Ashish Kumar Sen

Former members of Pakistan's military and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency trained the gunmen who attacked Mumbai in November, a senior member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba has told a US newspaper.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that his country desires “friendly relations” with India and looks forward to resuming the composite dialogue, which was disrupted in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks last year. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, was hopeful that a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on Sunday would put this dialogue back on track.

Legislation that triples US aid to Pakistan authorises military assistance to help the country in its fight against Al-Qaida and other terrorists, but it also includes new and painstakingly negotiated accountability measures to ensure that this aid is not misused. India had expressed concern that Pakistan would divert US military aid toward bolstering its defences against a perceived threat from India.

Even as a State Department spokesman applauded Pakistan's determination to eliminate militants, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said India "cannot be lulled into some kind of satisfaction" that Pakistan is proceeding against them.

US President Barack Obama, in his maiden address to the United Nations, declared his commitment to moving forward with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that will prohibit nuclear testing. He also set a January goal for starting negotiations on a treaty to end production of fissile material weapons.

The grim prospects for loans coupled with an economy in recession have put the brakes on the avalanche of Indian students applying to US universities. At the same time, India continues to retain its position as the leading country of origin insofar as students coming to colleges in America. For those seeking global exposure at world-class institutions, the US remains a top destination—recession or not. Given the times, it’s also ironical that business and management courses remain the most popular field of study for these students.

President Barack Obama, in a major policy shift, has scrapped a controversial missile-defence shield favoured by his predecessor, removing a thorn in U.S.-Russia relations but earning criticism from some who accuse him of abandoning U.S. allies in Europe.

Pervez Musharraf"s admission that US military aid given to Pakistan during his tenure was diverted to strengthen defences against India has created ripples in the US Congress where lawmakers are finalising an aid package that would triple US assistance to Pakistan. Congressional sources and analysts say the former Pakistani president has done his country a great disservice by raising a red flag about future US aid to Pakistan.

The Obama administration is seeking opportunities to build India-Pakistan confidence in an effort to jump-start the peace process, which has been under considerable strain since the Mumbai attacks last November.

Al-Qaida is trying desperately to get its hands on nuclear secrets from Pakistan, according to a top US official.

The Obama administration takes “very seriously” remarks by Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan used US military aid to build up its defenses against India. The former president told Pakistan’s Express News television channel that Pakistan “did right” by using this equipment against India.

Dr Norman Borlaug, the father of the “Green Revolution” whose high-yield crop innovations were responsible for bumper harvests across the fields of states like Punjab in the 1970s, died Saturday at his home in Dallas, Texas. Dr Borlaug, a Nobel Prize-winning agricultural scientist, was 95.

Eight years ago 19 young men flew hijacked commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon on the outskirts of Washington and a field in Pennsylvania.

Pakistan must make a concerted effort to prosecute those responsible for the Mumbai attacks and end the movement of militants across its border into India, an Obama administration official said on Wednesday. Speaking at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake said both India and Pakistan must also undertake "a sequenced series of actions to rebuild confidence and cooperation."

President Barack Obama on Wednesday night said he was committed to reforming health care in the United States noting that he was not the first president to take up the case, but was “determined to be the last.”

Concerned about widespread allegations of election fraud in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has told President Hamid Karzai not to declare himself the winner of last month’s presidential elections despite an announcement from the country's election commission that Karzai had sailed past the 50 per cent vote mark essential to avoid a runoff. This message was conveyed to Karzai by Karl Eikenberry, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, is in the news for an academic paper he has co-authored with Robert Norris, claiming that Pakistan has ramped up its nuclear arsenal with sophisticated bomb designs, and with its delivery systems directed against India. He spoke to Ashish Kumar Sen on the Pokhran-II controversy.