Terror-scarred Pakistan kids see tipping point

The Taliban attack on an army school on Peshawar in December, killing 132, seems to have roiled urban schoolchildren, who feel directly confronted now. The Pakistanis were completely at home – sharing meals and ideas.

“This is the middle. It can either go up or completely down. It can’t stay the way it is.” A pithy, three-line lowdown of where Pakistan stands. Only that the commentator isn’t a seasoned policy hack, but 13-year-old Syeda Fatima Sikander, a seventh grader from Lahore Grammar School.

Sikander is on a trip to India on an exchange programme “Routes2Roots” devoted to giving children from India and Pakistan an opportunity to visit each other’s countries.

How a nation’s children think could be leads of where they are headed. “The terrorists need to be thrown out of our country. They have started harming kids,” says Masab bin Nasim, a student of Rawalpindi’s St. Mary’s Academy.

The Taliban attack on an army school on Peshawar in December, killing 132, seems to have roiled urban schoolchildren, who feel directly confronted now. The Pakistanis were completely at home – sharing meals and ideas. Adeeba Mustafa, from Delhi’s Dev Samaj School, was among Indian visitors to Pakistan.

Mustafa’s teachers and Sikander’s friends were cagey about their trips. What if Indians jailed her, Sikander was told. Adeeba’s friends thought she may never come back. In Delhi, it was a merry re-union.

Pak envoy meets foreign secretary

Pakistan high commissioner Abdul Basit met foreign secretary S Jaishankar on Thursday and explored the possibility of resuming the dialogue process. It is learnt that during the meeting, Basit told Jaishankar that Pakistan is ready to resume the talks with India. However, New Delhi expects Pakistan to walk the talk on reining in the terrorist outfits targeting India and toe the line that all disputes including the Kashmir issue should be dealt with under bilateral frameworks.