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To characterise the Modi-Sharif meeting and joint statement in Ufa as a "breakthrough" would be a gross exaggeration. It is another move - a positive move, but only one small move in the larger reckoning - in the elaborate chess game of India-Pakistan relations.

Top 10 commentaries by ORF analysts this year.

Our 20 most–read commentaries this year.

In agreeing to explore with Pakistan a final settlement of the Kashmir question as part of a normalisation of bilateral relations, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pushed the India-Pakistan dialogue into what could be an exciting, if not decisive, phase.

As the Pakistani People's Party (PPP) Government struggles to get the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) passed into legislation, an international team of IMF experts are scheduled to meet with political parties this week to be the mediators for a much-needed consensus.

India and Pakistan are currently engaged in a war of attrition through the use of the soft power of the electronic media and skilful psychological warfare in the hope of thereby making each other's traditional position on the Kashmir issue increasingly untenable and thus making possible a forward movement in their bilateral negotiations on the subject.

When Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf speaks, he gets lots of attention in Washington DC and other capitals in the western world. For the past three years, he has been saying that he was determined to root out terrorism from the world. He was quickly dubbed as a staunch ally by the Bush administration.

President Pervez Musharraf¿s recent trans-national tour¿four western nations and three African nations¿has significant implications for him, and Pakistan.

The October 8 earthquake devastated large parts of Kashmir on both sides of the border, and left thousands dead and millions homeless. It also exposed the Pakistan Army's abysmal lack of experience in handling civilian disasters, a clear absence of higher leadership in coordinating and conducting rescue and relief operations in areas that have been traditionally trodden by the troops.

One needs to be cautious in pronouncing that the recent Myanmar Operation by the Indian army is a new, all-purpose security and counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism doctrine for every eventuality, circumstance and geography. In the case of Pakistan and the Kashmir theatre, for example, things will not be as simple.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) announced over the weekend a major airlift of relief supplies for Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

India faces a medium-term challenge from the Chinese PLA Navy, which has been active in terms of sending vessels on regular patrols in the Indian Ocean.

Nawaz Sharif's return as the Prime Minister of Pakistan in early June this year marks a signpost from where a more meaningful relationship between India and Pakistan could be forged. The bilateral relationship had of late been mired in mistrust and often meaningless rhetoric. The previous civilian government in Pakistan was paralysed by its own ineptitude. An equally incoherent position in New Delhi has allowed the crucial relationship to drift.

The very day a trial court in India, New Delhi to be precise, denied bail to the accused in the 2-G scam case, another in distant London was awarding sentences to three Pakistani cricketers for match-fixing at the end of an equally much-publicised trial.

Suggesting that a trilateral grouping between Punjab, Kashmir and Rajasthan to improve ties with its neighbouring Pakistan provinces, the author says border provinces had shown time and again that they are the most solid bridge between India and Pakistan.

A preview to the author’s book-in-progress, Nehru and Kashmir. Would India have succeeded in recapturing Pakistan-occupied Kashmir if Jawaharlal Nehru heeded the advice of his generals? Using correspondence between Nehru and his private secretary, Dwarka Nath Kachru, this book will reveal how Nehru’s idealism stood in the way of the Indian Army reclaiming what eventually became PoK.

India¿s neighbourhood is on the boil. Pakistan is struggling to resolve its self-imposed dilemma of balancing politically aroused religious extremism and calls for domestic stability and international civility. Bangladesh seems all set to follow the Pakistani model if the series of bomb blasts all over the country last month were any indication.

While the Chinese have kept us embroiled with their visa tactics in Arunachal, intrusions in Ladakh as part of an unsettled boundary issue, and nuclear plants to Pakistan, they have long endeavoured to seek access and presence south of the Himalayas. They appear to be succeeding in Nepal.

The Indian Army is more than a match for its Pakistani counterpart, but tardy modernisation means it has little punching power. Plus, there dangles the threat of a nuclear response.

China’s bid to ‘internationalise’ the issue could push India to hurt its larger neighbour’s interests.

The possible return of the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, is a challenge. But don’t count India out

The Maldives became the second country in South Asia, after Pakistan, to enter into a free trade agreement with China. The Yameen government pushed the FTA through the nation's Parliament, the Majlis, stealthily, with the opposition not attending the parliamentary session.

Raja Pervez Ashraf became Pakistan's 25th Prime Minister eight months before the country goes to polls. His predecessor, Yousaf Raza Gilani, was disqualified by the Supreme Court on June 19, 2012 for failing to implement court's directions to investigate corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistan's Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz has been elected to the National Assembly with a thumping majority. His victory is being projected as a peaceful transition of power¿from Jamali to Shujaat to Aziz-- and as a sign of democracy maturing in Pakistan.

The next steps towards peace with Pakistan need to be thought out carefully to prevent the dialogue process from getting derailed or losing steam - two possibilities which seem to be staring in the face of policy makers on either side of the border.

