Having trouble with pagination.

I’m running WordPress 3.6.1 the latest version.

Trying to paginate through WP_Query class. This’s not working.
I’m providing the code to have a look.

I’m sure I did something silly that’s out of my sight.

[ Moderator note: please wrap code in backticks or use the code button. ]

<?php $paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1; ?>

         <?php
		 	$args = array ( 'posts_per_page' => 3, 'paged' => $paged );
		 	$the_query = new WP_Query($args); // note that the $paged function doesn't seem to be working
		 ?>

		<?php if ($the_query->have_posts()) : while ($the_query->have_posts()) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>

        <div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">

			<h2><a>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
              <p> <B>Date posted: <?php the_date(); ?></B> </p>
			<?php include ('wp-includes/meta.php' ); ?>

			<div class="entry">
				<?php //the_content() ?>
                <?php the_excerpt(); ?>

			</div>

		</div>

	<?php endwhile; ?>
	<div class="nav-previous alignleft"><?php next_posts_link(); ?></div>
	<div class="nav-next alignright"><?php previous_posts_link(); ?></div>
    <?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

	<?php else : ?>

		<h2>Not Found</h2>

	<?php endif; ?>

Thanks.