In a speech at the national convention of the Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta, Obama was to address the progress being made to meet his deadline of drawing down all combat troops by the end of the month. A transitional force of 50,000 troops will remain to train Iraqi security forces, conduct counterterrorism operations and provide security for ongoing U.S. civilian efforts.

“Make no mistake: Our commitment in Iraq is changing, from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats,” Obama said in excerpts released ahead of the speech.

Obama has said all U.S. troops will be gone from Iraq by the end of next year.

At the same time Obama has drawn down forces in Iraq, he has increased the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan, ordering a surge of 30,000 additional troops. But with casualties on the rise, there are fresh concerns about the 9-year mission in Afghanistan, as well as Obama’s plan to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, a timetable that critics say will embolden the Taliban and other extremist groups in the region.

Facing a potential loss of public and congressional support for the Afghanistan war, the White House is painting the U.S. mission there as humble and achievable: keeping the region from being a haven for terrorists.

“What we’re looking to do is difficult, very difficult, but it’s a fairly modest goal,” Obama told the CBS “Sunday Morning” show.

Despite the surge in Afghanistan, there are fewer U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan now than there were when Obama took office last year. Come September, when the Iraq drawdown is complete, the White House says there will 146,000 troops on the ground, down from 177,000 in January 2009.

During his remarks Monday, Obama is expected to speak about the government’s efforts to support those troops, as well as veterans of other wars.

“While our country has sometimes been divided, they have fought together as one,” Obama said in the excerpts. “While other individuals and institutions have shirked responsibility, they have welcomed it.”

After the speech, Obama was scheduled to attend a fundraising lunch for the Democratic National Committee, his latest stop in a summer fundraising sprint that also includes events in Chicago later this week.

But Georgia’s most prominent Democrat, former Gov. Roy Barnes, won’t be joining Obama at either of his stops Monday. Barnes, who is running to get his old job back, had previously scheduled events in southern Georgia, his campaign said.

Distancing himself from the president could be politically smart for Barnes. Georgia is a Republican stronghold that John McCain carried in 2008. A poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. in July had Obama with a 37 percent approval rating in the state. Fifty percent of those surveyed disapproved of Obama’s performance.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said military action against Iran could have “unintended consequences that are difficult to predict in what is an incredibly unstable part of the world.”

But, speaking on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” programme on NBC, Mullen said allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon was also unacceptable. “Quite frankly, I am extremely concerned about both of those outcomes,” he said.

Mullen held out hope that a combination of international diplomatic efforts and sanctions against Iran would lead Tehran to suspend a nuclear enrichment program that many believe is a clandestine bid to develop nuclear arms.

“I am hopeful (it) works,” he said. At the same time, though, he said “the military options have been on the table, and remain on the table”.

“I hope we don’t get to that, but it’s an important option and it’s one that’s well understood,” he added. Asked if the military has a plan to strike Iran, Mullen replied, “We do”.

He did not elaborate. Iran insists its uranium enrichment programme is for peaceful purposes only. Meanwhile, Iran will make the strategic Gulf region unsafe for all if it comes under attack by the United States over it nuclear programme, the deputy head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday.

“If the Americans make the slightest mistake, the security of the region will be endangered. Security in the Persian Gulf should be for all or none,” Yadollah Javani told the official IRNA news agency.

“The Persian Gulf is a strategic region and if it is endangered they (Americans) will suffer losses and our response will be firm.

“We will defend ourselves if America or Israel resort to any hostile measures against our vital values,” he added.

The international community led by the United States has stepped up pressure on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme amid concerns that the Islamic republic is engaged in a covert nuclear weapons programme, a charge Tehran vehemently denies.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out a military strike to stop Iran’s alleged atomic ambitions. Javani’s declaration preceded comments by the top US military officer on Sunday that a plan to attack Iran was ready, if needed to stop the Islamic republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was “extremely concerned” about the possible repercussions of such a strike. Iranian officials have frequently vowed a crushing response to any US and Israeli attacks.

The new strategy of targeted killing of militants has turned out to work well, the paper said. President Barack Obama announced a new war plan for Afghanistan last year, including an addition of 30,000 US troops to the 65,000 Nato troops already in the country. The focus of that new plan, the Times said, was to keep the Afghan people safe, set up a competent government and win the public’s allegiance. But that strategy has seen little success, indicated by faltering military operations in Marja and Kandahar, plus the spread of Taliban influence in other parts of the county, the report said.

