Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is not the only one to support Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's 'cricket diplomacy' in inviting Pakistan President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to visit India and watch Wednesday's semi-final game between India and Pakistan at Mohali.
Both countries have always supported the peaceful use of civil nuclear energy and an agreement in this connection is expected to be signed during the President's visit to China which began Tuesday, Ambassador Masood Khan said. The two countries will ink several agreements in the fields of technology, agriculture and minerals. They will also sign an investment protocol to their existing free trade agreement to boost investments in Pakistan, he told Geo News channel.
The test, conducted at an undisclosed location, was witnessed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen Shamim Hyder Wyyne.
Pakistan has reserved four seats for minorities in its Senate whose strength will climb to 104 from 100 under the landmark Constitutional reforms package, a move lauded as "people-friendly" by the community which so far had no representation in the upper house of Parliament.
Defence Minister Chaudry Ahmad Mukhtar, a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari, informed US Ambassador Anne Patterson about the defence requirements of Pakistan, particularly the provision of F-16 aircraft.
India and Pakistan have a real opportunity to take relations forward after the exit of President Pervez Musharraf, feels Adrian Levy, co-author of Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy.
A tense standoff continued in Pakistan on Saturday as overnight talks between the government and protesters demanding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's resignation made little headway in breaking the political logjam.
'The army has been open about its determination to keep the PML-Nawaz out of power at all costs.' 'Both the military and the higher judiciary have indicated a preference for Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf,' says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
'An operation such as the Mumbai attacks, which needed expert technical assessment, money and time to prepare, could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the ISI's leadership.'
Beijing's political risks are also escalating because of a renewed wave of public anger in many parts of Balochistan against human rights abuses by Pakistani troops deployed to crush the low-intensity insurgency in the province, the report said.
PTI leader Naeenul Haq told media on Saturday night that consultations are on to complete the number game.
Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Daniel Markey Tuesday said that the raising of the issue of American intervention in Jammu and Kashmir by visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington was not 'especially constructive' and was motivated by political expediency.
A simple explainer to the Indus Water Treaty.
The Pakistani Supreme Court ordered for a joint investigation team to probe the allegations of money laundering against his family.
Jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz with 64 and former president Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party with 43 seats are placed at number two and three respectively, the Election Commission of Pakistan said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has emerged as the single largest party in the legislative assembly elections in the strategically-located Gilgit-Baltistan region.
Adiala jail authorities have limited the movement of Sharif after some prisoners started chanting slogans against him as he was out for a stroll in the courtyard of his barrack on Thursday morning.
The Pakistani election on July 25 has a strong Indian flavour and connection, says Vivek Shukla.
'Nawaz Sharif knows a coup in 2016-2017 will not only complete Pakistan's isolation, but even a whiff of instability will frighten the world into imagining another Islamic State-zone, and this in a fully nuclearised subcontinent,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The blast was claimed by both the local affiliate of the Islamic State terror group and by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The 5-day political stand-off between the Pakistan government and anti-Sharif protestors intensified on Monday as efforts by the ruling PML-N to reach out to Opposition leader Imran Khan and cleric Tahir-ul Qadri failed with both the leaders remaining adamant on the ouster of the embattled prime minister.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Pakistan on a day-long visit to mend frayed ties with Pakistan and to seek the release of high-profile Taliban prisoners, including Mullah Barader, to give a fresh impetus to the reconciliation process in his war-torn country.
Authorities arrange helicopters to shift Sharif to jail; 300 PML-N workers arrested.
By weakening Sharif, the corps commanders could have a final say in important matters like relations with India, dealing with Taliban militants, interacting with Americans and once again achieving strategic depth in post-NATO Afghanistan. Which is why they may be behind the unrest in Pakistan led by Imran Khan and Dr Tahirul Qadri, says Shahzad Raza.
Counting has begun for the election which will be the second democratic transition of power in the nation's 70-year history.
A single party will need at least 137 of the directly elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.
Both Messrs Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri claim to march independently, but most of Pakistan believes they are marching to the Army's tune
Given our troubled relationship with Pakistan, we need to keep our security apparatus in a state of alert with state-of-the-art equipment. All bilateral issues with Pakistan -- political, military, economic -- will simply have to go on the back-burner till Pakistan decides it wants to live as a good neighbour, says Vikram Sood.
'Who in Pakistan was intending to carry out one of the most grievous acts of international terrorism just a few months ago?' Former CIA official Bruce Riedel reveals how the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the ISI planned the attack on the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Herat in May to take Indian diplomats hostage and disrupt Narendra Modi's swearing-in.
After weighing all the costs and benefits, the next administration is likely to reduce and restructure assistance to Pakistan but not to end it altogether, says Daniel S Markey.
On Thursday, November 6, the Washington Post newspaper reported that controversial American diplomat, Ambassador Robin Raphel, had her office and home searched by the FBI. This most unusual development likely raised much cheer at India's ministry of external affairs, in whose flesh Raphel had been a thorn through much of her tenure in the first Bill Clinton administration in the early and mid-1990s by her anti-India and pro-Pakistan stand. Seventeen years ago, as she was about to step down as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, Raphel granted an exclusive interview to Aziz Haniffa and India Abroad, the leading Indian-American weekly newspaper, which is now owned by Rediff.com The July 1997 interview, which provoked a raging controversy in both capitals, Washington, DC and New Delhi, is reproduced here...
'I believe Modi mentioned Balochistan only to embarrass Pakistan and also divert attention toward the situation in Kashmir.' 'I think from now on, India intends to raise Balochistan whenever Pakistan brings up Kashmir or upsets them on the issue of terrorism.' 'Balochistan is the least developed of Pakistan's four provinces. It is the least educated and least economically developed. People are agitated that a region so rich in mineral resources and a sea-port is still so poor.' Baloch political analyst Malik Siraj Akbar on why the province wants freedom from Pakistan.
