Still worth talking to

THE first law of diplomacy, one late British foreign-office mandarin used to quip, is that “It is not the other side you need to worry about, but your own.” When India’s prime minister met his Pakistani counterpart in New York on September 29th, each had cause to echo the sentiment. Both Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif have, during their respective careers, taken big political risks for the sake of building a durable settlement between the two antagonistic, nuclear-armed neighbours. Yet they have gained little credit for it at home, where powerful forces seek to undermine their efforts.