The Acorn  

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India should ensure that the main location of Pakistan’s proxy war remains far away from home
Those who believe that the India-Pakistan ‘peace process’ that began in 2004 is responsible for the decline in terrorist violence in Jammu & Kashmir are making the oldest policy mistake—confusing correlation for causation. To understand, take a look at the [...]

India need not be defensive, apologetic or overly concerned about correcting Pakistan’s allegations of meddling
Yesterday’s post pointed out why the mention of Balochistan in the India-Pakistan joint statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh hurts India’s interests.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s giveaway enables Pakistan’s military-jihadi complex to distract attention from the Talibanisation of the Pakistani state, and unite the [...]

So what if Pakistan is misunderstood?
Commenting on Mohammed Hanif’s attempt to dispel ten myths about Pakistan, Dhruva Jaishankar writes (in an email):
Mohammed Hanif is clearly very smart, and his prose both entertaining and readable, but his attempt at overturning Indian myths of Pakistan also exposes some of the myths that Pakistanis—particularly upper-class, educated Pakistanis—have about [...]

Owing to the Panthic Codes
It is not uncommon for the Indian media to call the terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir, or Assam or elsewhere “militants”. In India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad: The covert war in Kashmir, 1947-2004, Praveen Swami tells us why:
Indian journalists who reported on the struggle for the creation of a separate [...]

…played into the Hurriyat’s hands
Praveen Swami’s indictment is damning: “New Delhi’s well-meaning but ill-conceived dialogue process communalised Jammu and Kashmir and laid the ground for the ongoing crisis”
Experts have been telling New Delhi that the solution to this Islamist upsurge lies in negotiations which will give power—if not independence—to secessionists. Both the premise of this [...]

How should India respond?
Shanthie Mariet D’Souza argues that India should stick to its strategy:
In the aftermath of the July 7 attack, some Indian analysts have suggested an active role for India in the security affairs of Afghanistan. They characterise the Indian Defence Minister’s April 2008 ruling out of the option of sending troops to Afghanistan [...]

Regarding freezing defence expenditure
Your decision to freeze Pakistan’s defence expenditure as “a show of its desire for peace with neighbours” is welcome. We even hope that you will someday be able to control that budgetary head.
You also hoped “to see a reciprocal gesture from our neighbour for the sake of peace and prosperity of [...]

An angry retired general on television
Lieutenant-General (retd) Jamshed Gulzar Ahmed Kiyani, who served as a corps commander of the Pakistani Army under General Pervez Musharraf had a lot to say about his former chief. And none of it charitable. General Kiyani has joined the ranks of a number of former general officers at the head [...]

Somewhere there is a disconnect
From the front page of the Indian Express’s website: