INDIA SUMMARIZED

Pakistan would like some “respect”, its telegenic Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told Washington. But as Seema Sirohi pointed out that it’s hard to shed “misperceptions” when your own cabinet minister is putting a $100,000 bounty out on a filmmaker’s head. The real problem is not one renegade minister like Ghulam Ahmad Bilour stoking the flames. It’s the Pakistan government’s weak-kneed response. It has apparently expended all its fire and brimstone in protesting the idiotic film. Or it finds itself caught now in a bind of its own making. It has basically just distanced itself from the minister saying it’s his personal view, not the government’s official policy. This is not a Khomeini-style Supreme Leader fatwa just a Railways Minister going off the rails on his own. The Minister for Political Affairs, Maula Bakhsh Chandio shrugged off Bilour’s outrageous offer. He said the government had no concern with the bounty Bilour offered. He seemed more anxious to prove the Pakist...