While it expresses willingness to sit across the table and discuss all irritants that hamper good neighbourly relations with Pakistan, India is also on an arms & equipment buying spree. The strategic imbalance that these actions cause and the resulting security concerns of all its neighbours are apparently no cause of concern for New Delhi. Pakistan and many other countries of the region are understandably wary of the mountains of military hardware being piled up across their borders in the Indian territories. A country as big as India can have no threat from its poor and small neighbourhood but the neighbourhood itself has to watch out for the big bully on the block especially if it decks out with new daggers in belt every day. Only a few months back, India had struck a civil nuclear technology deal with USA. That has been followed up with acquisition of the latest equipment of warfare from the US protg Israel. It has also entered into a civil nuclear technology deal with Canada during Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singhs current visit there. On top of this, India is reportedly negotiating a whopping US $10 billion fighters jet deal with US too. Both US and India follow more or less the same policy in this regard. They are free to acquire arms, equipment and whatever else takes their fancy but if a smaller country like Pakistan wants to acquire even a minimum security deterrence, they raise hell. Only a couple of months back, India literally blocked Pakistans efforts to enter into a civil nuclear technology deal with USA and acquisition of equipments for its Air Force from France. Exploiting its big size and diplomatic muscle, it pressurised Washington and Paris not to entertain any such requests from Islamabad for newer technologies, citing its poor track record in nuclear proliferation as the pretext. When Pakistans time-tested friend China entered into a civil nuclear technology deal with Islamabad recently, New Delhi again raised concerns with US as well as Pakistan. It was good to see Islamabad dismissing the Indian concerns offhand as unfounded and baseless saying categorically that Sino-Pak technology deal is for peaceful purposes with a special focus on boosting power generation to overcome the prevailing energy crisis. Pakistan and other countries of the region would be well-advised to keep a strict vigil on Indian moves for acquiring arms and equipment, and that too in such huge cachets, from all over the world. Why is a power as big as India afraid of small-sized neighbours like Pakistan?-EHSANUL HAQ QAZI, Lahore, July 5.