Saturday, December 27, 2008

India's year of diplomatic triumph and terror


NEW DELHI (AFP) – A year that had promised much for India ended in unimaginable trauma with blood on the streets of Mumbai and fears for the future as its high-flying economy suffered a steep loss in altitude.

India is no stranger to bombings and violence, but the sheer scale and audacity of the attacks in Mumbai at the end of November shook the country to the core and dented its new-found confidence on the international stage.

Only 10 Islamist gunmen took part in the assault, but careful planning and a willingness to fight to the death, saw them kill 163 people in three days of carnage across India's financial capital.

India blamed "elements" in Pakistan, and relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours plunged to a new low.

The United States, already struggling to keep Pakistan on board as a key ally in the Afghanistan conflict, was forced to apply heavy diplomatic pressure on both sides to avoid any military stand-off.

The Mumbai carnage was the bloodiest event in a bloody year that witnessed a host of serial bombings, renewed tensions in Kashmir and attacks on Christians by right-wing Hindu groups.

In September, the capital New Delhi was hit by a series of bombs in crowded markets that left more than 20 dead. Those blasts were claimed by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen.

Six weeks later, more than 60 people were killed and more than 300 injured in a dozen blasts that ripped through towns and markets in the insurgency-hit northeastern Indian state of Assam.

The violence triggered a flow of criticism about the state of India's internal security and intelligence gathering that turned into a torrent after Mumbai.

The carnage in Mumbai was all the more shocking for coming as India was still celebrating a landmark diplomatic coup that ended its status as a global nuclear pariah.

On October 10, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee signed a pact to open up sales of civilian nuclear technology to India -- lifting a ban imposed after India's first nuclear test in 1974.

The agreement cemented India's shift to the high table of global politics and lent a new strategic element to its status as an emerging economic power.

Successive years of economic growth had seen India begin 2008 in bullish mood, but now it is eyeing 2009 with trepidation having finally succumbed to the aftershocks of the global financial meltdown.

Up to a few months ago as the US-led banking crisis ballooned, Indian policymakers comforted themselves, saying the country, with its dynamic and vast domestic market of 1.1 billion people, was "decoupled" from the West.

Since then, however, property prices have plunged, lending has stalled, factories have cut output, exports have tumbled and share prices are down by nearly 60 percent with foreign investors pulling out 13 billion dollars this year.

"This whole idea of decoupling has been shot down very clearly by the global crisis which is getting transmitted through trade and the financial markets," said Shubadha Rao, chief economist at Mumbai's Yes Bank.

The government has taken some steps to stimulate the economy. But unlike China, India -- which has one of the highest combined state and national deficits in the world -- has no similar room for a fiscal "big bang."

"The government's ability to stimulate the economy is obviously constrained by the government's current fiscal health," said Mumbai's Edwelweiss Securities economist Siddartha Sanyal.

Nevertheless, economists expect India to post growth of at least 6.8 percent this year, which is still substantial by anemic Western standards, falling to around 5.5 percent next year as the full impact of the downturn is felt.

The state of the economy and national security are issues that will dominate general elections which the Congress-led government must call by May next year.

The result is difficult to predict.

The Congress Party was criticised in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, but still performed well in a handful of state elections where voters were unmoved by the campaign of the main opposition party, the Hindu nationalist BJP, to paint the government as "soft on terror".

Friday, December 26, 2008

Pak textbooks build hate culture against India

The empowerment of terror in Pakistan has not happened overnight. This is the logical culmination of the politics and policies pursued by
Pakistan for years now.

Terrorism in Pakistan has its roots in the culture
of hate and the ethos of inequality on the ground of religious faith, leading to their being deeply ingrained in the Pakistani psyche and mindset.

One factor that has played a crucial role in creating this culture of hate is the educational policy of the government of Pakistan pursued since 1977. The officially prescribed textbooks, especially for school students, are full of references that promote hate against India in general, and Hindus in particular.

A cursory glance at Pakistani school textbooks - especially the compulsory subjects like Pakistan studies and social studies - gives an idea of how history has been distorted and a garbled version prescribed to build this mindset and attitude.

