It is the fulfilment of a promise made in 2014, but it is the larger progress towards regional integration that might show lasting benefits. Pakistan had opted out saying "India was not willing to develop the project on a collaborative basis".

The recently held India-China strategic dialogue provides a useful reality check on the state of the play. Over the past year, the relationship had reached an impasse owing to China’s unwillingness to support India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and to allow Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammed to be placed on the United Nations Security Council’s terror list.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh used a meeting in Pakistan on Thursday to seek the “strongest” action against countries that back terrorism and pilloried those who eulogise terrorists, delivering a terse message that was not covered by the Pakistani media.

The Governing body of National Press club Islamabad    (NPCI), Pakistan on Friday (April 15)  approved the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Society for Promotion of Peace (SPP) and the representatives of the NPCI at Chandigarh for exchange of journalists to promote peace and amenity between the two neighbouring countries-India and Pakistan-.

The signatories to the MoU are: Chanchal Manohar Singh, Chairman, SPP, Mr Imran Yaqoob Dhillon, Secretary NPCI, Pakistan and Mr Muhammad Ishaque Chaudhry, Finance Secretary NPCI, Pakistan.

India and Pakistan continue to live under suspicion among them and it is continuing still. Since the cancellation of the Foreign Secretaries meet in Islamabad in view of the Pakistan’s High Commissioner’s meeting with separatists in High Commissioner’s office in New Delhi, the relations between the two countries remain clouded with stress and tension. 

i do not suppose young people know what a cracked record sounds like, but if they want to find out, they only have to listen to the governments of India and Pakistan. Like a needle stuck in a groove, the words we hear are repeated time after time: befitting reply, befitting reply

India will be focusing efforts on strengthening military ties with countries in the immediate neighbourhood. Army chief General Dalbir Singh’s first set of foreign tours in the coming months will be to Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, in more ways than one, was a success. He may not have brought with him anything tangible from America but has created a climate of confidence and won back Washington, which always looked at India with suspicion. Here is a person who was denied a US visa, who was able to shame the US Administration with speeches of friendship with America.

Bamiyan, the Afghan town, which shot into prominence when the Taliban blew up two ancient statues of the Buddha in 2001, has been selected to be the SAARC cultural capital for a year beginning April 2015. 

From Kathmandu to Kabul and Dhaka to Delhi, there is growing recognition that regional cooperation in South Asia would remain incomplete unless a culture of respect for the basic rights and fundamental freedoms of the region’s peoples is fostered through legal guarantees and effective enforcement. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries meeting in November in Nepal should take a hard look at infusing vigour and vitality into this inter-governmental forum.

On September 3, al-Qaeda’s media arm, al-Sahab Media, released one of the strangest videos in the movement’s history, announcing the formation of a new branch of “al-Qaeda in the South Asian Subcontinent.” Strange, because of the panicked tone of the three separate statements in the video, and because its content has very little to do with South Asia. The first statement in the video is by al-Qaeda’s notably uncharismatic leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who essentially rehashes the virtues and importance of armed struggle (jihad) against the United States, which he labels “the global order of unbelief,” and reaffirms, repeatedly, loyalty to Mullah Umar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. The video betrays a deep anxiety among al-Qaeda’s original leadership about its future as the guiding movement in the global jihad.