As prime minister, Man- mohan Singh had his first meeting with Pakistan's president Pervez Mushar- raf on September 24, 2004 in New York. A few hours before that meeting, I went to the New York Palace Hotel, where the Indian delegation to the 59th United Nations General Assembly was staying, for a private breakfast with National Security Adviser J.N. Dixit. He told me the summit would begin with a one-on-one exchange between Singh and Musharraf. Dixit asked me not to mention this to anyone. Only two other people in the Indian government were aware of it and it was not listed on Singh's classified minute-to-minute programme.
One of the two people was diplomat Rakesh Sood. Dixit trusted Sood, then deputy chief of the Indian mission in Washington, and he had summoned him on temporary duty to New York. The other was Ruchi Ghanashyam, liaison officer to Dixit during his General Assembly visit. Ghanashyam, then posted in New York, had brought along our breakfast-home-cooked Mysore-style rava upma.
This story is from the January 12, 2025 edition of THE WEEK India.
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This story is from the January 12, 2025 edition of THE WEEK India.
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