Even gods have their moments of doubt- of coming up against seemingly insurmountable odds. And it would seem Cricket, one of the subcontinents most venerated gods may have met such a match in the current India-Pakistan détente. Politicians in Pakistan and cricket lovers in India alike have decried the IPL auction that rejected every Pakistani player up for bids- outraged that team owners were unable to overcome visa fears and security risks to transcend borders."Cricket, after all, " wrote in one agitated viewer, "has no political boundaries." But it does. And to assume that it should be able to overlook them would be to give the sport a much greater leadership role in solving bilateral problems than it deserves, or indeed should aspire to. Why blame commercially driven team owners if the math of India-Pakistan relations adds up to a big zero right now? Fortunately for those disappointed fans, there are several signs that India and Pakistan may be padding up for a new...

Every impending deadline, coupled with the window of opportunity for talks in Kashmir, underscores the need for a new line of engagement between New Delhi and Islamabad. As a slew of new track-2 and track-3 initiatives try to build a 'roadmap' for a new India-Pakistan dialogue, it may be time to look at some of the circumstances in which dialogue has been derailed in the past - and hunt clues for the future. In the parlance of India-Pakistan ties, specifically in the past decade, it is the top leadership that has proposed new initiatives for peace, and it is terrorists and those who direct them who have been most easily a ble to dispose of them. On the night of the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26, 2008, just an hour before the attackers fired the first shot, the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers were holding a press conference in New Delhi. The tension between the two countries at the time was over...

Opportunities, says ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, multiply as they are seized. A leader doesn't just make things happen, he is able to see when destiny beckons and the stars are lined up in the right constellation. Then the opportunity for resolution and a chance to change the course of history presents itself. As the shots hit Hurriyat leader Fazl Haq Qureshi coming out of a mosque in Srinagar this month, but missed their mark in stopping the dialogue process between the Hurriyat and the centre, it was one more indicator that the opportunity for a resolution in Jammu and Kashmir is presenting itself. A window of rare opportunity to break a twenty-year-old cycle of violence that must be seized. It was rare enough to hear Home Minister P Chidambaram admit in Parliament what his government took great pains to deny for months - that he was in 'quiet talks' with separatist Kashmiri leaders. He backed it up with other announcements,...

"It's often been said, the most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us." As he raised a toast to Indo-US friendship at the White House banquet with those words - slightly, ever so slightly, the US President's shoulders seemed to droop. The night was perfect, despite the rainy day that preceded it, and forced him to cancel the grand ceremonial welcome he had planned for his first state guest Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. There was a galaxy of stars from the Indian-American community, a sprinkle of stardust from Hollywood, food, arrangements, music...all planned to the last detail. Obama quoted Nehru, Singh quoted Lincoln, and the evening was complete, except it lacked one thing. The US President's full attention. For weeks before the big visit - an AfPak-shaped distraction has been big on everyone's mind in Washington, with a countdown to Obama's announcement of his AfPak policy expected finally this Tuesday. This has...