New Delhi: Batting for resumption of dialogue with Pakistan, diplomat-turned-politician Mani Shankar Aiyar says India will not be able to take its due place in the world as long as its western neighbour is an “albatross around our necks”.

The Congress leader, who served as India’s consul general in Karachi from December 1978-January 1982, has dedicated a full chapter to his Pakistan stint in his autobiography “Memoirs of a Maverick — The First Fifty Years (1941-1991)” that hit the stands on Monday.

In an interview with PTI on his new book, published by Juggernaut Books, Aiyar said the high point of his bureaucratic career was undoubtedly his stint as consul general in Pakistan and he has dwelt at very great length on his three years in Karachi in the first volume out now.

Press Trust of India