Indian troops on June 21 fired on hundreds of protesters who threw rocks at security forces, surrounded an armored vehicle and tried to torch a paramilitary bunker in Srinagar, Kashmir. One protester was killed and at least five wounded. The incident began with a demonstration over the death of a 25-year-old man who succumbed to injuries a day earlier after being beaten by soldiers in a street protest the previous week. The demonstration swelled after the shots were fired, when hundreds more people poured into the streets, chanting, "We want freedom" and "Indian forces leave Kashmir." (Daily Times, Pakistan, June 21)

Two peasant protesters were injured in a police charge while blocking the entry of survey teams for an industrial project into Nuagaon village in Jagatsinghpur district of India's Orissa state on June 2. The violence came five days after talks opened between the state government and local residents opposed to a proposed steel plant to be built by South Korean major Posco. Hundreds of villagers blocking a road at Balitutha were similarly charged by police on May 15, leaving several injured. (The Telegraph, Calcutta, Kalinga Times, Odisha, June 2; Sanhati, May 19)

Teams of gunmen and suicide bombers simultaneously attacked two mosques packed with hundreds of worshippers from the minority Ahmadiyya sect in two different districts of Lahore during Friday prayers May 28, taking hundreds of hostages and battling the police as authorities responded. Some 80 worshippers were killed, and dozens wounded in the worst attack ever against the Ahmadi sect. One attacker was killed and two were arrested; the remainder, numbered at some 10, presumably escaped. At least one of the detained had a suicide belt. Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab claimed responsibility for the attacks, Pakistani TV reported. (AP, NYT, The Financial, May 28)

Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled May 25 that the cleric accused by India of plotting the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks cannot be imprisoned due to lack of evidence. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which was allegedly behind the attacks. Pakistan put Saeed under virtual house arrest one month after the onslaught, where he remained except for a three-month period last summer, but the Lahore High Court ordered his release in October. The Supreme Court's ruling could strain the already fragile relationship between India and Pakistan, which recently started peace talks.

The Indian government has offered to hold talks with the Naxalite insurgents following a series of audacious attacks that have hardliners calling for air-strikes on their strongholds in the country's eastern jungles. The offer is dependent upon the Maoists agreeing to a 72-hour ceasefire, and has been met with no response from the rebels. (The Telegraph, May 20)

A long-simmering territorial dispute between India and Bangladesh has been resolved as an uninhabited Bay of Bengal island was swallowed by the rising seas. The territory known as New Moore Island to Indians and South Talpatti to Bangladeshis has disappeared from satellites images, reports Jadavpur University's School of Oceanographic Studies in Calcutta. "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Prof. Sugata Hazra, adding that anyone wishing to visit the island now would have to travel by submarine. "We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water." (BBC News, March 24)

Up to 11 villagers, including a child, were killed when a group of over 200 Naxalite guerillas attacked a village in Jamui, Bihar, late Feb. 17. The attack reportedly came in retaliation for the killing of eight Naxalites by the villagers a fortnight ago. (Indian Express, Feb. 19) A day earlier, Naxalite gunmen on motorcycles and pickup trucks killed 24 paramilitary officers in a daylight ambush against an encampment of the Eastern Frontier Rifles in West Bengal. (NYT, Feb. 16)

India is investigating whether Pakistan was behind the Feb. 13 attack on the German Bakery in Pune, Maharashtra, that killed nine just ahead of peace talks with Islamabad scheduled for next week. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to cancel the peace talks. "Terrorism and talks can't coexist," said BJP spokesman Arun Jaitley. The bakery was said to be frequented by foreigners from the city's Chabad House, an Orthodox Jewish cultural and religious center—and also from the local Osho Ashram, founded by the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. (FT, WP, Feb. 15; Eurasia Review, Feb. 14)