Future tense for Indo-Pak relations

NEW DELHI: Last year's Mumbai attacks ruptured a hopeful peace dialogue between arch-foes India and Pakistan and thrust their relations back into a bitter impasse that neither side seems able to break.

Relations between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, which have fought three wars since 1947, have always been fraught, but a peace process launched in early 2004 had significantly lowered tensions - most notably over the disputed region of Kashmir.

That all ended with the attacks last November by 10 gunmen from a Pakistan-based militant group on multiple targets in Mumbai, which left 166 people dead and prompted India to suspend the dialogue with its neighbor.