The objective of Pakistan's education policy has been defined thus in the preface to a Class 6 book: "Social studies have been given special importance in educational policy so that Pakistan's basic ideology assumes the shape of a way of life, its practical enforcement is assured, the concept of social uniformity adopts a practical form and the whole personality of the individual is developed." This statement leaves no doubt that "social uniformity", not national unity, is a part of Pakistan's basic ideology.

The Class 5 book has this original discovery about Hindu help to bring British rule to India: "The British had the objective to take over India and to achieve this, they made Hindus join them and Hindus were very glad to side with the British. After capturing the subcontinent, the British began on the one hand the loot of all things produced in this area, and on the other, in conjunction with Hindus, to greatly suppress the Muslims."

The Std VIII book says, "Their (Muslim saints) teachings dispelled many superstitions of the Hindus and reformed their bad practices. Thereby Hindu religion of the older times came to an end."

On Indo-Pak wars, the books give detailed descriptions and openly eulogize ‘jihad' and ‘shahadat' and urge students to become ‘mujahids' and martyrs and leave no room for future friendship and cordial relations with India.

According to a Class 5 book, "In 1965, the Pakistani army conquered several areas of India, and when India was on the point of being defeated, she requested the United Nations to arrange a ceasefire. After 1965, India, with the help of Hindus living in East Pakistan, instigated the people living there against the people of West Pakistan, and finally invaded East Pakistan in December 1971. The conspiracy resulted in the separation of East Pakistan from us. All of us should receive military training and be prepared to fight the enemy."

The book prescribed for higher secondary students makes no mention of the uprising in East Pakistan in 1971 or the surrender by more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers. Instead, it claims, "In the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere."

The students of Class 3 are taught that "Muhammad Ali (Jinnah) felt that Hindus wanted to make Muslims their slaves and since he hated slavery, he left the Congress". At another place it says, "The Congress was actually a party of Hindus. Muslims felt that after getting freedom, Hindus would make them their slaves."

And this great historic discovery is taught to Std V students, "Previously, India was part of Pakistan."

Commenting on this literature that spreads hate, leading Pakistani educationist Tariq Rahman wrote, "It is a fact that the textbooks cannot mention Hindus without calling them cunning, scheming, deceptive or something equally insulting. Students are taught and made to believe that Pakistan needs strong and aggressive policies against India or else Pakistan will be annihilated by it."

Tensions mount as Pakistan shifts troops to Indian border



ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan has redeployed thousands of troops to the border with India, officials said Friday, in a dramatic escalation of tensions with New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned his military chiefs to review New Delhi's "defence preparedness" while his foreign ministry advised Indians not to travel to Pakistan, saying it was unsafe for them to be in the country.

The developments sent ties plummeting to their lowest point since late 2001, when Kashmiri militants staged a brazen attack on the Indian parliament -- an attack New Delhi blamed on the Pakistan-based extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

India has blamed the same group for the Mumbai attacks and has repeatedly said Islamabad is not doing enough to rein in militant groups, a claim that Pakistan rejects.

The nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours -- which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir -- have said they do not want war this time, but warn they would act if provoked.

In Islamabad, senior defence and security officials said troops were being moved from the northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, hotbeds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity, to the eastern border near India.

"We do not want to create any war hysteria but we have to take minimum security measures to ward off any threat," a defence ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

He added that leave for "operational" armed forces personnel had been cancelled "as a defensive measure".

A top security official, who also asked not to be named, explained that a "limited number of troops have been pulled out from snowbound areas on the western border where they were not engaged in any operation".

Pakistan's army and air force have recently scaled back their operations against Taliban-linked militants in both the Swat valley and the Bajaur tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Both operations were launched in mid-2008.

Any major shift of Pakistani troops out of the tribal areas would likely spark concern in Washington and other Western capitals, as it could open the door to more cross-border militant attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Another senior Pakistani security official told AFP the new deployments on the Indian border were not in "significant numbers but only in areas opposite the points where India is believed to have brought forward its troops".

The defence ministry official said authorities had noticed the movement of Indian troops toward the border near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, and that they believed India had also cancelled military leave.

Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas declined to comment.

