There seems to be no end to terror strikes within Pakistan. The Taliban’s retributive violence hasn’t spared any institution, city or region, the North West Frontier Province taking the brunt of it all with bombs and bombers blowing up in army cantonments, hotels, crowded bazaars, police stations and outposts. Read more

Here’s a question for those who oppose dialogue with Pakistan and are votaries of military solutions to our problems with that country: Sir, if you know not with whom to talk in Pakistan, then how’d you know with whom to fight in a country ravaged by terrorist violence? Read more

My friends in Pakistan tell me that careers of two key figures are at stake in their country:  President Asif Ali Zardari and Army Chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. The latter’s future will be determined by the outcome of the South Waziristan operation and the former’s on the view Parliament and the judiciary take on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Read more

President Barak Obama has signed the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill named after its sponsors and passed by the US Congress. In the statute book, it’s titled Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009.

The new law triples non-military US aid to Pakistan to $ 7.5 billion over the next five years at the rate of 1.5 billion dollars every year towards healthcare, education and creation of infrastructure in the social sector. Read more

I wouldn’t say that nemesis caught up with the Pakistan Army when its Rawalpindi-based General Headquarters, better known as GHQ, came under terrorist fire followed by a siege that lasted nearly twenty hours. Read more

I can feel these days a tenuous consensus building among security experts in India and Pakistan for some kind of institutionalised interaction between intelligence agencies of the two countries. It all began with a rare meeting between Pak ISI chief Shuja Pasha and defense advisors in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. Read more

I was in Pakistan within days of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raising the specter of another major terrorist strike in India from the Pakistani soil. I found some of my friends among Pakistani journalists who preach peace with India moving around with armed guards, barricaded government buildings and crowded bazaars sanitized hours before VIP movements. Read more

I like debating difficult propositions. But running this blog that advocates peace between India and Pakistan has been a trifle exhausting— both  emotionally and intellectually. On accounting for exceptions when I touched a chord with some of my readers, the majority view that come out is that  I’m  being  naïve, unrealistic, even outright foolish in showing the flip side of the widely held Indian perceptions of Pakistan. Read more

I sold an old refrigerator earlier this month. And with that ended two decades of an emotional companionship. I had bought the machine for US $ 200 from a bonded warehouse in Islamabad in 1991. That was the time I was posted to Pakistan as a correspondent of Hindustan Times. Read more

Pakistanis spare none when it comes to making fun of their leaders. Their irreverence  for authority manifests itself in public discourse spiked with humor, parody and Urdu poetry lampooning the political class and military rulers. Read more