asing the flow: EDIT IN The News, Apr 24

There are agreements on many issues that are voiced from time to time. Track-Two diplomatic efforts between Pakistan and India have in the past resulted in demands that people-to-people contact across the border be encouraged by easing visa restrictions. This issue has been brought up once more by the vice-chancellor of Punjab University, who met a high-powered Indian media delegation visiting Pakistan under the Jang Group’s Aman ki Asha initiative. The visa curbs that hamper flow across the border are indeed an impediment in the way of better understanding between our people. The more often this issue is raised the stronger the reminder to the governments to act. As media persons from both Pakistan and India have pointed out, the subcontinent hosts a huge proportion of the world’s people. Building peace here can indeed have a global impact.

It is also significant that during the discussions held under the broad Aman ki Asha umbrella there has been a genuine bid to see things through the perspective of people in the other country. Such an exchange of thoughts and ideas is of course essential to the solution of problems. It is true that today many difficulties face the two nations and they have sadly been significantly aggravated since the unfortunate Mumbai events in November 2008. Hawks in both the countries have taken advantage of this. But the tensions that have existed since the bombings make it all the more imperative that efforts to bring people together be stepped up. This can be achieved only by allowing them greater access to each other’s countries and ensuring that bureaucratic mechanisms currently in place on both sides of the border do not prevent this. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=235769