[wp-hackers] Index.php

[RePost]

Do I still need my index.php Redirect for WordPress? It's in my 
.htaccess as a holdover from my old blog format, which generated links 
preceded by index.php.

# Redirect index.php to /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \ /(.+/)?index\.php(\?.*)?\  [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+/)?index\.php$ http://www.turetzkysyndrome.com/%1 [R=301,L]

Also, I'm wondering, what is the index.php for in the WordPress 
permalinks rewrite, and is that necessary?

# WordPress permalinks
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Thanks.