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Saturday 4 February 2012

"Sonia Gandhi" now in the library of the Indian Habitat Centre, Delhi

Former director of the Indian parliament library, Frank Christopher, emailed me to say that the biography has been highlighted in the "new arrivals" section of the library of the prestigious Indian Habitat Centre, Delhi.

This is a great place for its members and a cool hangout for upper middle class Delhi-ites and their visitors.

The restaurants are quite comfortable; I've eaten Chinese and European food there. The Habitat centre holds talks and also houses several office complexes.

You can stay there, it has rooms for hire, and there is a gym which is used not only by Harrie, the husband of my friend, artist and teacher Sujata Singh, but also by Robert Vadra, husband of Priyanka Gandhi, who arrives with his security entourage whenever he trains.

Harrie travels a lot but when he is in Delhi, he tends to use the gym every day after work before going home for dinner. When I was staying with them Harrie would regale us at meal-time with stories of the aforementioned arriving on some expensive motorbike or in a four-wheeler, and how he liked to discuss new toys-usually his own. Harrie said that the Habitat Centre's facilities are so popular that when the aforementioned's security personnel are in attendance with their vehicles it causes a problem for other Habitat users as it is hard to find a parking place.

REPUBLIC DAY

The Indian Republic Day evening function this year was held at the Sheraton Park Lane. Those who had been to the Australia Day event too told me the latter was bigger.
I noticed a lot of defence officials from the various embassies with the hearty British army types swopping fighter aircraft memories with their Indian counterparts.

When asked about the Typhoon deal, one of the British said, "The Indians would be advised to go for the deal where the risk is spread."
The Indian army officer standing in front of him said nothing.

A few days later, the news broke. The advice was clearly ignored.

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