India on Thursday nominated UN Under Secretary General Shashi Tharoor for the post of the UN Secretary General. Mr. Tharoor, given his long & successful association with the UN, is a good choice for the top post. Wikipedia informs: "Since 1978, Tharoor has been working for the United Nations, serving with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, whose Singapore office he headed during the "boat people" crisis. Since October 1989, he has been a senior official at the United Nations headquarters in New York, where, until late 1996, he was responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia. From January 1997 to July 1998, he was executive assistant to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In July 1998, he was appointed director of communications and special projects in the office of the Secretary-General. In January 2001, he was appointed by the Secretary-General as interim head of the Department of Public Information. On 1 June 2002, he was confirmed as the Under Secretary General for Communications and Public Information."
Born in London in 1956, Shashi Tharoor was educated in Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi (BA in History, St. Stephen's College), and the United States (he got his PhD at the age of 22 from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University). Tharoor has written numerous articles, short stories and commentaries in Indian and Western publications, and has won several journalism and literary awards, including a Commonwealth Writers' Prize. But it won't be a cake-walk for Mr. Tharoor. There are other able candidates in the fray.
Announced Candidates:
* Shashi Tharoor
* Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean diplomat
* Jayantha Dhanapala, Sri Lanka's official candidate
* Surakiart Sathirathai, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand
Unannounced Candidates:
* Jose Ramos-Horta, Foreign Minister of East Timor
* Kemal Dervis, a Turkish economist and politician
* Niranjan Deva-Aditya, Sri Lanka's Ambassador-at-Large
Here's wishing Mr. Tharoor Goodluck till the final decision on the candidate for the top UN post is announced in October.
1 comment:
Shashi Tharoor would be a brilliant choice for heading the UN but for a few issues.
1. He's a close ally of Kofi Annan, making him extremely unpopular with the Americans.
2. When asked what he thought was wrong with the UN and how he would change it (one of the few chances when he could have clarified his position n showed the Americans that he respected their issues with Kofi), he simplyreplied thatthe UN was doing a brilliant job n that he would continue doing so.
3. But the biggest problem is this. He wrote "the great Indian mahabharatha" where he so beautifully merged the Mahabharatha with contmeporary politics and of course the one party which got rubbished was the Congress. Thus, by electing him the US would not be appeasing the Indian government, nor would they be able to see the end of Kofi's philosophy.
Hope all this turns out to be wrong.
Will send u the snaps but is an issue.... cant connect my laptop online... m living in an apartment without the broadband.
Enjoi lah
Mann
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