It is unfortunate that Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor hijacked a successful trip by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Saudi Arabia. Tharoor's remark that Saudi Arabia could be an interlocutor for talks between New Delhi and Islamabad from the soil of Saudi Arabia itself was indeed embarrassing.

The political and cultural life in the region, by and large, has been characterised by the good, the bad and the ugly. On the one hand are child marriages and honour killings (deemed barbaric) in the rigidly conservative countries, and on the other, are the appointment and/or election of women to high office (hailed as impressive success stories) in the relatively liberal countries.