Yet they went in 1998 when (arguably) what with several nuclear tests going on, sanctions by the US and India frothing at the mouth, the situation was more volatile than it is now.
Seriously, as I've said before, the SmartTraveller website is just a generalised warning for punters and gives no real indication of the magnitude of the threat. Sudan and Iraq are on equal footing but they're clearly not the same threat level. Couldn't imagine Sutherland hitting
http://www.smartraveller.gov.au, reading the Pakistan and Indian summaries and saying "That's it, we're not going." They'd be talking to DFAT direct and DFAT don't just tally bodies and decide who's more of a threat.
From what I remember in dealing with DFAT, when it comes to with threat assessments, the sorts of things they stress in theirs is how quickly the assessment will change and the stability of the government in question, not so much the number, frequency and body counts associated with violent acts. Both of those are considered measures of how well a country can deal with threats or isolated incidents. I'd say that having a democratically-elected government would be in India's favour for the overal assessment whereas Pakistan would have been assessed as being a couple of tipping points away from being in trouble again. As far as CA goes, if DFAT, ONA and ASIS are all saying the same thing, whether they have the best info or not, it'd be hard for CA to ignore and they'd be bollocked for it. That's why I reckon the threat of legal action is largely an empty threat.
