Growing nexus between India’s corporates and diplomatic minds

Ms. Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary of the New Delhi Establishment, has been appointed on Thursday as an independent director of the board of an Ambani-led media company that owns CNN-IBN and CNBC in India, according to an Associated Press report on Friday. Mr Mukesh Ambani the second richest Indian, heads the petrochemicals to telecoms corporate, Reliance Industries Ltd. Sponsored by this Ambani conglomerate, The Observer Research Foundation (ORF) was vocal in supporting Rajapaksa as well as the Colombo-centric State in the island. Ms Nirupama Menon Rao served as New Delhi’s High Commissioner in Colombo (2004 - 2006) and later became Foreign Secretary (August 2009 to July 2011), before going as New Delhi’s ambassador to Washington – all during the NSA tenure of MK Narayanan and Shiv Shankar Menon.

Ms Nirupama Menon Rao, as Foreign Secretary, has gone on record in 2010 for participating ORF activities related to the island.

Apart from steady support given to Rajapaksa regime and acting against the interests of the nation of Eezham Tamils, the ORF defended New Delhi's abstention at the UNHRC in Geneva in 2014.

The growing nexus between India’s corporates and New Delhi’s ‘career diplomat’ mindset, making possible impact on the plight of the peoples even in the neighbourhood, needs careful study, commented Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island.