Pic Courtesy: Ketki Angre
Who says summits are boring and don't make for some fun. It's not always about the punctuation in the outcome draft or the 'informal informals', as the meetings in the run up to the high level session were called. There's always room for lighter moments.
Now China's propaganda machinery is well known. But we had a first-hand experience of it when, unfailingly, every morning, whether it rained or not, stacks of the newspaper, China Daily found their way to our hotel lobby. So even if we had no idea of what Brazilian President Dilma Roussef had to say, we certainly knew what Wen Jiabao did the earlier day.
Part of the team of Indian NGOs, the saree the lady was wearing certainly seemed to attract a lot of attention. And while many at the summit wanted to take pictures with the indigenous Indian Americans, our lady was surprised when the same started happening with her.
As eager journalists waited for French President Francois Hollande to arrive for a press briefing, the concerned announcer wished to inform the media that he would be delayed, except she ended up saying French President Nicholas Sarkozy would be getting late! Talk about a hangover!
The boss of the Virgin brand, Richard Branson, was also in Rio and at least two journalists noticed the billionaire pick up a stone that he accidentally kicked off the cobbled pathway and put it into his pocket. (We're still trying to figure what that could mean)
This one definitely tops the list. As South African's President Mugabe started to address world leaders at the UN summit, it seems the person keying in the subtitles had had a bit of a rough day. So for a tiny fraction of a minute, President Mugabe's title on screen came up as president of the republic of O J Simpson!