According to official estimates, 370 million people of nuclear India are reeling, being waylaid under that abject-poverty line. This alarming figure which accounts for almost 40 % of the population of India is more than double the entire population of Pakistan. The dire situation in nuclear Pakistan is no less worrying. But in Gandhis India as much as in Jinnahs Pakistan, most of the meager resources are wasted on stock-piling weapons of mass destruction. India and Pakistan on a war footing if they must go on with their obsession with the wordneed to overcome all hurdles to peaceful coexistence to ensure all funds are diverted towards poverty. The nuclear weapons may never be used but the poverty bomb would likely explode if nothing is done to stop it. And when it does, it would simply obliterate the South Asia we know today from face of the earth. If immediate steps are not taken to reverse the poverty tide, not many would have their heads above that poverty line. The poverty clock is ticking .When the poor have nothing to eat, they would devour anything that comes in their way. Poverty and terrorism are children of war, prosperity and tolerance offspring of peace. This symbiotic relationship between the two extremes must be understood to protect our two countries from self-annihilation. -B. A. MALIK, Islamabad, April 21.