While its colour-charged cities throb with the crowds and chaos of emerging India, the treasures of the past hold pride of place in mind and spirit.

BBC: Lonely Planet's top 10 splendours of Rajasthan

Persian pride thus dictates that if the regional likes of Pakistan, India and Israel can have nuclear power and the bomb then surely so should Iran, though it vehemently denies any intention to build nuclear weapons.

ECONOMIST: Iran: The problem of Persian pride | The