New Delhi has said its slow-moving peace process with Pakistan is now on hold in the wake of the Mumbai attacks last month, in which 172 people including nine of the gunmen were killed.

Islamabad has said it is willing to cooperate with India in investigating the carnage, but says New Delhi has offered no proof that Pakistani nationals were involved -- a claim dismissed by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

"We have ample evidence... to prove that elements based in Pakistan carried out the Mumbai attacks," Mukherjee said.

"Pakistan should not divert attention from the real issue of taking action against terrorists by raising war hysteria," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Singh was meanwhile meeting the chiefs of India's army, air force and navy to discuss the current security situation, an official in his office said.

"The three chiefs made presentations on India's defence preparedness and reviewed conventional military threat scenarios as well as counter-measures now in place," the official, who did not want to be named, told AFP.

The Indian foreign ministry meanwhile advised its nationals to stay away from Pakistan. Spokesman Vishnu Prakash said such travel would be "unsafe".

Late Friday, India's high commissioner (ambassador) to Pakistan, Satyabrata Pal, met with the top civil servant in Pakistan's foreign ministry, Salman Bashir, a spokesman told AFP.

"Pakistan-India relations and the current situation came under discussion during the meeting," the spokesman, Mohammad Sadiq, told AFP.

Pakistan moves troops toward Indian border


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan began moving thousands of troops to the Indian border Friday, intelligence officials said, sharply raising tensions triggered by the Mumbai terror attacks.

India has blamed Pakistani-based militants for last month's siege on its financial capital, which killed 164 people and has provoked an increasingly bitter war of words between nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought three wars in 60 years.

The troops headed to the Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, and the move was expected to frustrate the United States, which has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said all troop leave had been canceled.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Both countries have said they want to avoid military conflict over the attacks. But India has not ruled out the use of force as it presses its neighbor to crack down on the Pakistani-based terrorist group it blames for the attack.

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has promised to respond aggressively if attacked but reassured India Friday that Pakistan would not strike first.

"We will not take any action on our own," Gilani told reporters. "There will be no aggression from our side."

Meanwhile, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee accused Pakistan of trying to divert attention away from its struggle to rein in homegrown terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which Delhi accuses of masterminding the Mumbai attacks.

"They should concentrate on the real issue: how to fight against terrorists and how to fight against and bring to book the perpetrators of (the) Bombay terrorist attack," he said.

Pakistan has arrested several senior members of the banned group and cracked down on a charity the U.S. and UN say was a front for Lashkar. India has demanded greater action, but Pakistan says it needs to share evidence backing up its claims.

Mukherjee responded Friday by saying India had provided more than enough evidence about the militants, who infiltrated Mumbai by sea.

"We have indicated to them that there are ample evidences from the log book of the captured ship, from the information available from satellite telephones and various others that elements from Pakistan were responsible for this attack," Mukherjee told reporters.

Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Friday with the chiefs of the army, navy and air force to discuss "the prevailing security situation," according to an official statement.

An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders Pakistan's militant-infested South Waziristan tribal area, said he saw around 40 trucks loaded with soldiers heading away from the Afghan border Friday.

A senior security official confirmed that soldiers were being moved out of the border area, but said it was "a limited number from areas where they were not engaged in any operation."

He declined further comment and asked his name not be used, citing the sensitivity of the situation.

The White House said it was discussing the reported troop movements with U.S. embassies in the region and was urging both countries to cooperate in investigating the attacks and fighting terrorism.

"We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Analysts said the redeployment was likely meant as a warning to India not to launch missile strikes against militant targets on its territory, a response that some have speculated is possible.

"It is a message to India that if you think you can get away with strikes, you are sadly mistaken," said Talat Masood, a retired general and military analyst based in Islamabad.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, two over Kashmir, a Muslim majority region in the Himalayas claimed by both countries.

They came close to a fourth after suspected Pakistani militants attacked India's parliament in 2001. Both countries massed hundreds of thousands of troops to the disputed Kashmir region, but tensions cooled after intensive international diplomacy.

News of the buildup comes as Indian officials say militant activity in Indian Kashmir has fallen to its lowest levels since an anti-India militant movement began there in 1989.

