PRAGOTI

The 2008 polls can be a watershed to end the bloodshed – if the State and the Hurriyat heed the message,says an EPW editorial on the recent Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections.

Kashmir has still not forgiven New Delhi for what it did on August 9, 1953. AG Noorani writes in The Frontline.

Courtesy: Frontline

Nilotpal Basu, Rajya Sabha member of the CPI(M) writes on the crisis in Jammu & Kashmir. Article courtesy: indiainteracts.com/ cartoon courtesy The Hindu newspaper.

A full circle seems to have been taken and India-Pakistan relations are getting perilously close to ground zero. It underscores that there is no alternative but to give primacy to the neighborhood in a country's foreign policy, and, secondly, to ensure that foreign policy is at any given time an extension of a country's national policy. What generates uneasiness, though, is that given the high volatility of the domestic political situation in both India and Pakistan, the likelihood is low that either side takes any creative initiatives at this juncture.