Trilateral or tripartite meetings seem to be the order of the day insofar as Afghanistan and its neighbours are concerned. The Presidents of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan met in Tehran earlier this week. Then there is the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan grouping. Now, Iran says it is discussing a similar format of talks with Afghanistan and India.

British Premier David Cameron ended his India visit just the way he began: on a candid note. He told Pakistan “clearly and plainly” that it needs to crack down on and eliminate terrorist groups which target not just India but also Afghanistan, the streets of London and elsewhere — in remarks that brought home the extent of the threat

Successive Indian Prime Ministers have strongly believed that talks with Pakistan is the only way to end 60 years of suspicion and hate, and Manmohan Singh is no exception. He told Parliament after the Sharm el-Sheikh talks that “dialogue and engagement is the best way forward”. His predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has said, “We cannot change our neighbours, we have to live with them”.

Richard Holbrooke, the US President Barack Obama’s pointman for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is certain that the situation in Afghanistan cannot be stabilised without the participation of Pakistan as a legitimate concerned party.

The dissonance in the India-Pakistan discourse continued into the morning after, but both sides were careful not to allow their differing narratives to torpedo their chances of remaining engaged.

History repeated itself on Thursday, only this time the protagonists were different. Five months after Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir’s press conference in New Delhi degenerated into rhetoric, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s joint media interaction with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna in Islamabad

External affairs minister S.M. Krishna began his Pakistan visit Wednesday by reminding his hosts that justice must not only be done to India’s “core concern of terrorism” but must be seen to be done. He indicated there was enough evidence to link Pakistan to the Mumbai terror attacks, a charge repeated on the eve of the minister’s visit by

External affairs minister, S.M. Krishna, began his tour of Pakistan on Wednesday with talks on terrorism. The minister called for prompt and decisive action on the part of the Pakistan government to address India’s concerns about terrorism in general and, in particular, the delay in the prosecution of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) commander

India was hoping Wednesday that the Maoists led by Prachanda would see reason and support a government led by the Nepali Congress party after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal announced his resignation in a televised speech.

Canada, from where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned Tuesday, is debating a new legislation to repeal its existing Nuclear Liability Act.
It proposes to increase a nuclear plant operator’s liability to Rs 3,000 crores at current conversion rate — which is not only six times the cap of Rs 500 crores contained in the Civil Liability for nuclear damage bill 2010, currently being debated by an Indian parliamentary standing committee, but it also exceeds the “maximum amount of liability” of about Rs 2,300 crores set out in the bill.