The cauldron we live in

The attacks in Pakistan on the Sri Lankan team got me thinking about the cauldron that India lies in.

• On the west we have Pakistan and Afghanistan - both literally ruled by the Taliban.
• On the South we have Sri Lanka which is fighting an intense bloddy battle with the LTTE.
• On the east we have Bangladesh which seems to be in anarchy.
• On the North we have Nepal that is struggling with Democracy and Tibet and China that can never resolve the issues between them.

We are surrounded by a ring of countries in conflict mostly from within. We ourselves have a lot of internal conflict but are just about keep ourselves above it (or are we?)- Naxalism, Moral Policing, Bodo, ULFA, JKLF ...

I hope the general elections that are coming up don't create a conflict that can escalate the matters further within our own country. The world economic crisis is not helping matters as it is a known paradigm that as peoples wealth depreciates conflict goes on the acendency. So its time for us to be guarded and careful.