India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia by Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur Columbia University Press, New York, 2010, 152 pp., Rs 325, ISBN 0-2311-4374-5

India, Pakistan and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia is a strategic debate between the optimists and pessimists on whether the nuclearisation of South Asia has stabilised the subcontinent or whether proliferation has rendered it more dangerous. Authored by Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, the book examines the question as to whether the decision to exercise the nuclear option by India and Pakistan was a prudent one: Did India’s nuclear capability accord it a great power status? Did the Pokhran II tests of May 1998 make India more secure? India, Pakistan and the Bomb, while providing answers to these significant questions, raises the issue of stability–instability.