What the Pakistani official has said is a really good idea. With the increasing distance in time from the year that the subcontinent was so cruelly divided into India and Pakistan the number of persons who recall "Indians" and "Pakistanis" living together in one nation as Indians is declining. The generations that were born after the time of Independence and partition have memories that are variously coloured by the events of the time. My generation for example born a decade after independence recalls the two wars that we witnessed with Pakistan and also the little contact that we had in the field of sports or culture. The youth of today seem to be influenced by Pakistan's international reputation as a hotbed of terrorism. It is important therefore to educate all of our peoples and to remind them that we all are indeed one people. There are families that are divided between the two nations siblings living apart and parents separated from their children. It is time that we forgot the acrimony of the past and started afresh. Let us encourage people to people contact. In this technological age it is straighforward for the two nations to obtain biometric parameters for the persons who apply for a visa. After that it will be relatively straightforward to track them. Therefore there should be no danger of the person overstaying.
