When the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan asked Professor Muhammad Yunus—head of Bangladesh's interim government—during his recent visit to London why he was meeting the king but  not the prime minister , it was an awkward moment for most. Yet, without hesitation or irritation, as clearly heard on the radio, Professor Yunus replied: "Well, we would be very happy to meet him. Somehow, probably he is busy or whatever. But that gives me a great opportunity too—now that he is busy, I invite him to come to Bangladesh." A witty remark, no doubt, though hardly a satisfying explanation. Rajini followed up with a more pointed question: "What reason does Downing Street give you for not arranging the meeting?" To this, Professor Yunus replied: "I don't think we've received any explanation. Probably he is busy with other important things." This exchange highlighted the foreign ministry's failure to secure a key meeting during the chief adviser's visit...

Going by media reports, India has triumphed in South Asia against its rival China in vaccine diplomacy. At least four South Asian neighbours – Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives have gladly accepted India’s generous gift of 3.2 million doses of Covid 19 vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) under the licence of Oxford-AstraZeneca. As the world is striving for finding a way out of the pandemic, India found its vaccine producing capacity very useful for diplomatic revival in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, such enthusiasm was markedly absent in relation to the Chinese vaccines.   Among those four nations, China had offered Bangladesh and Nepal some of its varieties as gift. It has also offered similar goodwill gestures to few other countries in Asia and Africa. Pakistan has already accepted the Chinese offer of half a million doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine. China has made a concerted push to sell its vaccines to countries around the globe for months but only re...