MEA will be a livelier place under Nirupama Rao

From the point of view of a reporter, the July 2001 Atal Behari Vajpayee-Pervez Musharraf meeting in Agra is unforgettable because it yielded so much sound and fury, signifying so little.

At previous India-Pakistan summit meetings, the media reported the news. In Agra, they became the news when the off-record breakfast Indian editors had with Musharraf, was telecast immediately after their interaction. Both India and Pakistan had their contingents of media teams parked in the hotels but were frustrated and angry at the lack of information from the meeting.

It was joint secretary (external publicity) Nirupama Rao's job to see that reporters were kept engaged. But newspaper deadlines and the pressures of 24x7 television coverage began to tell. When patience ran out, tempers frayed and reporters began to adopt nationalist positions, the dam broke.

Rao walked out of the meeting venue to brief Indian journalists but along the way she was spotted by the Pakistani reporters who virtually gheraoed her. She made her way, head held high and lips pursed, through a mob of reporters hurling questions at her, almost plucking at her sari. She didn't tell the Indian reporters much (as any newsman will tell you, it is the JS XP's job to tell you nothing), but all those who saw this episode couldn't help but admire her poise and composure.

It was gallant of Hamid Mir, editor of Geo TV Pakistan, to acknowledge that his colleagues had crossed a red line and apologised for their conduct later in the evening. But Rao was graceful never to refer to the episode again.

Rao, currently India's ambassador to China, has been named the next foreign secretary. She will succeed Shiv Shankar Menon who will retire on July 31 after an eventful three-year stint as the top diplomat. A 1973-batch IFS officer who has served in a number of key positions, Rao will be the second woman foreign secretary of India after Chokila Iyer.

Rao was the topper of her batch so she could not have been overlooked, but there is another important reason for the appointment. Everyone in the service acknowledges that there is no one in India who knows more about the complex Sino-Indian boundary question than Rao. Although Chinese is not the language she has specialised in, she has been director and later joint secretary handling China. She knows the boundary issue like the back of her hand.

The government knows this and a little-known fact is that when India and China decided to upgrade the border talks to the level of special representative (2003), so that they could get some political backing, it was Rao who sat in on all the meetings between national security advisor Brajesh Mishra, and later M K Narayanan and Dai Bingguo from the Chinese side, so valued was her expertise.

It was a foregone conclusion that she would be sent to Beijing, but prior to her posting as ambassador in October 2006, the 58-year-old diplomat was the Indian envoy to Sri Lanka. There, she saw early on the rise and rise of one of the aides of President Chandrika Kumaratunga -- a man whom Kumaratunga relied on so totally, she dismissed suggestions that he could ever replace her. Mahinda Rajapaksa outwitted them all but Rao explained in her despatches how she thought Rajapaksa was going to be a central figure in Sinhala politics.

At a time when the government has underlined competition with China to capitalise on the economic misfortunes of the rest of the world, Rao's reading of China is going to be useful. It may just be a coincidence but recent foreign secretaries have tended to have the same qualifications as Rao: They have been batch toppers, and they have been China hands. Plus, sooner or later, India is going to take a big step forward in normalising relations with Pakistan. Rao will be on hand to steer this process.

She has many talents. Popularity with reporters is a double-edged sword, but she was genuinely liked because she never condescended or dumbed down to them. She is a poet, appreciates music and is always ready to shake a leg -- it was Amitabh Bachchan who squired her at the IIFA Awards (created to showcase Indian films abroad) in Macau recently and she threw herself into the celebrations unreservedly, letting China know how proud India was of its film industry. The party wound up at 2:00 am. The ministry of external affairs will be a livelier place under Nirupama Rao.