Modi's Lahore visit: Read between the tweets

Dubai - Indian media speculate about industrialist's role in Modi's surprise visit to Lahore.

The Indian media was on Saturday abuzz with speculations that industrialist Sajjan Jindal may have played midwife to the new-found bonhomie between premiers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif.
While jaws dropped across the subcontinent when Modi tweeted from Kabul about his planned Lahore stopover to meet and wish the Pakistan prime minister on his birthday, the Indian media swooped down on another tweet - the one from Jindal, the boss of steel and power conglomerate JSW Group, about his presence in Lahore.
"In Lahore to greet PM Navaz Sharif on his birthday," tweeted the steel tycoon, who shot into limelight after a TV journalist mentioned in her book his role in facilitating a meeting between Modi and Sharif on the sidelines of the Saarc summit last year in Kathmandu.
The Times of India said the presence of Jindal in Lahore betrayed a possible back channel plot that made the meeting possible.
Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma was quick to claim that Modi's birthday diplomacy was, in fact, driven by "private business interest" and that it would be "foolish" to presume it was a bold "statesman-like" decision to further national interests.
The Times of India said Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit's departure for home a few days ago is also seen as an indicator that Islamabad had some inkling of an impending high-level engagement between the two countries. The paper said Basit, who is still on leave in Pakistan, has played an increasingly positive role in turning the tide in relations.
Reports said even before Modi and Sharif met in Paris on the sidelines of the climate conference, it was Basit's meeting with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval which convinced India that Islamabad was looking for a serious engagement with India.
Reports said Jindal arrived in Lahore in a chartered aircraft with his wife on Friday. Quoting Sharif's decision to attend a tea party at Jindal's home when he came to India in May last year, the media said the Indian businessman is said to have tremendous influence over the Pakistan premier.
In a report headlined 'Did Sajjan Jindal play secret Santa?' The Economic Times said both the Jindals and the Sharif family have been personal friends for generations with similar business interests in steel. Nawaz Sahrif's father Mohammed Sharif started his business empire in 1939 with a small steel mill - Ittefaq Ltd, which over the years has transformed itself into one of the largest steelmaking units there.
"They have been personal friends for at least two generations. It got cemented further in the past decade. Both families and even their kids know each other well and both have bases in London where they have met several times, the Economic Times quoted a friend of the Jindal family as saying.
Jindal also has a vested interest in aggressively pushing the peace agenda in the subcontinent.
The ABP news channel reported that his JSW Steel holds a 16 per cent stake in a consortium led by state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (Sail) that bagged the rights to an iron ore mining concession in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province in November 2011.
Another company led by Sajjan Jindal, JSW Ispat, holds eight per cent in Afghan Iron & Steel Consortium (Afisco). His brother-in-law Sandeep Jajodia, who controls Monnet Ispat and Energy, holds four per cent in the joint venture.
The channel said Jindal's brother and Congress politician Naveen Jindal owns another 16 per cent in the mining consortium, which means the private steelmakers together hold 44 per cent in Afisco, with the rest held by Sail.
The ABP news channel said the project has been stuck for over four years because Jindal and Sail have not been able to persuade the Pakistan government to allow the transport of the Hajigak iron ore deposits by road to Karachi.
It said the consortium's grand plan is to ship the iron ore from Karachi to the western and southern ports of India for use by Indian steel mills, including JSW.
The alternative is to transport the Hajijak iron ore to Russia and bring it back to India, which will make it unviable for Indian steelmakers who have been battling cheap steel imports from China.
The news channel speculated that Jindal could need Sharif's help as militant groups which operate in Afghanistan, including the Haqqani network, could pose a security challenge to long-term mining operations in the central Bamiyan province where the mines are located.
The report said Jindal's deep commercial interest in Afghanistan could be the reason behind the group's back-channel efforts to promote peace between India and Pakistan.
It said several Indian companies, which have invested huge sums in gas-based power plants and fertiliser factories, are also keen that an American-backed gas pipeline project - TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) - also gets off the ground. The proposed pipeline will bring cheap gas from former Soviet-bloc countries in central Asia to north India.
It quoted analysts as saying that the pipeline project could remain a pipedream like the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline unless India and Pakistan are able to cement an agreement to allow safe passage for gas from Central Asia to India via Pakistan.
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