'Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai? Don't you believe it. I don't trust the Chinese one bit,' Nehru told Gopalaswamy Parthasarathi before he traveled to China as India's ambassador. Asking GP to be ever vigilant, Nehru advised the diplomat to send telegrams on important matters only to him. Many such anecdotes from a long and eventful career as diplomat and bureaucrat crowd the pages of GP: 1912-1995, discovers Uttaran Das Gupta.
According to the book, 'Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes', authored by UK-based investigative journalist Phil Miller India's secret use of British mercenaries lasted for four months after the Indo-Lanka accord was signed between former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Sri Lankan president Junius Jayewardene in 1987.
Vajpayee, who died on Thursday at the age of 93 after a prolonged illness, had made a significant diplomatic breakthrough and travelled on a bus from Amritsar to Lahore with a delegation that included the likes of Bollywood legend Dev Anand, writer Javed Akhtar and cricket icon Kapil Dev.