The number of militant attacks fell 40 percent from 2007-2008, reaching 709 this year from roughly 1,100 last year, Kuldeep Khoda, a senior police official, said in a statement.

Police say there are 850 militants fighting in the region, including followers of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is widely believed to be a creation of Pakistani intelligence in the 1980s and used to fight Indian-rule in Kashmir.

Indian authorities say the decrease in attacks is the result of an experienced security apparatus that has struck at the heart of many militant groups — Khoda said Indian forces have killed about 350 militants this year, including some top-ranking commanders. But they also say that the militants have scaled back their attacks as a large public protest movement gained momentum since last summer.

Pakistan has deployed more than 100,000 soldiers in Waziristan and other northwestern regions to fight Islamic militants blamed for surging violence against Western troops in Afghanistan as well as suicide attacks in Pakistan.

Security officials have previously said the country would be forced to withdraw troops from the Afghan border if tensions with India — whose army is twice as large — escalated.

"This is a serious blow to the war on terror in the sense that the whole focus is now shifting toward the eastern border," said Masood. "It will give more leeway to the militants and increased space to operate."

The United States wants Pakistan to stay focused on the fight against militants in the border region, where Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding.

India warns travel to Pakistan is unsafe


NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – India warned its citizens on Friday it was unsafe to travel to Pakistan and the prime minister met his military chiefs, while Pakistan canceled army leave and moved some troops from its western border.

The travel warning marked a dramatic rise in tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors after last month's attack on Mumbai that killed 179 people and which India has blamed on Islamist militants based in Pakistan.

It followed media reports in Pakistan and India that "several" Indian nationals had been held in the last two days after bombings in the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Multan.

"Indian citizens are therefore advised that it would be unsafe for them to travel (to) or be in Pakistan," India's Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

Another Foreign Ministry official contacted by Reuters said the warning referred to all travel to Pakistan.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier discussed tension with Pakistan during a scheduled meeting about military pay with the chiefs of the army, navy and air force, his office said.

"The prime minister met the tri-services chiefs to discuss the pay commission issues but obviously the situation in the region was also discussed," said an official from Singh's office, who requested anonymity. There were no other details.

Indian media said national security adviser M.K. Narayanan also attended the meeting.

Many analysts say it is very unlikely that the tension will

descend into war. The uneasy neighbors have fought three wars since independence in 1947 and came to the brink of a fourth in 2002 after an attack on the Indian parliament.

"We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times," U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Washington.

While there had been no significant troop movements in either India or Pakistan, military officials in Islamabad said army personnel had been ordered to report to barracks and some troops had been moved off the Afghan border.

"A limited number of troops from snow-bound areas and areas where operations are not being conducted have been pulled out," said a senior security official who declined to be identified.

The official declined to say where the troops had been moved to, citing the sensitivity of the issue, but Pakistani media have reported some troops had been redeployed to the Indian border.

A senior police official in Pakistan's Punjab province denied that any Indians had been arrested over the Lahore and Multan blasts but an intelligence agency official, who declined to be identified, said an Indian had been detained on Wednesday.

Several more Indians had been detained based on information obtained from that suspect, the intelligence official said.

DISMAY

The movement of Pakistani troops off the Afghan border is likely to worry Washington, which does not want Pakistan distracted from the battle against al Qaeda and Taliban militants on Pakistan's western border.

India, the United States and Britain have blamed the Mumbai attack on Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, set up to fight Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan has condemned the Mumbai attacks and has denied any state role, blaming "non-state actors." It has offered to cooperate with India but denies Indian claims that it has been handed firm evidence of links to militants in Pakistan.

Islamabad has said that it will defend itself if attacked.

Increasingly frenzied media reporting on both sides of the border has fueled war speculation, although leaders from both countries have said war would serve no one's interests.

Such speculation even caused an uptick in Indian federal bond yields in late trade on Friday, traders said.

Washington has joined Britain in urging restraint from India, but at the same time has demanded Pakistan act decisively to wipe out banned groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba.

China emerged as a potential peace broker after Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi unexpectedly called his counterparts in New Delhi and Islamabad in the past two days.

China has long been a close ally of Pakistan, while India and Washington have been building close ties.

