That cannot be accident, it must be design""so they have thought it through. Look at the pictures of George W Bush and Manmohan Singh outside Hyderabad House on Thursday, and the message becomes clear. As a subsidiary point, it is only the person on the left who has the opportunity to place his (left) hand, in another show of power, around the shoulder of the person on the right (as Mr Bush did with the Prime Minister).

If this much is obvious to the Americans, why is it something that no one in South Block has thought of? Look at the Agra pictures of Mr Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf, and you'll get the point even more clearly. One hopes it isn't the case that such trifling considerations are considered unworthy thoughts, because subliminal messages are important""and that is what body language is all about. Look at Abhishek Bachchan's body language as he emerged with Aishwarya Rai in Lucknow the other day, and you'll get the point! As an interesting aside, the camera positions for welcoming ceremonies on the White House lawns are such that the US President looms larger than the visiting dignitary. Thought of that in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan?

The second (less flaky?) thought is about a retired foreign secretary confessing some years ago that, in all his travels with Indira Gandhi, he found the only thing that her interlocutors were really interested in (beyond the diplomatic politeness of listening to her views on Third World solidarity, or whatever) were two subjects: India's nuclear policy and whether it would open up its market. Since India was not willing to oblige on either count in those days, relationships with the western powers didn't go beyond a distant wave of the hand as we went our separate ways. It's interesting to note, therefore, that nuclear and economic policies are now at the heart of the new relationship with the US. Indeed, the nuclear deal has as its underpinning the need to help India, with its rapidly expanding markets, develop non-hydrocarbon energy sources so that it does not draw more and more of the world's oil and gas and send their prices even higher as a consequence. As for trade, India is still only the 22nd largest trading partner for the US, which is to say that it doesn't really count. But it will not stay that way. With the nuclear bone swallowed, and the Indian market opening up, the two countries now have the basis for a genuinely good relationship.

The third and final rumination is about Mr Chidambaram""who has become the fifth finance minister to present five Budgets. Next year will be a record sixth. One must presume that Mr Chidambaram will be asking himself, what lines in the sand must he leave behind? For sure, the tax cuts and other policy announcements in the 1997 Budget will be remembered, but that was long ago. The big opportunity today is to be the finance minister who gets rid of the revenue deficit and introduces the unified goods and services tax""both would be seminal achievements. So why has he chosen 2010 as the target date for introducing a unified goods and services tax, and not 2009, which is when his government's term in office ends? Any guesses?