As an independent country, Pakistan has every right to have its own intelligence agency. We cannot question the right of Pakistan to have the ISI and give it a covert action capability. We should not target the ISI as an institution and its officers. We should target the covert action capabilities of the ISI and make them ineffective. Similarly, we should target the terrorist organisations and their leaders used by the ISI against us. We have not been doing this. Hence our problems.

The UN unfortunately does not have an effective machinery yet to deal with international terrorism. Besides, the UN Security Council is often deadlocked due to differences among the permanent members. For example, the banning of the Jamat-ud-Dawa (earlier the Lashkar-e-Taiba) was approved by the Security Council recently, after years of being blocked by China. The issue of Pakistani aggression in Jammu and Kashmir has still not been resolved, even 50 years after India took it up with the Security Council!.

The Pakistan government appears to be wilting under the heat generated by India's politico-diplomatic offensive and the newly-installed Obama Administration's pressure. However, going by past experience, Pakistan's recent assurances to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice are merely a tactical ploy to buy time and nothing of substance will eventually emerge. If the Pakistan government fails to deliver within a reasonable time period of about three to four months, India should be prepared to upgrade its diplomatic offensive to exercise its military options. Hence, India should keep its powder dry.

Modernisation is a phased, on-going process, and our armed forces today have the requisite military capabilities to defend India's long borders against any conventional attacks by either China or Pakistan. The Kargil conflict (1999), in which India successfully countered Pakistani army intrusions, is proof enough. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the best of conventional military hardware could prove problematic against sneak intrusions by highly-indoctrinated and suicidal terrorist groups determined to breach multi-layered border defences. This is where vigilant in-land internal security structures - State police, dedicated counter-terrorism forces crisis-management teams and disaster-mitigation mechanisms assume great salience. Mumbai 26/11 demonstrated some of our critical weakness in this regard.