The fact that Pakistan is a nuclear country could worry some, especially now that it is under military regime. But the nuclear arms have always been under the command of the military. Sure, the Lahore process has come up against a road block. Would that mean Pakistan will now escalate the Indo-Pak conflict?

Certainly, Musharraf would resort to that to deflect public opinion. But this would be just a distracting theme, and not the main drama. Can Pakistan renew the Kargil war? Firmly no.

That is because the Pakistan economy is so fragile that it cannot do without international financial assistance. It has already banned import of foreign goods to conserve foreign exchange. The US government has already pointed out that Kargil war was a blatant intrusion into India. The right frame to view Musharaff's action is to fit in the light of his dismissal by Sharif.

Pakistani army brass have always been enjoying the fruits of being in powerful position. The politicians and the military have all the time been progressing through permutations and combinations of sharing power. Beyond the immediate declaration of emergency, these partners would resume their path, sooner than later.

For players in the Indian stock markets, the Pakistani developments are too fresh for any one to be taking a grim and consequential view. With the parliamentarians being put out of action, all will not be quiet. There is bound to be political stirring. One needs to wait to see how Musharraf handles this.

One can also see that the US will handle Pakistan with firmness. With Russia weakened, US does not need Pakistan as badly as it did before. Afghanistan continues to be a matter of concern and terrorism originating from this base, and supported by Pakistan can be quite a big headache for the US.

The global community is as worried about letting terrorism grow as is India. What is more, the global agencies have enough resources to put pressure on Pakistan.

Can Pakistan disregard such pressure and rely on support from Islamic nations? Recent history suggests that the Islamic world is not unduly obsessed with Pakistan's games.

Ultimately, whosoever rules Pakistan would be forced to streamline its internal turmoil into an arrangement, which makes sense to the global community. A sensible assessment will tell you that this process may take anything up to six months. So, is the Indian stock market going to feel depressed for all that time?

I feel that as usual, the markets over-reacted. The bulging built-up forward positions made it worse. And we are yet to know if the rise in bond rates in US had an impact here.

Everyone went into cutting positions, fearing high badla as well. I will not be surprised, if the punters come back on Monday and drive it back up all the way. The fact is, marketmen simply enjoy opportunities to sell up or down. And any excuse is good enough for them.

On the positive side, Sinha is already talking of tackling the fiscal deficit of the states. This indicates that he is making an attempt at deepening the reform process within the country on the internal front. That would also help stabilise the present government for the long haul.

Federalism has, so far, had only limited implication in India. Having been given another term of five years, this government, I believe would not miss the opportunity to get down to the problems at the grass root levels. For, as the second wave of reforms are required in the insurance, exit policy, competition and exchange regulation, the reforms are required as much in catalysing economic growth in rural India. And that would mean working with the state governments, local bodies, the entire routine.

We talk quite often of increasing the GDP growth rate, but the investment needed to bring this about are scarce and not available with the government. On the other hand, the last eighteen months has shown that demand growth has picked up even without additional investments. This is because of growth at the grass root level in the field of agriculture and also in services. This growth is now getting slowly reflected in the intermediate and capital goods sector.

The ministry of agriculture has been retained with the Prime Minister. There is need for much attention here. It is high time the nation launched into the second green revolution.

The second revolution needs to be directed towards increasing factor productivity, value addition and export competitiveness of the rural sector. This is no easy task. The ability to reach the 8 per cent growth target would depend upon how serious we can get here.

The government needs to increase its tax-GDP ratio. While laudable beginning has been made in widening the tax net, and bringing more and more of the service sector into the tax net, time has arrived when the tax burden is shared by all sections of society, including the rich farmers. Summing up,when it comes to opportunities, it would not be an exaggeration to say that sky is the limit for this government to reach out to. And what are fingers for if you cannot reach up to the sky?