The Obama administration, facing its own deadline to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011, is relying more on targetted killings and the hunting down of insurgents, the Times said. In the view of some officials, the report said, the targetted attacks could hasten a political settlement with the Taliban. Raids during the last five months have removed more than 130 significant insurgents, while interrogations of captured fighters are giving a better intelligence picture of the war, sources told the Times.

US intelligence indicates growing examples of Taliban fighters who are fearful of moving into higher-level command positions because of targeted killings, one senior US military source said. Rattling the Taliban, officials told The Times, may open the door to reconciling with them more quickly, even if the officials caution that the outreach is still deeply uncertain.

After Bowe Bergdahl, 24, went missing in southeastern Paktika province on June 30 last year, the Taliban has issued three videos of him visibly shaken, pleading for the US government to win his release.

In the latest video which appeared to have been crudely edited in parts, Bowe Bergdahl looked lean but fit. He said he was being well treated and allowed to move around and exercise.

Seated in front of what appeared to be a compound wall and clasping his hands in prayer, Bergdahl said: “Let me go… get me released… This war isn’t worth the waste of human life that has cost both the Afghanistan and the US.

“It’s not worth the amount of lives that have been wasted in prisons, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, all those places where we are keeping prisoners.” In a December video, the serviceman warned soldiers who were about to be deployed to Afghanistan what to expect on the battlefield.

“So, all you soldiers that are getting ready to come over here for their first time because of the stupidity of our country, our leaders: no, you are not fighting stupid farmers.

“No, you are not fighting a small group of terrorist guerilla fighters.

You are fighting an organised guerilla army that has perfected guerilla

warfare better than any country has ever perfected it in history.”

In Kabul, a spokesman for the US military said on Tuesday the search for

Bowe Bergdahl was a “top priority” for Nato forces.

“Since he was captured on June 30, 2009, it has been a top priority for US and coalition forces to find him, recover him and bring him home safely,” said Rear Admiral Greg Smith, deputy chief of communication for Nato forces.

“We continue our efforts to determine his whereabouts and ensure his safe return,” Smith said.

The Taliban has demanded the release of prisoners from US detention centres in exchange for his freedom.

Bowe Bergdahl, a native of Hailey, Idaho, is the first US soldier to be captured in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001.

He said in an earlier video that he was captured when he fell behind his unit.

Aside from looking weird, they’re quite delicious, with a mild, fruity flavor and a good balance of sweetness and acidity. One eats this berry as one might a satay, grabbing the stem and stripping the flesh off with one’s teeth from the long, stringy central core, which is edible but not particularly pleasant. Both for growers and consumers, a major advantage of the Pakistan, compared with the more celebrated Persian type, is that it is firmer and has stronger skin, so that it remains reasonably dry during picking, packing and sale, and thus has a longer storage life, two or three days if refrigerated.

Even so, the Pakistan mulberry is often confused with the Persian, which is very different — it’s another species, Morus nigra, native to southwestern Asia, which ripens about a month later, in late June and July. It is round or oval in shape, leaks a dark, staining juice quite readily, and has a far more intense sweet-tart flavor.

The Pakistan’s season is May to mid-June, a bit later at higher elevations. It is a variety of M. macroura, native to the forests of its namesake country and India, and closely related to M. alba, the white mulberry; in the past it was sometimes considered to be just a subspecies of M. alba, the fruit of which is consumed fresh and dried across southern Asia, while the leaves serve as fodder for silkworms.

White mulberries are also now in season, and sometimes show up at farmers markets. The name is actually a misnomer, since fruit can be white, black, light purple or pinkish. Certain varieties of white mulberries can be tasty, but usually the fruits are merely sweet, with none of the balancing acidity or complexity of flavor that would make them interesting.

When buying Pakistan mulberries, as with almost every fruit, ripeness is critical: the darker the berry, the sweeter and richer the flavor. Buying light reddish fruits is a waste of money, since they’ll be sour and bland, with an unpleasant vegetal taste. Some growers pick them immature because they’re afraid that if the berries ripen fully, they’ll fall off the tree or be devoured by birds, which are highly partial to the fruits.

The Pakistan first came to the United States in 1986, when Mike McConkey, owner of Edible Landscaping in Afton, Va., asked George A. White of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to import promising mulberry varieties. Cuttings of this variety arrived from the Pakistan Agriculture Research Center in Islamabad without a local name, so the variety has been called after its country of origin.