A statement on the Chinese foreign ministry's website said Yang urged both sides to continue dialogue and that China was willing to work with the international community to protect peace and security in South Asia.

A senior government official in New Delhi said Yang had suggested a meeting between Indian and Pakistani officials.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Yang Pakistan must crack down on militants before a meeting would be possible, the official said. A crackdown on Pakistan-based militants after the 2001 parliament attack was widely regarded as a sham.

(Additional reporting by Washington and Beijing bureau; Writing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel; Editing by Sami Aboudi)

Saturday, December 20, 2008

India successfully tests Cryogenic rocket engine

BANGALORE: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted a test of its indigenous cryogenic (supercooled fuel) engine to be used in the next geosynchronous launch vehicle (GSLV-D3) mission, the space agency said here Saturday.

"The flight acceptance hot test of the Cryogenic engine was carried out at the liquid propulsion systems centre at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu Thursday. This engine will be used in the next GSLV launch in April 2009 for carrying the 2.3-tonne geo-stationary experimental satellite (GSAT)," ISRO said in a statement.

Cryogenic engines are rocket motors designed for liquid fuels that have to be held at very low 'cryogenic' temperatures, as they would otherwise be gas at normal temperatures.

Typically, hydrogen and oxygen are used which need to be held respectively below 20 degrees Kelvin (-253 degrees Celsius) and 90 degrees Kelvin (-183 degrees Celsius) to remain in liquid form.

ISRO plans to use its own first cryogenic engine in place of the Russian-made engine in the upper stage of the rocket that will deploy the satellite with navigation and technology payloads into the geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).

The cryogenic engine develops a thrust of 73 kilo Newtons (kN) in vacuum with a specific impulse of 454 seconds (7.56 minutes) and can carry 2.2 tonnes.

Working on a staged combustion cycle with an integrated turbo-pump, the engine will have 42,000 rotations per minute (rpm). It also has two steering engines developing a thrust of 2 kN each to enable three-axis control of the launch vehicle during the flight mission.

"The hot test was carried out for 200 seconds (3.33 minutes) during which the engine was operated in the nominal and 13 percent up-rated thrust regimes. All the propulsion parameters were satisfactory and matched with predictions," the statement mentioned.

The cryogenic engine will be integrated with propellant tanks, stage structures and associated feed lines of the launch vehicle for the flight mission in April next from the spaceport at Sriharikota, about 80 km north of Chennai.

The central government Friday approved the development of semi-cryogenic engines for space transportation at a cost of Rs.1,798 crore (approx Rs.18 billion) with a foreign exchange component of Rs.588 crore (Rs.5.88 billion).

"This will be an important step towards self-reliance in advanced space transportation technology," Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi.

Cryogenic engine technology is currently present only in Russia and the US.

The semi-cryogenic engines will facilitate applications for future space missions like the reusable launch vehicle, the unified launch vehicle and the vehicle for inter-planetary missions, Chidambaram added.

India successfully tests Russia-made ‘Smearch’


BALASORE: Indian defence scientists have tested the Russia-made ‘Smearch’ Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) five times within last couple of days from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea, about 15 km from here.

Defence sources said the tests were conducted twice in solo and thrice in salvo mode by the DRDO scientists and the rocket target acquisition unit of Army. The tests termed as sample tests were aimed to assess its stability in flight as well as accuracy and consistency. ‘‘The tests were successful and yielded desired results,’’ said a source in the ITR.

The Russian ‘Smearch’ MLRS is the most powerful and the perfect MLRS of the world. It is intended to defeat live power, destroy armored vehicles, fortifications and command centres in 20-70 km range. ‘‘Smearch launch vehicle can launch 12 rockets at a time. It is able to fire single rockets or salvo from two to all 12 rockets. Full salvo lasts 38 seconds. While the diameter of the launcher is about 300 mm, the rocket’s diameter is 214 mm,’’ said a defence scientist. He informed that its artillery part consists of 12 launching pipe package, turning base, turning, lifting and aiming devices, electronic and auxiliary equipment. Launching pipes are rifled.

The 300-mm ‘Smearch’ projectiles are fitted with solid fuel engines. Rockets are 7.6 m in length and 800 kg in weight. Weight of warhead is 280 kg. Warhead can be simple or cluster.

