Dear Mitt Romney, Congratulations on Florida. Now that you are again the front-runner, and your campaign focus is returning to President Obama, I’d like to call attention to a line you have used repeatedly: “This is a president who fundamentally believes that this next century is the post-American century.

On Sept. 1, 2011, the students of New Heights Middle School in Jefferson, South Carolina trooped into the gymnasium to hear the Christian rapper known as “B-SCHOC” tell them that Jesus alone could save them. They cheered as a pastor named Christian Chapman vied to win their souls for Christ. At the end of the show, they were asked to fill in a form indicating whether they had accepted Jesus as their savior.

This blog, it might be worth reminding, closely monitors India’s steps and mis-steps as it strides on the global stage. On that count, it couldn’t have embarrassed itself more when it played a cheap trick to keep one of its finest authors since Independence,  Salman Rushdie , from attending the Jaipur Literary Festival.

In the wake of the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound last May and deteriorating relations between Islamabad and Washington, Pakistani leaders have sought to play up their country’s relations with China, touting Beijing as an alternative partner to Washington.

Cricket is a funny game.   In November, Australia plumbed new lows in the game, beingbundled out for 47, its fourth lowest total ever. In December, it was beaten onhome ground by New Zealand for the first time in 26 years. MichaelClarke’s men faced the nation’s wrath.   On the other hand, India was ranked the best Test team inthe world a little over six months ago, besides being the winner of the WorldCup.

Throughout its short history, Pakistan has bewildered its critics by lurching from crisis to crisis and yet somehow not only surviving but seeming to emerge militarily charged after every trial. While Pakistan's army chiefs and its military dictators have invariably exercised unbridled control over the country, current army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has gone a step beyond his predecessors.

When former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said this weekend that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not safe under President Asif Ali Zardari, he almost certainly did not mean that the nuclear arsenal is not secure. The nuclear weapons have little to do with the civilian government they are guarded ferociously by the Pakistan Army both against terrorist attacks and any foreign or U.S.