Recently, Jiminez Family Farm of Santa Ynez, which sells at Hollywood, Santa Monica (Wednesday) and Ventura (Saturday), has been bringing some of the best Pakistans, so ripe they’re almost black, and ever so slightly on the dry side, giving them a rich, concentrated flavor not always present in this variety. At Santa Monica (Wednesday and Saturday organic), Coleman Family Farms of Carpinteria also sells very fine specimens, large, plump and ripe; on Wednesday, Chris Jacobson, chef of the Yard, scooped up most of the available berries. Other vendors who often bring good Pakistans include Pudwill Farms of Nipomo and Mud Creek Ranch of Santa Paula, both of whom sell at Santa Monica and Hollywood.

food@latimes.com

Market Watch: Deliciously strange Pakistan mulberries
The snakelike fruit, now in season, is not such a rarity at area markets anymore. Look for a rich, dark color.

Its latest move, however, goes far beyond the pale of common sense. It has passed a resolution outlawing “defamation” of religion. That means that wherever U.N. writ runs, neither a person nor an organization nor a representative of the press may say anything negative about a religion, part of a religion, an offshoot of a religion or a representative or member of a religion.

This resolution was “proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favor and 11 against, with 13 abstentions.”

If you believe, as the United Nations allegedly does, that free speech is not a political right but a human right, you will be horrified by this.

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

If you’re all for limits on speech that you dislike, you would do well to remember that this type of resolution is a textbook case of “slippery slope.” If you can do it to someone you hate, it takes only a slight tip of the scale for them to do it to you.

Pakistan has shut off the web out of fear it will see a picture of Mohammed. Either out of fear of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, or using that event as an excuse, the Pakistani government has blocked the following at least: Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Apparently Twitter is still partially functional, but blocked in certain parts of the country. I imagine it will be banned everywhere in short order. Everybody Draw Mohammed day started as a joke in a cartoon, which the cartoonist backed down from, but others went forward with. It is supposedly a celebration of free speech. It has purportedly drawn a lot of outright racist crap, but I suppose that’s what makes it free speech as opposed to sanctioned speech. Many Pakistanis are outraged more at the censorship than at any possible blasphemy. I guess they figure that they, and their faith, are proof against the deadly power of amateur cartooning. Maybe the government should take a page from their book instead of tear pages out of the Koran to cover themselves with.

Tunisian citizens protest online crackdown. Thousands of Tunisians joined an online anti-censorship campaign, posting on Facebook, Twitter and blogs and posting photos and videos on the topic. “Even some radio and TV shows slipped a word about it, which is a first: The silent crowd is not so silent anymore.” Tomorrow, organizers are taking the protest offline in cities around the world, including Tunis.

Tunisia blocks Skype. (This from an email from ReadWriteWeb France editor, Fabrice Epelboin.) Possibly in relationship to the anti-censorship activities above, Tunisia has blocked the VOIP site, though not others.

Facebook refuses to remove Holocaust denial groups. Facebook has refused to ban holocaust denier groups from using its service. That seems odd and a breaking of its terms of service, but is a private company and has the right to decide what it does. It can also be boycotted by users if they do not respond to what those users want. If people can force Facebook’s hand, good I suppose. Talk of suing Facebook seems off-base though.

Thailand attacks protesters. Thailand sent in the army to break up the camp of the Red Shirt protesters, many of whom use electronic media to present their case against the current government. Several of the leaders surrendered to avoid more bloodshed.

Internet unblocked in Uighur area but webmasters and bloggers remain in jail. After being shut down or blocked for almost a year, China has apparently unblocked Internet access in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. The webmasters, bloggers and journalists arrested in the crackdown of July 2009, however, remain jailed. These include “Memet Turghun Abdulla, a photographer who published an article online about an attack on Uyghur factory workers believed to have sparked the July 2009 unrest; Gheyret Niyaz, a journalist who was detained after talking to foreign media about the unrest; Dilshat Parhat, who co-founded the Uyghur-run website Diyarim; Obulkasim, an employee of Diyarim; Nureli, who founded the Uyghur website Selkin; and website supervisor Muhemmet.”

Vietnam upholds sentences against blogger, other dissidents. Nguyen Tien Trung, a blogger and computer technician, did not appeal his sentence. He’s jailed for speaking out against the regime. The court upheld attorney and businessman Le Cong Dinh’s five-year sentence and businessman Tran Huynh Duy Thuc’s 16-year sentence. The five-year term of Le Thang Long was reduce to three-and-a-half after he “admitted” his guilt.

