The time to evaluate the impact of this issue on the vital strategic relationship between the two countries will come later. But at least in one significant respect, Pakistan-US ties are already badly damaged. And this relates to the nature and direction of public discourse in Pakistan about the United States.

India will be be “talking real issues” with Pakistan when the two sides resume their peace dialogue, stalled since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in the coming weeks and “talking to neighbours makes good sense” said foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, making her debut on the social networking site Twitter on Friday.

The Obama administration is hoping the aid program to Pakistan [USAID], the second-largest recipient of U.S. civilian aid after Afghanistan, will help stabilize the fragile but strategically important country and boost America's image among ordinary Pakistanis.

In a 2010 BBC survey, respondents in Egypt, Pakistan, Kenya and Turkey were asked how much they would miss the services of the BBC, CNN International, Voice of America or Al Jazeera. The Egyptian respondents said they would miss the BBC more than Al Jazeera.

New Delhi has pledged $1.3 billion in reconstruction aid to the violence-racked nation since 2001, making it Afghanistan's fifth-largest donor. It has built roads and hospitals, maintained a generous visa policy and educated many of the country's top leaders, including Karzai, who was scheduled to arrive Wednesday for a two-day visit.

A US consulate employee shot dead two Pakistanis in the eastern city of Lahore Thursday, while a third Pakistani was killed in a traffic accident in the aftermath of the shooting, according to local police officials.

When a nation is busy devouring itself, in a manner that threatens the larger global peace, other nations' policies and public diplomacy will be complicated indeed. In the case of a disintegrating Pakistan, American policy has tended to make effective public diplomacy virtually impossible and irrelevant.

When a nation is busy devouring itself, in a manner that threatens the larger global peace, other nations' policies and public diplomacy will be complicated indeed.

In the case of a disintegrating Pakistan, American policy has tended to make effective public diplomacy virtually impossible and irrelevant.