UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12: Three minutes into his speech at the UN Security Council on “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Interdependence between Security and Development” on Friday, India's External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna was interrupted by his UN Ambassador and asked to start reading another speech instead of one in his hand.

The reason was that Mr Krishna was reading a speech given days earlier by Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri on the India's role in peacekeeping missions. So when Mr Puri realised the error he came over and calmly asked Mr Krishna to start reading the original speech.

But before reading again Mr Krishna asked, from where? Mr Puri pointed at the paragraph which read “Mahatma Gandhi, the father of our nation, said that poverty is the worst form of violence”.

The faux pas was one that did not create much consternation amongst delegates as many speeches on the subjects were similar and the differences were technical language which only experienced diplomats could comprehend.

The whole episode was recorded by UN television as a matter of record