NEW Delhi, that never tires of repeating at the international stage, comprising a largely passive audience devoid of conscience, their concocted story of Kashmir and referring to it as its integral part following the assumption that a lie told often enough would become a truth, must now be boiling with rage to see the World Bank refusing to accept Kashmir as part of India. The State government ruling the valley had requested a loan but the World Bank rightly rebuffed it on the ground that it considers Kashmir a disputed territory and not part of India. Reportedly, the honest reply by the UN body caught the puppet government unawares, and which has now called Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee to come to its rescue by giving it the guidelines to deal with the Bank. But there is nothing much the Indian foreign office or its minister for that matter, could offer except for beating about the bush. Pinched by the World Bank's statement, the Indian State Minister, in plain defiance of international laws and norms, has brazenly fired back saying that Kashmir is an integral part of India and nobody can separate the two. It is time for New Delhi to see sense and end its brutal occupation of the valley. Today South Asia is locked into mutually assured destruction on account of the nuclear tinderbox that Kashmir has become. The conflict has provoked three major wars between Pakistan and India; it would be disastrous for the entire world, the next time both the countries square off. The World Bank's position should bring home to New Delhi the need to settle the issue in consonance with the UN Security Council resolutions drawn up in 1948 that allows the Kashmiris the right to a UN-sponsored plebiscite. However, the Security Council must also assume a pro-active stance. Today the resolutions, that are currently gathering dust in New York, should be enforced both in letter and in spirit.