Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has conceded, in a TV interview upon her retirement, that Indias policy of not engaging Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks was a mistake. This marked the first time the Indian government has acknowledged this, and thus vindicated Pakistans stance that talks should continue, with the caveat that they be result-oriented. This acknowledgement is aimed not just at Indian public opinion, but also at the American interlocutors both India and Pakistan want to please, and who insist on talks occurring whether they are result-oriented or not. In fact, as the USA wants to make India its regional counterweight against China, it wants India to solve all its regional disputes on its own terms, which are both overbearing and impractical. Pakistan itself is an example. With Ms Rao acknowledging that India has gone too far, it should be clear that India needs to get down to serious talks with Pakistan. However, it is refusing to concede that this means substantive talks on the Kashmir issue, including talks on how it will so act as to help implement the UN Resolutions on Kashmir to which none other than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru agreed, calling for a UN-supervised plebiscite to determine the will of the Kashmiri people. Ms Rao did not explain why India was resiling from its original stand when this was not only a solution which had a consensus of the international community behind it, but which was also the only viable solution, as had been proven by unsuccessful Indian attempts to find an alternative over the decades, which met the requirements of acceptability to all the parties concerned, and durability, the ability to be lasting, failing which the parties concerned would find themselves mired in the same problems as before, and South Asia would find itself unable to settle down to the peace and prosperity that a solution of the Kashmir problem, and the peace between the two South Asian neighbours, should entail. Ms Raos interview should prove to Islamabad that New Delhi, and by extension Washington, are clear out of ideas, and certainly do not have any solution to the Kashmir issue. It has become essential to address this because of the ongoing liberation movement inside Indian-occupied Kashmir. That is why Ms Rao has spoken of Pakistan having altered its attitude to terrorism, and called that a positive development India must acknowledge. However, Pakistans government has not shown the resolve it should have in maintaining the difference between terrorism, of which Pakistan is probably the biggest victim, and a legitimate freedom struggle like Kashmir. The result has been that India has been taking undue advantage of the situation, and has tried to exploit the USAs sponsorship of the War on Terror both to maintain its illegitimate occupation of Kashmir, and to misrepresent Pakistan in the comity of nations.