NEW DELHI, Sept. 18, Reuter: An elegant Raisa Gorbachev had a businesslike meeting with Indian first lady Sonia Gandhi and other high-powered Indian women their husbands held summit talks on Friday.
Raisa, wife of Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev, was all smiles at a board meeting of a women’s magazine she helped found.
But there was absolutely no doubt she was in charge.
Sweeping in to face the press, she immediately dictated the order of play. “Let’s just sit down and get to know one another,” she said. Sonia Gandhi and the rest sat.
She was presented with the latest copy of the magazine “Hamari Goshthi” (our friendship) a photograph album chronicling the magazine’s progress and a video cassette tape.
”Thank you, but I haven’t eared this. So many presents, and I haven’t done any work yet,” she said in Russian.
Mrs. Gorbachev proposed setting up the magazine along with a sister publication in Moscow when she last visited the Indian Capital with her husband two years ago.
She and her husband arrived in Delhi on Friday at the start of a three day visit.
Her beige dog-tooth check suit stood out among the bright silk saris of her hosts.
Draped in an emerald green sarai, the usually unsmiling Sonia, Italian born wife of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, grinned when Mrs. Gorbachev politely dismissed Press photographers.
“Thank you all very much. Time for work,” Mrs. Gorbachev said as the press corps shuffled out.
The magazine’s board includes members of parliament, a newspaper owner, a poet and a number of other prominent Indian women.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 25, 1988
