Pakistan on Friday said Afghanistan should properly check its facts before making allegations that a plot to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai was hatched on its soil. The Afghan intelligence agency said on Thursday that it had thwarted a plot to assassinate Karzai by arresting a bodyguard and five persons with links to the Haqqani network and the Al Qaeda. Officials said the plot had its origins in Pakistan's Waziristan tribal region.

Talking tough, Afghanistan has alleged Pakistan had advance knowledge of the plot to assassinate former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and said Islamabad was refusing to cooperate in investigations of the crime.

Giving incremental fillip to their cooperation in strategic areas including trade and security, India and Afghanistan on Tuesday inked a partnership pact amid assertions that the agreement was not "directed against any other State or group of States".

The text of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's statement at the joint press conference with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in New Delhi on Tuesday

As Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai begins his two-day visit to India on Tuesday, policymakers face the challenge to get the Afghan plot straight, says former diplomat M K Bhadrakumar

Branded as a "veritable arm" of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Haqqani network's operational chief Sirajuddin Haqqani has claimed that his group did not kill Burhanuddin Rabbani and denied any links with the Pakistani spy agency.

The Afghanistan government has cited investigations to claim that the killers of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, its negotiator with the Taliban, were Pakistanis.

Karzai will hold comprehensive talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after which the two countries are expected to ink a strategic pact to streamline the various assistance programmes of India and institutionalise bilateral security dialogue.

On Friday, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai claimed that former president Burhanuddin Rabbani's killing was plotted in the Pakistani city Quetta.

Six days after former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated, authorities in Kabul have arrested a prominent Afghan connected to the Taliban militants as a suspect.

Rajeev Srinivasan on India's reduced options in Afghanistan, now that it seems like the Americans have finally lost the war

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday rejected American accusations linking Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence with the Haqqani terror network, saying the allegations reflected "policy disarray" within the United States administration on achieving peace in Afghanistan.

Pitching strongly for an "unrelenting" fight against terrorism, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said there cannot be "selective approaches" in dealing with the scourge that needed to be fought across all fronts.

Text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Co-operation with the US is India's only strategic option. The US is now as concerned as we are over Pakistani machinations in Afghanistan. It could be more amenable to feelers from India for joint moves by India and the US to prevent a return to power of the Taliban with the ISI's backing, says B Raman.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States joint chiefs of staff, just days before his retirement, has made yet another scathing indictment of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's perfidy. The spy agency maintains proxies like the Haqqani network for its own strategic depth in Afghanistan, he said.

Days after Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the investigators had promising leads in the September 7 blast outside the Delhi high court, a senior government official told reporters in New Delhi that there has been no breakthrough in the case a fortnight after the act of terror.

Tahir Ali examines the consequences of the assassination of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani on attempts to broker peace in Afghanistan

Former Afghanistan President Burhanuddin Rabbani has been killed in explosion at his house in Kabul on Tuesday evening. He was leading the leading the country's efforts to talk peace with the Taliban.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, chairman of the High Peace Council and former President of Afghanistan who met Prime minister Manmohan Singh over lunch in New Delhi on Thursday and later had delegation level talks, has expressed desire to perform Friday prayers at the historic Jama Masjid.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Friday on a two-day visit during which he will hold talks with Pakistan's leadership to boost the reconciliation process with the Taliban in the war-ravaged country.

Dawoodi Bohra community members in Mumbai celebrated the birthday of their spiritual leader Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, who turned 100 on Friday.

Zehra Cyclewala is a leading figure in the reformist movement against the tyranny of Syedna Burhanuddin, the head-priest (dai-e-mutlaq) of the Daudi Bohra Ismaili Shia sect. In a conversation with Yoginder Sikand, she relates the story of her decades-long personal struggle against priestly tyranny

Yogi Sikand chronicles the voices for change in one of India's richest and most progressive Muslim sects-- the Dawoodi Bohras.

Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, Afghan president Hamid Karzai's first choice as the speaker of the new Afghan parliament, is at once the perfect bridge the latter needs to reach out extensively in the Islamic world and Pakistan, says former diplomat MK Bhadrakumar, possibly the first and last India to have met Sayyaf in his native village

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna had an appointment with senior journalists from East European countries on Tuesday, which included Poland, Denmark, Croatia and Slovenia.

With India raising concern over Pakistan's increasing involvement in Afghanistan's transition process, President Hamid Karzai on Sunday assured visiting External Affairs Minister S M Krishna that his government will not make any move that is detrimental to New Delhi's interest. Karzai sought to allay India's concerns during his meeting with Krishna, who is in Kabul on a two-day visit. The Afghan President assured Krishna that India was 'uppermost' on his prioritiy list.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed that his government has begun informal talks with Taliban "for quite sometime" and hoped that the formation of a peace council will spur these efforts. "We have been talking to the Taliban as countrymen to countrymen," Karzai said in an interview to CNN, days after the American media had reported that secret high-level talks were underway.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar's spokesman rejects Afghan President Hamid Karzai's attempts for talks with the Taliban in an exchange with Rediff.com contributor Tahir Ali.

Just why is Pakistan's former spy chief among the most dangerous men in the world?

Senior Muslim leader, veteran Parliamentarian and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi was bid a tearful adieu by lakhs of his supporters on Tuesday when he was laid to rest at the Dargah Agha Dawood in Hyderabad.

Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) passed away on Monday in Hyderabad after a prolonged illness. He was 76.

Head of the Dawoodi Bohra sub-sect of Islam Dr Snyedna Mohammad Burhanuddin is carried by followers after offering prayers in Ahmedabad late on Tuesday. The Dawoodi Bohras are a sub-sect of the Ismaeli Shia Islam, which is based in India.

The transcript of the communiqus issued to Modi, Sonia an Digvijay Singh

Ranjan was a lovable individual and officer. He left this world without ever having made an enemy. His contribution to the protection of our national security was immense. He is one of the heroes of the Indian intelligence, who chose to live and die unsung and unknown outside a very small circle of the cognoscenti

'Through the different ups and downs of my country, India has played a great positive role. The Afghan and Indian people should know this,' says Afghan Ambassador Masood Khalili.