ABSTRACT
It was a courtesy call the trustee of a Western NGO was paying to the head of a European diplomatic mission in New Delhi. Amidst the bonhomie and canapés a local NGO representative accompanying the dignitary worried aloud that too much of the host’s technical assistance was being wasted on overseas study for Indian civil servants, many of whom treated it as little more than a paid foreign holiday. There were far more deserving cases in the voluntary sector, he lamented, who were being passed over. The ambassador was less than amused. ‘Mr ……I am the representative of my government, not the head of a charity,’ was his frosty response.