ISLAMABAD: Renewed international pressure and growing realisation in New Delhi that the rapidly changing situation in Afghanistan could deprive it of its strategic leverage in the region has forced the sudden change of heart in India regarding ties with Pakistan, according to diplomats and analysts.

“It was being increasingly felt by strategists in New Delhi that after recent conferences on Afghanistan that endorsed President Hamid Karzai’s plan for reintegrating Taliban, India was being left out and Pakistan might take the centre stage,” a diplomat told Dawn when asked about the Indian proposal for resumption of bilateral talks.

It all started with Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s call to her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir, almost a week ago, inviting him to Delhi in February for talks on wide-ranging issues that have been constraining the bilateral ties, particularly in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

She expressed Indian government’s willingness to discuss issues besides terrorism which would remain the focus of the parleys.

Ms Rao went to the extent of offering negotiations on contentious issues like the water dispute, but stayed short of suggesting resumption of the Composite Dialogue.

India’s eagerness for resuming talks was evident from Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s belated admission that there was also a local Indian link to Mumbai attacks for which New Delhi had earlier been blaming Pakistan-based terror groups only.

Things afterwards started moving at a rapid pace towards detente. Pakistan sought clarifications and on Friday High Commissioner Shahid Malik met Ms Rao in New Delhi to discuss the agenda and possible dates for the meeting.

Although Pakistan is insisting on accepting nothing short of Composite Dialogue, there is realisation in the Foreign Office that sticking to revival of peace talks may jeopardise the opportunity for normalisation of strained ties.

The thinking is that the offer of initial contacts should be availed and subsequently taken forward to full resumption of Composite Dialogue.

“The attempt is to keep talking about the issues which are of concern to us,” Mr Malik said.

Although analysts and diplomats believe there are a number of factors that triggered the rethinking in India, the primary reason remains the changing scenario in Afghanistan coupled with the impending reintegration of Taliban in Afghan society.

Afraid of losing all the strategic gains made by India in Afghanistan by investing over $2 billion, it was thought that Indian interests could be best served by re-engaging with Pakistan.

The Istanbul and London conferences and acknowledgment by Nato commanders that Indian role in Afghanistan needed to be clipped to address Pakistan’s concerns showed the proverbial writing on the wall to the Congress government.

The global endorsement of President Karzai’s plans for reintegrating Taliban in Afghan society, motivated by the West’s eagerness to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, was seen in New Delhi as strengthening of Pakistan’s position because of the role Islamabad was expected to play in wooing the Taliban. Equally worrisome for India was Pakistan’s offer of training the Afghan police and army personnel.

Sustained international pressure on New Delhi to mend fences with Islamabad also played a role.

The pressure from the UK and US increased in recent months, as the coalition forces in Afghanistan got ready for the final push in the war-torn country before pulling out.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, speaking at a Kashmir day event, also attributed India’s change in stance as a manifestation of the increasing international pressure on New Delhi.

Progress in the prosecution of alleged mastermind of Mumbai attacks in Rawalpindi courts where the accused have been indicted after lengthy delays and the first witnesses deposed last week provided the right ‘face saver’ to India to restart talks with Pakistan.

Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna, in his interaction with media personnel, described these developments as constructive signs.

“Any step forward in the direction of Pakistan also investigating the Mumbai attacks will certainly make it easier for India to carry out normalisation of business with Pakistan,” Mr Krishna had noted.

Additionally, detractors of the Indian government began to characterise Indian stance of not engaging with Pakistan as futile. The upcoming Saarc events – the interior ministers’ meeting in Islamabad and the summit in Thimphu, Bhutan -– hastened the Indian decision, because it no longer wanted to be seen as stalling the peace process.

With all set for the two countries to resume bilateral talks, there are worrying signs as well. Jamaatud Dawa, accused of being a front organisation for banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for Mumbai attacks, is seen as gaining strength after holding a series of meetings in Muzaffarabad, Peshawar and Lahore.

The first high-profile activities by the group since the Mumbai attacks have almost coincided with a thaw in Pakistan-India relations.

This in itself may throw a spanner in the works and the much-awaited restoration of peace process may elude the people of the two countries.

KABUL: The Taliban launched a wave of gun and bomb attacks on Kabul on Monday, with at least 13 people injured as fierce fighting erupted in the heart of the Afghan capital.

Latest reports stated that four of the suicide bombers have died. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up and another two died in clashes, an interior ministry spokesman said.The two attackers killed by security forces had holed themselves up in a building in central Kabul, Zemarai Bashary said.

