Shimla, Oct 24 : Pakistan and India are competing with each other to please Washington and this has resulted in the strained relations between them, a senior Pakistani journalist said Saturday.

"Both Pakistan and India are competing each other to please Washington and both following its diktats," Hameed Haroon, chief executive officer of the Dawn Media Group, Pakistan's leading media conglomerate, told reporters here.

Haroon was here to attend a seminar organised by the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies.

He said: "There seems to be more misinformation on Indian side about Pakistan. In the past two years, the relationship between both the countries has been strained."

Haroon advised both governments to allow more free travel of students.

"Over half a million students from the region (Pakistan) visit the US to study, there is a little mobility between the two nations. What kind of generation are we upbringing? Yet, the Internet has proved that people-to-people contact cannot be stopped whatever may be the farce played by the governments," he said.

On rising terrorism in Pakistan, he said: "Terrorism is not the ideology of Pakistan. If we are suffering due to Afghanistan, India is suffering too. The Taliban will spread tentacles in India too."

According to Haroon, Jaswant Singh, who was expelled from the Bharatiya Janata Party after his book on Pakistani founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, understood Jinnah better.

"Jaswant Singh has better understanding about Jinnah," he said. (IANS)