As the NDA government recalibrates India's Kashmir and Pakistan policies, Delhi must do a much better job explaining the logic behind the cancellation of the foreign secretary talks, widely seen as abrupt.It must let the international community, especially Pakistan's friends, including the US, China and Saudi Arabia, know India is not abandoning the peace process with Islamabad.

What Delhi needs is a strategy that will generate some influence for India in shaping the future of the critical northwest sub-region. Such a strategy will necessarily involve sustained dialogue with Pakistan, a recalibration of the Afghan policy, encouragement to the peace talks between Kabul and Rawalpindi and the readiness to engage all powers who have a stake in the region's stability.

There is a definite need for India to reconsider its doctrine or a strategy to counter and/or deter use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons weapons by Pakistan for non-strategic (say battlefield) purposes.

The inadequacy of Barack Obama's Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy stems from the exigencies of the calendar of the next presidential elections in America,

Pakistan's cooperation against extremist groups has been selective, targetting those threatening its own stability but avoiding action against the Afghan Taliban seen as strategic assets for controlling Afghanistan once the US withdrew

Though India and Pakistan have been working on improving bilateral trade, the recent meeting of Experts' Group on Trade in Petroleum and Petrochemical Products come in the wake of the ongoing energy crisis in Pakistan.

The killing of Osama bin Laden, one of the most prized assets of Pakistan Army, is likely to exacerbate differences among the top and middle-rung Army leadership which has been quite uncomfortable with the US over the Raymond Davis affair and the Drone attacks. The key question is what effect this event will have on the Army and the ISI.

The Pakistan Accountability Act, moved in the US Congress this week, lacks the necessary coercive elements required to persuade Pakistan or to alter its strategic calculus in the context of Afghanistan. It very well realises its importance to the US for successful completion of the counter-insurgency campaign and sustaining troops.

As expected, President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan announced a major reshuffle of the senior officers of the Pakistan Army of the rank of Generals and Lts.General on October 2 and 3, 2004.

There is only one way in which Pakistan can survive as a nation-state. That is, the Pakistan Army will have to confine itself to being an armed force and not usurp the powers and responsibilities of the legislature and executive branch of the government. The mission objective of an armed force is to safeguard the integrity and sovereignty of the country and not run it. The people of Pakistan have a choice here.

Pakistan Army is in the throes of a dramatic transformation both in its profile and approach but is no where near relinquishing its stranglehold over the political and corporate landscape of Pakistan. The office-cadre is much more conservative but not radical,

The present generation of the Pakistani army is not so much Islamic as political and materialistic, said Professor Stephen Cohen, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and renowned authority on Pakistan Army. Speaking at the USI as part of a joint ORF-USI lecture, Profession Cohen said the Pakistani army was only using Islam for its political objectives and this has not compromised the professional orientation of the army.

India has expressed its willingness to extend technical assistance for improving infrastructure in Pakistan. Pakistan is bound to realise that holding on to terrorism as an instrument of State policy would not be in its interests as Pakistan would be the real sufferers in the long run.

Waziristan last month ostensibly to hunt down al Qaida and Talibanelements has been a visible failure which could dramatically alterthe already existing fault lines in the force divided betweenloyalty to Musharraf, nation and religion.South Waziristan is one of the seven areas -Khyber, Kurram,Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan - which wereclubbed together as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)by the British who wanted

There are conflicting reports about Pakistan army's decision to launch a military offensive against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other terrorist strongholds in North Waziristan.

More than Afghanistan and Iraq, it is Pakistan which reflects the failure of the American foreign policy. Or is it naïve on my part to say so since the possibility of Pakistan being sheltered and supported as a nation that spawns terror groups willingly by Washington could in fact be the reality? Why would Washington, or for that matter others, ignore two recent events in Pakistan which clearly point at the regrouping of terror groups under the

On April 3 this year, a one-day conference was organised in Washington by the South Asian Studies department of the John Hopkins University. One of the sessions was on Pakistan, specifically on the safety of its nuclear installations.

Senate's recent decision to pass the 'National Commission on the Status of Women Bill, 2012' was a step forward for the women's rights movement in Pakistan.

It is time that India seriously consider "outsourcing" some aspects of its foreign policy to its border provinces. Encouragement of deeper cooperation between border states in both India and Pakistan -especially the two Punjabs, the two Kashmirs, and Rajasthan (India) and Sind (Pakistan) -- could be a good beginning for bettering relations.

Nothing, with the exception of the Kashmir issue, has been more debated, researched and written about in the context of Indo Pak relations than the issue of the Iran-Pakistan-India Natural Gas pipeline in the last decade. From Onshore to Offshore options and international consortia and guarantees to people to contact, almost everything and anything has been tossed around and evaluated, yet to no avail. The pipeline still remains a pipe dream.

The Peshawar attack offers the Pakistan leadership a corner to turn around - it only needs to first define who is a terrorist? But is the military and civilian leadership of Pakistan capable, and willing, to take on the terrorist groups, especially TTP? The rhetoric and actions on the part of the leadership raise serious doubts about the will.