“We can confirm that four suicide bombers have been killed,” he told Al Jazeera television. He said some militants were still inside the Ariana Cinema, shooting at security forces who had surrounded the building.

“We suspect there are more bombers in the cinema building,” he said.Al Jazeera television reported that the Serena Hotel, Kabul’s only five-star hotel, is also on fire.

A series of explosions rocked Kabul, with smoke billowing out of at least two shopping centres, and intense gun battles raged between militants and Afghan security forces as police and military snipers patrolled rooftops.

“It is our work, the targets are the (presidential) palace, the finance, justice and mines ministries, and the central bank,” a purported Taliban spokesman told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“Twenty of our suicide bombers have entered the area and fighting is ongoing,” the spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, adding that one militant had detonated a suicide vest at the entrance to the presidential palace complex.

Insurgents stormed a five-storey shopping mall and were exchanging gunfire with security forces surrounding the building, witnesses said, while local television showed a second shopping centre spewing smoke.

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Afghan security forces had secured roads in central Kabul as Taliban militants took over buildings in the political and commercial heart of the city.

“Initial reports are they have killed at least two armed insurgents at the shopping centre after clearing the building,” the ISAF statement said.

Army and police snipers took positions on buildings around Pashtunistan Square in the centre of the capital after the attacks, which appeared to be well-coordinated and involve a large number of gunmen.

“I heard the blast then we started running, but we happened to be running towards the explosions,” said witness Bahram Sarwary.

“I saw smoke coming from a building near the central bank and the presidential palace and I saw at least one person injured,” he said.

Afghanistan’s health ministry said 13 people had been wounded.

“Most of them are civilians but they also include security personnel,”ministry spokesman Ahmad Farid Rahid said.

The central business district of the Afghan capital is the nexus of political, business and diplomatic life.

Television stations showed the Qari Sami shopping mall in the centre of city – believed to have been taken over by the militants – burning and billowing smoke.

A second shopping mall, the Gulbahar Centre, about one kilometre (half a mile) away was also shown spewing smoke. Security personnel were heard saying that another explosion had taken place there.

The bomber detonated the explosive outside the Gulbahar mall, located near the foreign ministry, after security forces fired on him, the source said.

“It killed several police and intelligence people,” said an official source, who asked not to be named.

Gunfire continued to ring out over the city – where the streets were deserted but for the heavy presence of police and army, television picture showed and witnesses said.

Sporadic explosions, possibly of rocket-propelled grenades, could be heard as armoured vehicles moved into position outside major government ministries and the presidential palace, while a huge explosion was heard mid-morning.

The attacks came a day after the government said President Hamid Karzai was to announce a new plan aimed at forging peace with the Taliban and other militants fighting to topple his administration.

Karzai has long called for peace talks with the Taliban – even offering government posts to its leaders – but the militia has refused dialogue until the withdrawal of international troops on which Kabul relies for security.

Rockets were also fired into the heavily fortified diplomatic area of Wazir Akbar Khan on Saturday night, coinciding with visits by the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

India’s long tradition of democracy has given the country an image of a responsible and restrained nation. But this view is not shared by India’s neighbours, especially the smaller ones.

The past 60 years have shown India’s tendency to throw its weight about and browbeat its neighbours. With those that are bigger and more powerful, India tends to adopt a moralistic and intellectually superior tone, as noted by some American leaders. With its smaller neighbours, it does not hesitate to take off its gloves.

Of course, we are no paragons of virtue either, and in many cases, it has been our own arrogance and folly, more than Indian machinations, that have contributed to our failures and losses, whether in view of the East Pakistan debacle or the Kargil adventure.

It had, however, been expected that with the restoration of a democratic dispensation in Pakistan and with virtually all major political parties committed to establishing a cooperative relationship with India, New Delhi would engage in a comprehensive dialogue aimed at resolving the differences that have plagued ties between the South Asian neighbours.

The Mumbai terror attack in November 2008 angered the Indian government, which thereafter had to cater to massive popular outrage. The consequent decision to suspend the dialogue with Pakistan was understandable.

Since then, the Pakistani leadership has been engaged in a major effort to convince New Delhi that it was sincere in its desire to cooperate with India with the common objective of confronting the extremists. In fact, the most remarkable thing was the near unanimity with which the Pakistanis not only condemned the Mumbai attacks, but also acknowledged that their country needed to take concrete steps to assuage India’s anguish.

None of this, however, appears to have had much impact on the Indian establishment. Even the expectations raised at the Gilani-Singh meeting in Sharm El Sheikh were snuffed out when Manmohan Singh’s colleagues publicly expressed their misgivings.

