Periscope

When India's new foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, meets his Pakistani counterpart in New Delhi next month to revive a gasping peace process, he's expected to present evidence that militants from the Pakistani-based Islamic group Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT) were responsible for the Mumbai train bombings in July. Indian police have told local media that the attacks were masterminded by a radical leader in his early 50s named Azam Cheema, who inspired and trained a group of Pakistani militants and their accomplices in camps in and around Bahawalpur, Pakistan, where he's said to live openly.

According to investigators, some of the conspirators traveled between India and Pakistan via Iran to avoid suspicion. They charge that two Indian Muslims, Asif Khan and Faisal Sheikh, both in their early 30s and alleged LeT operatives, played a crucial role in the attacks. By the end of June, nearly 30 men, including 11 Pakistanis, had formed the squads that would carry out the operation, according to press reports.

Intelligence sources say that there is no "direct evidence" implicating the Pakistan intelligence agency ISI to the Mumbai blasts. But, says B. Raman, a former top-ranking official of India's external intelligence arm RAW: "This will be a test case for Pakistan's commitment to cooperate with India in the investigation of terrorism-related cases." Officials in Pakistan say they know nothing about Cheema or his alleged involvement in the bombings.

-- Sudip Mazumdar

DIAMONDS: Polished Gems

Any publicity is good publicity, right? Wrong. "Blood Diamond"--coming soon to a theater near you--has the diamond industry up in arms. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African smuggler in pursuit of a rare stone in war-torn Sierra Leone, circa 1999. It draws attention to the awkward truth that local warlords have in the past used so-called conflict diamonds to fund some of Africa's bloodiest civil wars, which is bad news for a business that depends heavily on sentiment to sell its product.