Fmr Ambassador of India to US, UK, Israel. Author: Crimson Spring & several other books. Sahitya Akademi awardee. Visiting Fellow All Souls College Oxford

Joined December 2011
My column in @TheWeekLive on the relatively low cost but high impact method of diplomatic protest: the Walkout
6
12
1
50
2,153
A Nusseibeh is still the co-holder of the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , the holiest Christian site in Jerusalem. The last key holder I met in 2012 was Wajeeh Y. Nusseibeh. The whole story is in my book Indians at Herod’s Gate amazon.in/Indians-Herods-Gat… @indianhospice
Yes but in the Nusseibeh family (and that is its greatness) everyone chose a different path… this fantastic book by the way is about those choices that life throws at us
1
6
13
2,738
How wonderful is that ! Heartiest congratulations @SanjoyRoyTWA
Congratulations and well deserved @SanjoyRoyTWA
2
1
2
639
Always a pleasure to be in conversation with Amb @navdeepsuri about matters literary and diplomatic. Looking forward to this interaction under the auspices of @FoundationPK
Very much looking forward to this conversation with my friend and esteemed colleague Amb @NavtejSarna about his Sahitya Academy Award winning historical novel #CrimsonSpring and about regional and global issues. .@FoundationPK @PraneetBubber
1
2
4
390
Looking forward to this discussion today
2
3
8
434
Navtej Sarna retweeted
Well Said MEA !!!
Soviet Union/Russia🇷🇺 "stood by us" when our security, territorial integrity was under threat & at a time "much of the world preferred backing a military regime🇵🇰 next to us" says EAM Jaishankar, Explaining, "India's experience with Russia has been consistently positive"
29
1
215
11,580
Navtej Sarna retweeted
Deeper changes underway in US, says EAM Jaishankar at MSC
3
45
5
480
43,993
Navtej Sarna retweeted
Very well written article. Worth reading.
Important take on India-US relations by Ambassador @NMenonRao. An additional data point: Even before Deputy Secretary of State Landau's comments about India in March, the concept of avoiding mistakes appears to come from the State Department's Strategic Plan for the next 5 years that was issued in January. So there was a deeper treatment of US thinking. Below is the sentence on India: "We will seek partnership with growing regional economies such as India, but on terms that advance U.S. security and economic interests and avoid repeating past mistakes."
6
8
82
8,168
Navtej Sarna retweeted
For someone who started a war with Iran with destructive international consequences, who calls the Iranians scum and a cancer and wants to bomb them back to the Stone Age, supported Israel in its destruction of Gaza, still participates in a proxy war on Russia, kidnapped the serving head of state of a sovereign country and grabbed its oil, wants Greenland, the territory of an ally etc, to claim he is the most eligible candidate ever for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is a parody. He implicitly endorses Pakistan’s threat to use nuclear weapons against India by repeating Shehbaz Sharif’s claim Trump saved 30 to 50 million lives in Pakistan’s conflict with India. This means Pakistan was ready to use nuclear weapons, had worked out targets in India and estimated the casualties. Sharif has now officially in a message to Trump on the 250th anniversary of the US applauded him for saving hundreds of millions of lives. The figure has ballooned. India has a No First Use doctrine which Pakistan rejects despite India proposing an agreement on this. India would not have used nuclear weapons first. Instead of deploring Pakistan’s nuclear threat inherent in Sharif’s statements, Trump is legitimising it politically. No concern about millions of Indian lives lost because of Pakistan’s nuclear madness. Instead, Trump capitalises on Sharif’s pandering to his vanity to lay claim to the Nobel Peace Prize.
U.S. President Trump on India and Pakistan: I should have won the Nobel Peace Prize more than anyone who has ever won the award. The India-Pakistan war was raging. 11 planes were shot down. The Pakistan PM said President Trump saved 30 to 50 million lives.
43
134
5
470
116,406
Navtej Sarna retweeted
Witnessing "radical repositioning" of US, a "posture of choice" & deliberately becoming a "lonelier power", says EAM Jaishankar
27
425
34
2,429
175,469
Between Jaishankar at Munich and Sitharaman here, realism is now in abundance in New Delhi about what is and isn’t happening in and with Washington. I have been saying for months that even the greatest enthusiasts for the U.S.-India relationship need to check their exuberance at the door and stop conflating the normal flow of a functional relationship (“but look at all the bilateral visits and weapons sales!”) with the reality of eroding trust that is now dragging the relationship backwards. This has been evident in the trade area for months and was pretty clear even when the two sides rather unrealistically announced a putative deal (not an agreement, mind you, but a deal) earlier this year—as I wrote in this commentary at the time for @CarnegieEndow: carnegieendowment.org/emissa…
India, US trade talks have reached a "plateau" beyond which "giving & taking might be very very difficult", says Indian finance minister
43
179
8
785
118,590
I'm often asked how much of the current U.S. posture in Asia is a function of Donald Trump, how much transcends him, and therefore how much of the current policy dispensation is likely to endure after he leaves office. At @EurasiaGroup's fantastic #GZEROSummit in Singapore last month, I explained why, even though Trump is, as I put it, "a different kind of cat," much of what we are seeing in U.S. policy and posture is baked into the political, strategic, and regulatory dynamic in the United States now. In my view, it reflects American strategic presumptions and American domestic political assumptions that Asians are likely to be dealing with for a while yet to come. I discuss in this video clip here: youtube.com/watch?v=9iUcFYrv…
3
14
1
41
32,195
“Chinese leaders keep optics separate from outcomes, never allowing protocol to bleed into substance. They understand this US administration reneges on deals, makes additional demands, and imposes new conditions.” Do read this insightful analysis by @VGokhale59.
My piece for the Times of India on the very recent Trump-Xi summit in Washington.
1
12
2
75
6,106
In April 1929, Bhagat Singh & Batukeshwar Dutt dropped two bombs in the central legislative assembly. The bombs were designed not to kill but to create a scene and draw attention to the cause of Indian independence. It was one of the bravest acts ever. For one, given Bhagat Singh's previous history, he was bound to be executed for this. The other members of the HRSA knew this, but Bhagat Singh refused to relent, arguing that his involvement would bring more attention to the cause and they finally agreed. Even after the bombs were dropped, the two had a chance to escape in the smoke and confusion, but they stayed there, throwing pamphlets at the gathered legislators. Later they gave this statement after being arrested. "We hold human life sacred beyond words. We are neither perpetrators of dastardly outrages ... nor are we 'lunatics' as the Tribune of Lahore and some others would have it believed ... Force when aggressively applied is 'violence' and is, therefore, morally unjustifiable but when it is used in the furtherance of a legitimate cause, it has its moral justification." Bhagat Singh, then just 22, knew that he was almost certainly going to die. Unbelievable courage, given he did not believe in any paradise awaiting him after death. Bhagat Singh, our greatest. Born on this day in 1907
9
61
5
222
6,633
Truly Shakespeare’s line “This was a man” applies to Bhagat Singh. @ShashiTharoor
Bhagat Singh’s fellow comrade Shiv Verma recalled what Bhagat Singh told him during their final meeting. Bhagat Singh was martyred at the age of 23. This video was recorded in 1986, when the then CPIM leader Shiv Verma was 81 years old. #BhagatSingh #ShivVerma
6
34
6,001
My column in @TheWeekLive on current state of India US relations, written earlier this week.
69
242
50
737
119,078
Where does the world stand after the mid term elections in America? Celebrated author and one of the world’s most respected voices on geopolitics Ambassador @NavtejSarna sketches a superb analysis of what next as peace in Iran remains elusive. In this interview wide ranging interview with @PrabhuChawla he speaks about Trump, Netanyahu, Xi, Houthis, UN, West Asia, Europe, Gaza, multilateralism, trade, war, oil prices and more. He explains where India stands in a tendentious jigsaw of ebbing and emerging powers and clashing egos. This is a #Mustwatch #geopoltics
1
1,090
The non-vegetarian school of international relations
American foreign policy thinking
7
1,093