What strategic options can India exercise as a response to the tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan ? (Answer in 150 words)

- What strategic options can India exercise as a response to the tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan ? (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Pakistan's rupture with the Taliban government — over Tehreek-e-Taliban sanctuaries, the Durand Line and mass deportations — has opened room for India in Kabul. The options concern access, not sides.

Body
1. Engage without recognising: India reopened a technical mission in June 2022, held foreign-secretary talks at Dubai in January 2025 and upgraded to an embassy, withholding recognition pending the counter-terror assurances of UN Resolution 2593 (2021).
2. Connectivity as leverage: Chabahar, under the ten-year Shahid Beheshti contract of May 2024, gives Kabul an outlet bypassing Pakistani transit denial.
3. Development diplomacy: resume the earlier portfolio — the Afghan-India Friendship Dam, the Zaranj-Delaram highway, the Parliament building.
4. Hedge on terrorism: Islamabad's difficulty is not Kabul's alignment; the TTP and Islamic State Khorasan threaten India too, as the Kabul gurudwara attacks of 2020 and 2022 showed.
5. Work regional formats: the Moscow Format, the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue and ties with Iran and Central Asia give company without exposure.

Conclusion
India should convert the estrangement quietly into presence, intelligence and transit. Entering the quarrel directly would forfeit the deniability this opening depends on.