Nasheed came calling in New Delhi this week on a two-pronged mission: (i) to thank his Indian friends without whose support he won’t have made it to the Presidential race; and (ii) to once again sensitise his Indian interlocutors to prevent “many a slip between the cup and the lip” kind of situation in his case.

Let’s be clear about Nasheed’s India mission.

He was here primarily centered on the ‘take’ part as he is not in a position to ‘give’ anything to India. His ‘give’ quotient, however, should not be underestimated as the first concrete deliverable he can give to India, particularly to the poll-bound UPA government, is to reverse the executive decision of the Maldives government to terminate the US$500 million GMR contract for the development and upgrade of the Male International Airport, the single largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Maldives ever got.

The GMR deal continues to be the single biggest obsession for the Congress-led UPA government, which if reversed, will inevitably yield the necessary electoral fire-power to the present Indian government. Such a development will allow the UPA government to tell the foreign policy-savvy electorate (though a small number) that Maldives is not lost to India!

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