Gharekhan and "The Horseshoe Table"

Chinmaya Gharekhan, former Permanent Representative of India to the UN is the author of the book 'The Horseshoe Table: An Inside View of the UN Security Council' (Pearson Longman, 2006, pp. 328). The book provides an inside view of the functioning of the United Nations Security Council which is a vital instrument at the service of the international community but over which the same international community has hardly any control. In this unique, unprecedented and intimate account, Chinmaya Gharekhan takes the reader through the meetings of the Security Council as it debated such issues as emergency situations during the first Gulf War; Iraq's WMD programme and the work of the special commission set up to eliminate them; the beginnings of the Oil-for-Food programme; the Balkan War of the early 1990s; the Rwanda Genocide, and the Lockerbie disaster involving Libya.

Chinmaya Gharekhan is a former Indian diplomat who served in Egypt, the Congo, Laos, Vietnam, and former Yugoslavia. He has has been posted several times to the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations. Later as Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office and the Specialised Agencies in Geneva, and lastly as India's Ambassador/Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York for over six years.