Then again, while Singh’s statement last October in Srinagar that he was not setting preconditions for the dialogue had raised fresh hopes, it did not indicate anything new, for he placed his readiness for talks in the context of Pakistan being able to create an environment conducive to negotiations. His pronouncement neither accompanied nor followed any move to re-engage Islamabad. Instead, Delhi declined to respond to the road map for resuming talks that Pakistan had conveyed to Indian officials.

This led many to believe that Prime Minister Singh’s remarks in Srinagar were merely meant to coincide with US Secretary Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan, as well as his own visit to Washington a few weeks later.

In the meanwhile, the Pakistanis kept pleading for the resumption of dialogue, while the Indians continued to rebuff these offers. The Indian foreign minister ridiculed even the offer of back-channel exchanges. It was then that realisation dawned on the Pakistani leadership that the country’s repeated requests were becoming demeaning.

In the meanwhile, India appears to have raised the ante, with the Indian army chief Gen Kapoor remarking that “the possibility of a limited war in a nuclear overhang is still a reality, at least in the Indian subcontinent”.

What has been particularly galling is the failure of the Obama administration to act on its seemingly wise policy pronouncements during the election campaign. Instead of encouraging India to reduce its presence in Afghanistan and ceasing to stir up trouble in Balochistan, the US appears to have gone along with Indian allegations, agreeing to inject into the US-India joint statement a provision “to work jointly to deal with terrorism emanating from India’s neighbourhood”.

This was strange, coming from an administration that had publicly expressed a desire to promote Indo-Pakistan normalisation and to work for the resolution of the Kashmir problem.

The Indian army chief’s latest statement in which he spoke of his army’s capacity to fight a two-front war has evoked great surprise and disappointment. But while it conveyed hostility and belligerence, his words are neither realistic nor achievable as India does not have the capability to successfully initiate its much-heralded ‘cold start’ strategy, much less wage two wars against two neighbours simultaneously.

This does not mean, however, that we can dismiss these statements as mere rhetoric. It could be more evidence of the increasing inclination of the Indian forces to have a role in the India-Pakistan equation.

According to some observers, there has been a slow but perceptible change in India where an increasing number are reported to have insisted on being given more than merely a ‘hearing’ on issues relating to Pakistan, especially Siachen and Sir Creek. The Indian armed forces have gradually come to believe that given the growing challenges that India faces both domestically and on its frontiers, a more visible role for it is in order.

Another important factor is the newfound confidence acquired from the special relationship that the US has so eagerly conferred on India, not only as its strategic partner, but also as a potential counterweight to China. No less important could be the growing influence of rightwing parties and religious groups that want India to adopt more nationalist policies vis-à-vis its neighbours.

Whatever the reason, our leaders should not react in haste or with similar belligerence. What must be avoided at all costs are provocative steps, such as refusing to cooperate against the militants or brandishing nuclear assets.

Instead, what is required is a dispassionate analysis of what these signals portend for Pakistan and sensitising our friends to Indian actions. While we must not be distracted from the objective of seeking a peaceful resolution of our differences with India, we must not show undignified haste towards that end.

A fire broke out on Tuesday in a chemistry laboratory at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, located just a kilometre away from the nuclear reactors, leaving two research students dead, but scientists said there was no danger of any radioactivity.

Scientists at the suburban Trombay-based BARC said a loud bang was heard in the chemistry lab after which black smoke billowed out. It was not immediately clear if the bang was caused by an explosion or triggered by a chemical reaction.

No research involving radioactive material is conducted in the multi-storeyed Modular lab, in which the chemistry lab was housed, scientists said. It was also stated that no reactor, radioactivity or radiation was involved in the accident.

The victims, who were between the age group of 22 and 25, were identified as Umang Singh of Mumbai and Partha Bag of Kolkata. The identification was done on the basis of their ID cards on their person since their bodies were charred beyond recognition, a BARC release said.

Some scientific equipment was also damaged in the blaze, scientists said.

“The fire broke out at 12.5 pm in the chemistry lab on the third floor of the Modular lab of BARC. There was a loud bang, after which black smoke billowed out of the chemistry lab filling the corridor,” said BARC director and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Sreekumar Banerjee.

BARC’s fire brigade officials rushed to the spot and doused the blaze within 45 minutes. The fire-fighters later made their way to the lab and located two badly charred bodies.

A report on India’s poor nuclear safety arrangements: