The Hindu Business Line : Well-oiled diplomacy

THE Petroleum Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, is in China this week and will need to use all his diplomatic skills to forge any meaningful tie-up between Indian and Chinese oil companies. India and China have emerged as two front-runners in the hunt for oil assets in third countries but, more often than not, China has walked away with exploration and production facilities.

The list is fairly long. The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) lost out to the Chinese in the race to acquire oil fields in Angola, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Ecuador and, when the Union Cabinet — for reasons yet unknown — did not permit ONGC's overseas arm to acquire another asset in Nigeria, which it had almost secured, the project went to — who else? — China.

China seems to have beaten India once again on the supply of natural gas from Myanmar. Despite a high-profile visit by Mr Aiyar to that country, Myanmar ultimately declined to give the gas to India and opted for China. With such a success rate, what compelling reason can Mr Aiyar give to the Chinese to take Indian companies on board while bidding for projects abroad and share the production with India?

Auto Expo

Though India is making hay on outsourcing from foreign companies, when it comes to domestic organisations outsourcing their work, the results are sometimes disastrous. The Eighth Auto Expo opened in the capital today and the first day was `Media Day.'

But what beat correspondents saw was a huge number of unknown people, apparently registered as media representatives.

So every press conference — and there were some 16 such events listed — saw a big rush of these new journalists making a bee-line for the press kits.

In most cases, regular beat correspondents ended up with photocopies of the press release.

Worse was the scene at a conference of Kandaa Motors, where the organisers handed out suitcases as gifts. There was a stampede, and a few people fell and hurt themselves. How come non-regular journalists could get themselves registered as the media? It turns out that CII, the organiser of the auto show, had outsourced the registration work to an outside agency.

African mystery

It is still a mystery why the Union Cabinet shot down ONGC Videsh Ltd's proposal to acquire assets in Nigeria. A fly on the wall at the Cabinet meeting says there was near unanimity on granting permission till a very senior Minister put his foot down. So firm was he in his opposition to the deal that the Prime Minister decided not to overrule him. Did the fact that the Nigerian oil field is owned by that country's former Defence Minister create apprehensions in the mind of the veteran Congress Minister? No answers are forthcoming in this case.

Net-savvy Prez

IT'S not just the young IT professional and the television networks that are into the 24/7 mould. The President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, says he is also available to answer questions from anybody, through his 24/7 Web site — Presidentofindia.nic.in.

At the 93rd edition of the Indian Science Congress in Hyderabad (January 3-7), the President said: "Normally, I answer questions after my address, but today I can't take any for my time has been taken away in this long session. But, email your questions and they will be answered promptly".

As has become his trademark style in addressing gatherings, the President suggested a project to the scientist's gathered there — building a network of 100 hi-tech PURAs (Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas). Dr Kalam, tried to motivate them by illustrating the successful PURAs in Periyarpuram (TN), Loni in Maharastra and Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh, which he said, he had personally visited.

Over the years, the President has come up with development challenges to politicians, is motivating children to dream big and answering queries, even while administering oaths to students, all directed to what he believes the transformation of India from a developing to developed nation by 2020.

Our New Delhi and Hyderabad Bureaus