India's starchy foreign office is loosening its laces. Quietly, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) has been declassifying official documents that have been held under wraps for the past 65 years, signaling a welcome change in an otherwise possessive mindset. The documents are a trickle, but they are coming. Pinak Chakrabarty, special secretary in MEA, recently announced the declassification of 70,000 documents, going up all the way until 1972. This despite the fact that according to Indian law, the government has to declassify documents 25 years old. After the Right to Information Act, this has been reduced to 20 years.