“People seem to forget that Kashmir is not a commodity for sale or to be bartered. It has an individual existence and its people must be the final arbiters of their future.”   — Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (July 6, 1951) The mountainous region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for more than 60 years. The dispute …

After a long stalemate of more than two months over the presidential election, Afghanistan has finally seen a peaceful democratic transition of leadership — the first in four decades in this war-ravaged country. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Dr Abdullah Abdullah are now at the helm as president and the first ever chief executive respectively. They both agreed to an alternative …