Reham's revenge is now a kiss & tell

Imran Khan's ex-wife Reham Khan is said to be writing "an explosive book" about the former cricketer which will reveal what Pakistan's skipper-in-waiting really is like, according to the Daily Mail .

Their marriage has resembled a Twenty20 match - it lasted 10 months. In contrast, Imran's marriage to Jemima Goldsmith was more like a one-day International - it lasted from May 16, 1995, (when he was 42 and she was 21) until June 22, 2004, and produced two sons, Sulaiman and Qasim, now aged 19 and 17.

To their credit, Imran and Jemima have never bad-mouthed each other. On the contrary, when Imran was locked up by the Pervez Musharraf government in 2007, it was the ever loyal Jemima who demonstrated opposite Downing Street and demanded his release. And when Imran published his book, Pakistan: A Personal History, in 2011, it was Jemima who interviewed him at the Woodstock Literary Festival in Oxfordshire.

It was reported at the time that Jemima was herself writing a book on Pakistan, provisionally called Surprising Encounters, but nothing has come of it - which is surprising considering she read English at university and is an experienced journalist.

Reham's book is intended to set the record straight. One of Reham's friends told the Mail: "She doesn't believe the world knows the real Imran. She has taken a lot of unfair abuse. Reham wants to write this book and stand up for all the women of the world who have been silenced."

Provided there is enough masala in her kiss & tell, Reham, 43, could expect to sell the book's serial rights for between £1,00,000 and £1,50,000. A suitable title for the book might be something like Maiden Not Bowled Over.

Last November, shortly after her divorce, Reham told The Sunday Times that Imran's elder sisters plus his party workers had conspired to undermine their marriage right from the start. The only love she received was from Imran's dog. She decided to end the marriage after "something happened that I found difficult to get past".

What that "something" was she would not disclose except that it was "personal".

Love lost

One academic who can always be relied upon to give a straight answer is "Marxist" economist and former London School of Economics professor Lord Meghnad Desai, 76, who raised over £1.25 million for Gandhi's statue in Parliament Square in London last year.

I asked him why the Labour Party's links with India, which were strong from the time of Clement Attlee in 1947 right through to Michael Foot in the 1980s, now appear to be withering on the vine.

He notes that neither Jeremy Corbyn, who has been re-elected leader of the Labour Party, nor his predecessor, Ed Miliband, have even been to India.

Why?

Meghnad's explanation: "They don't want to touch India. The Labour Party thinks (Narendra) Modi is a fascist - of course, they are wrong."

Meghnad concedes that Gordon Brown was good friends with Manmohan Singh and individual Labour MPs, such as Barry Gardiner, have close links with India. That said "India has gone off the radar as far as Labour are concerned. India is not part of any debate, it is not part of any radical conversation."

Meghnad reveals he was "furious" when Labour MPs went to India and persuaded Modi not to come to London to unveil the Gandhi statue ahead of the general election in May 2015 because "that would help the Tories".

He also acknowledges that David Cameron, the former Tory Prime Minister, has done much more for India.

But there is one rising Indian star in the Labour firmament. Lady Shami Chakrabarti, 47, the former director of the human rights organisation, Liberty, who was sent to the Lords by Corbyn, is tipped to join his front bench team as the shadow attorney-general.

Abstract art

Abstract art flourishes in India to the exclusion of, say, landscapes or portrait painting. But now Indian visitors can match the quality of the abstract art being done in India against the acknowledged masters in the field - among them, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Phillip Guston, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, David Smith and Clyfford Still.

Their works are included in the latest Royal Academy exhibition, Abstract Expressionism, which runs until January 2, 2017, and is sponsored by the French bank, BNP Paribas, which has an extensive network in India.

A friend, who scouts desirable works of art for her wealthy clients, summed up: "The Pollocks are mesmerising."

Even the Pollock and Rothko posters, costing £20, are collectors' items.

High flyer gone

Peterhouse, Cambridge, has announced: "We regret to note the death of Sir Nicholas Fenn, (matriculated 1956), elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 2001."

Many in India will remember that "Nick", who died on September 18 at the age of 80 after a 37-year-career as a diplomat, served as the (very successful and popular) British high commissioner in Delhi from 1991-1996.

I knew Nick from the time he was head of the news department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a springboard for high flyers. I remember a party at the Hinduja offices in London in 1991, jointly for Nick, who was due to depart for Delhi to take up his new assignment, and for L.M. Singhvi, who had just arrived in London as the Indian high commissioner in the UK.

In retirement, Nick lived with his wife Susan in the village of Marden, Kent, where I could always reach him for comment on Indian stories.

When P.V. Narasimha Rao died in 2004, I asked Nick for his assessment.

"Manmohan Singh was the architect of economic reform," was Nick's view. "But he couldn't have done it without the Prime Minister... Narasimha Rao deserves better from Indians than he is likely to get. This is because his time was overshadowed by a particular issue (that of bribery and corruption). He is undervalued in India."

Cyber crime 

What is the "hottest" subject among Indian and Pakistani origin students at Wolverhampton University where Lord Swraj Paul, 85, has been chancellor since 1999?

At a degree ceremony presided over by Lord Paul last week, it became clear that a high proportion of Asian students were graduating in "Cyber security" - with the expectation of walking straight into well-paid jobs. Indeed, Wolverhampton is establishing the first "cyber security centre" in the country.

"I did mechanical engineering and metallurgy for my degree and my master's at MIT in America," recalled Swraj. "But those are subjects of the past because Britain has very little heavy industry left. If I were returning to university today as a student, I would choose IT."

One lecturer joked there was nothing to stop one of his students becoming a hacker - "in fact, banks employ hackers to advise them on their cyber security."

Tittle tattle

The BBC Radio 4 series, Great Lives, presented by journalist Matthew Parris, last week profiled Dadabhai Naoroji, the "grand old man of India". He was the choice of top chef Cyrus ("the great") Todiwala, with another Parsi, Zerbanoo Gifford, acting as the "expert witness". Cyrus wants lots of events next year to mark the 100th anniversary of Naoroji's death.