‘‘It also has the capability of launching surface to surface and surface to air missiles. The system can be integrated with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide a new dimension to artillery defence system,’’ he added.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Indian cabinet backs new agency

The Indian cabinet has approved the setting up of a federal investigation agency to strengthen internal security after the Mumbai attacks.

The National Investigation Agency will be empowered to probe terror attack cases across states, reports say. Law and order is a state subject in India.

The cabinet also backed reform of anti-terror laws to make them tougher.

These are the government's first moves to boost security after the attacks that left more than 170 people dead.

The bill for setting up the National Investigation Agency and changes to the anti-terror law are expected to be moved in the Indian parliament at the earliest opportunity, reports say.

Lack of clarity

Correspondents say it is still unclear where the new federal investigation agency will fit in.

India already has a federal Intelligence Bureau (IB) which gathers intelligence relating to internal security and is akin to the UK's MI5 or the US's FBI. The Research and Analysis Wing (Raw) is akin to the UK's MI6, responsible for external intelligence.

India's top detective agency - the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) - has a charter to investigate certain crimes.

Experts also wonder where the officers for the new agency are going to come from: the CBI and IB are already operating at 35% below strength.

Reports say the cabinet also approved strengthening anti-terror laws and setting up of fast-track courts for speedy trial of terror-related cases.

The federal law minister Hansraj Bhardwaj said that legislation would be drafted after clearance by the cabinet.

"We will try to balance the right of life and liberty under the [Indian] Constitution with reasonable restrictions," he was quoted as saying by The Hindu newspaper.

India also plans to set up a number of commando training centres to boost security.

Pakistan peace process 'paused'

India's foreign minister has said there is "a pause" in the peace process with Pakistan following the Mumbai attacks.

However, Pranab Mukherjee, speaking in Indian-administered Kashmir, insisted the attacks were not a "Kashmir issue" and hoped "normalcy" would return.

Earlier Defence Minister AK Antony said India was not planning any military action against Pakistan in response to the Mumbai.

Last month's attacks in the Indian city left more than 170 people dead.

India says militants involved in the attack had Pakistani links.

Pakistan denies any involvement but has promised to co-operate with the Indian investigation. It has been under tremendous Indian and American pressure to act.

'Global action'

Mr Mukherjee said: "There is a pause in the composite dialogue process because of the attack on Mumbai."


There is no supportive interaction with our intelligence [agencies] and the Lashkar-e-Taiba
Asif Ali Zardari,
Pakistani president

The foreign minister, on a brief visit as part of the Congress party's state election campaign in Jammu and Kashmir, called on Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to fulfil his "pledge" that the "infrastructural facilities [for militants] available in that territory should be dismantled".

Mr Mukherjee said that India wanted "results from Pakistan and not mere assurances".

But he insisted that the attacks in Mumbai had "nothing to do with Indo-Pakistan relations vis-a-vis Kashmir".

"It's not a Kashmir issue, it is not merely an issue between India and Pakistan. It is part of the global action and global war against terrorism."

He added that he hoped "it will be possible for us to resume the normalcy".

Kashmir has been disputed by India and Pakistan since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

The two nations have twice waged war over the divided region.

'Non-state actors'

Earlier, Mr Antony said India was "not planning any military action" against Pakistan, but urged Islamabad to do more in hunting down militants.

AK Antony
Mr Antony urged Pakistan to "show sincerity"

"Unless Pakistan takes actions against those terrorists who are operating on their soil against India... things will not be normal," he told reporters.

"We have to think about the safety of our people. I cannot say what course of action we will take, but unless Pakistan shows sincerity in what they are saying, things will not be as usual."

India blames militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for the attacks.

At the weekend President Zardari insisted in an interview with Newsweek magazine that there was "no supportive interaction with our intelligence [agencies] and the LeT".

But he accepted that "non-state actors" who may be engaged in militant activity on Pakistani soil were "my responsibility".

Mr Zardari is expected to hold a meeting with his ruling allies later on Tuesday evening to discuss the tension with India.

The Pakistan National Assembly is continuing its debate on the same subject.