🚀 go-pugleaf

India News Network Digest    Thu, 17 Mar 94      Volume 2 : Issue 206

Today's News Topics:

   Lucas Western Inc. gets contract from Hindustan Aeronautics
   Woolworth Corporation signs new global telecom agreement with MCI;
                                         Includes 13-country Asia Network
   Indian reservoir flooding starts
   Court orders trial for India's bandit queen
   Bhutto promises military `tools of tomorrow'
   Red Cross Official arrives in Kashmir
   Indian separatists blow up train rails
   India to launch two satellites made in India
   Indian bourses crippled by forward ban
   Russia transfers advanced technology to India despite U.S. pressure
   India probes stock markets over drug-money alarm
   British, Indian leaders discuss conflicts in Bosnia, Kashmir
   Britain signs Indian Dam Deal, trade booming
   U.N. Human Rights Chairman says Commission needs restructuring
   At least 65 die when bus falls into Indian river
   India's Opposition wants more troops in Kashmir
   Kashmiris protest at militant's arrest by India
   Aid to Pakistan seen as tactic to curb arms - Report

___________________________________________________________________________
 To subscribe:
   Bitnet users:        send a mail message to LISTSERV@UTARLVM1
   Internet users:      send a mail message to LISTSERV@UTARLVM1.UTA.EDU
  In the mail msg, leave the subject line blank. The first line of the mail
  msg should be:            { Here, Personal name should be a 2-part name }
   SUBSCRIBE INDIA-D Personal Name  { To subscribe to Discussion and News }
   SUBSCRIBE INDIA-L Personal Name  { To subscribe to News Digest alone }

 To unsubscribe:
  Follow the above procedure, but the first line of the mail msg should be:
   SIGNOFF INDIA-D (GLOBAL
   SIGNOFF INDIA-L (GLOBAL

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Discussion Digest contributions     :  editor@andy.bgsu.edu
 News Digest contributions           :  india-news@andy.bgsu.edu
 Looking for requests                :  looking@andy.bgsu.edu
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 Dr K V Rao is the co-ordinator of the Network.
 Editors - for the Discussion & News Digests, Ms U Ramamurthy;
           for the News Headlines, Mr M G Balakrishna Rao.

The Editors/Owner are not responsible for the articles submitted to the INN.
Please note that we DO NOT have resources to check the authenticity of news
stories or copyright violations, if any. Unauthorized forwarding of the
Digest is prohibited.
___________________________________________________________________________
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 05:45:46 -0700
From: RAJESH <RAJESH_H1@sfov1.verifone.com>
Subject: Lucas Western Inc. gets contract from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

#1  LUCAS WESTERN INC. GETS CONTRACT FROM HINDUSTAN AERONAUTICS

DOW JONES NEWS (DJ)
   RESTON, Va. -DJ- Lucas Electronics, a unit of Lucas Industries PLC,
got a contract to prepare missile sub-assembly specifications with the
Dynamics division of British Aerospace Defence Ltd., a unit of British
Aerospace PLC.
    The contract's value wasn't disclosed.
    In a separate release, Lucas Industries said its Lucas Western Inc.
Power Transmission unit got a contract from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
of Bangalore, India, to design and build power take-off shafts for the
new Indian Air Force light combat aircraft.
    The value of this contract also wasn't disclosed.
    Lucas said the under the contract it will build five prototype
shafts and perform qualification testing. The shafts transmit power
from the engine to the aircraft-mounted accessory drive gearbox, the
company said.

#2  WOOLWORTH CORPORATION SIGNS NEW GLOBAL TELECOM AGREEMENT WITH MCI;
                                         INCLUDES 13-COUNTRY ASIA NETWORK

  NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 1994-- MCI announced today that
it has signed a five-year, multi-million dollar agreement with
Woolworth Corporation to provide a wide range of global
telecommunications services.
  Under the terms of the agreement, MCI will provide Woolworth
Corporation with its Vnet, or virtual network service, Vnet VNC, which
extends the virtual network service to countries outside the U.S., MCI
International Private Network Service and MCI 800 Services. MCI is now
managing a 13-country private line network that connects the large,
multinational retailer's offices in Asia with its headquarters in the
U.S.  The MCI-provided network extends to locations in China, India,
South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore, among others.
  "MCI's international expertise and capabilities played a key role in
our decision to select the company as our primary carrier for another
five years,"  said Bill Johnson, director of telecommunications for
Woolworth Corporation.  "Although we have had global operations dating
as far back as the late 1800's, Woolworth today must make information
sharing between New Delhi and New York as easy as it is between
Milwaukee and New York.  MCI will play a key role in the operation of
our global network."
  "While MCI is a leading provider of advanced telecom services to the
leading business centers of the world, we are increasingly earning
distinction for our ability to provide digital services from the U.S.
to developing countries such as China and India as in the case of
Woolworth Corporation,"  said Jack Reich, president of MCI
Multinational Accounts.  "We continue to win new business in the
multinational marketplace because we offer customers broad global
reach, high quality service and excellent customer service."
  Woolworth Corporation is a large global retailer with stores and
related support facilities in 22 countries on 4 continents-- North
America, Europe, Australia and Asia.  As of the close of its 1993
financial year, the company operated over 8,300 stores: over 7,400
specialty stores and more than 960 general merchandise stores in more
than 40 different formats, under such names as Foot Locker, Lady Foot
Locker, Kids Foot Locker and World Foot Locker athletic footwear and
apparel stores; Champs Sports athletic equipment footwear and apparel
stores; Northern Reflections women's casual apparel shops; After
Thoughts, Carimar and Accessory Lady jewelry boutiques and Woolworth
general merchandise stores.
  MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the nation's second
largest long distance provider and the fifth largest carrier of
international traffic in the world.  The company's Multinational
Accounts Division provides a full range of voice, data, video and
network management services to more than 220 of the world's largest
corporations.  The company has more than 65 offices in 60 countries and
places.

