India and Pakistan are some of the world's least friendly neighbors, but a looming crisis has brought their leaders together: onions. The savory vegetable is crucial to Northern Indian cuisine, and heavy rains last month have caused prices to skyrocket. "Seldom is Pakistan seen to aid its larger neighbour," Financial Times' James Lamont reports. "But lorries laden with onions are ferrying across the border at Wagah, south Asia’s equivalent of Checkpoint Charlie, to restore calm to cooking pots."
Allegations of corruption and a disasterous Commonwealth Games cannot instill fear in an Indian politician way high onion prices can--they "ousted incumbents in 1980 and 1998," Lamont says: "[Indian prime minister] Mr Singh has in the past said that India and China have shared destinies. Shared onions is a path to peace, and a debt to honour."
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Elspeth Reeve
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