#3  INDIAN RESERVOIR FLOODING STARTS

WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
   Compiled by Richard L. Holman
03/15/94
   Water rising behind the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River
in western India began submerging homes, after flooding farmland.
   Work on the irrigation and hydroelectric project is in its first
stage. The dam system is to be the world's biggest, surpassing the
nearly completed Itaipu dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border. The
Indian network, involving 30 large and 3,000 smaller dams stretching
from southeast of New Delhi to the Arabian Sea in the west, will
provide drinking and irrigation water to 40 million people. It will
uproot a million people and flood 600 villages and 865,000 acres
each of forests and farmland.
   The water level started rising late last month when the dam's
sluice gates were closed to start storing water. Water was seeping
into homes in the village of Vadgam, 500 miles southwest of New
Delhi. Some residents refused to leave.
   Environmentalists have campaigned against the project since 1987.
A 1992 review by the World Bank, which financed part of the work,
said India hadn't done enough to resettle displaced villagers.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 14:05:03 -0500
From: chadha@thumper.bellcore.com (Ritu Chadha)
Subject: Court Orders Trial for India's Bandit Queen

#4  COURT ORDERS TRIAL FOR INDIA'S BANDIT QUEEN

           NEW DELHI, India (AP) _ A court has refused to drop charges
against India's bandit queen, a lower-caste woman accused of
killing 18 upper-caste Hindus during a decade as an outlaw, a
newspaper reported today.
           After dismissing a petition by Uttar Pradesh state to drop the
charges, District Court Judge S.K. Saxena ruled Tuesday that
Phoolan Devi's trial will begin June 7, the Pioneer newspaper said.
           Ms. Devi, who was jailed for 11 years without trial, was freed
on parole last month by India's Supreme Court after the new
lower-caste-dominated government in Uttar Pradesh promised to drop
charges against her.
           But the state was unable to get legal permission to do that.
           The woman surrendered in 1983 when several state governments
promised to rehabilitate bandits. She reportedly began her campaign
to avenge the killing of her lover by an upper-caste landowner in
1981.
           After her release Feb. 19, upper-caste Hindus began campaigning
for her trial. Some even threatened to attack her, prompting the
Supreme Court to order around-the-clock protection.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 21:30:16 -0500 (EST)
From: "Sukhjinder S Bajwa" <bajwa@asd.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Bhutto promises military "tools of tomorrow"

#5  BHUTTO PROMISES MILITARY `TOOLS OF TOMORROW'

    ISLAMABAD, March 16 (Reuter) - Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
assured military officers on Wednesday she would find them "tools of
tomorrow" to defend their country, which has for decades felt threatened
from neighbouring India.
     State television quoted her as saying in a speech at the National
Defence College at Rawalpindi: "Technology holds the key to our survival,
the battles of backwardness and national security cannot be fought with the
tools of yesterday.
     "This is my promise to you, come what may, we shall get the tools of
tomorrow."
     "It shall not be our fate to live in perpetual fear of predatory
neighbours brandishing high-tech weapons," she said in a reference to
India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars since the two countries
became independent of Britain in 1947.
     Relations between the two countries have been tense in recent years
over a separatist Moslem revolt in the Indian-ruled part of the disputed
Himalayan region of Kashmir.
     Bhutto said Islamabad wanted peace with neighbours and a constructive
dialogue with New Delhi to settle their dispute over Kashmir, two-thirds of
which is ruled by India and the rest by Pakistan.
     Pakistan has traditionally depended for weapons on its long-time ally
the United States, which cut off all military and new economic aid to it in
1990 over suspicions it planned to make nuclear weapons, which Islamabad
denies.

#6  RED CROSS OFFICIAL ARRIVES IN KASHMIR

    SRINAGAR, India, March 16 (Reuter) - The first member of a Red Cross
team due to tour hospitals in India's Jammu and Kashmir state arrived in
Srinagar on Wednesday, officials said.
     The senior International Red Cross official arrived in the state's
summer capital ahead of the first-ever visit by a Red Cross fact-finding
team which is expected to arrive on March 21.
     The team will tour the state for a week, visit hospitals and make
recommendations for treatment of those wounded during the four-year long
conflict that police and hospital sources say has left more than 16,000
people dead.
     India, whose security forces have often been accused of widespread
human rights violations in Kashmir, had already allowed the Red Cross to
visit the state last month.
     Approval for the current tour followed India's decision to allow four
European ambassadors to visit Kashmir last month to meet militant
organisations.
     Officials said the Red Cross team will be given access to individuals
and groups on appointment. The team is likely to investigate the lack of
medicines, doctors and medical equipment which has made it difficult to
tend the sick and wounded.
     A government spokesman said two Indian government officials will help
Red Cross Regional Director Meinrad Studer prepare an agenda for the team.
     The Red Cross said last month its team will confine itself to aid and
not touch on alleged human-rights abuses while in Kashmir, the only Moslem
majority state in mainly Hindu India.

#7  INDIAN SEPARATISTS BLOW UP TRAIN RAILS

   NEW DELHI, March 16 (UPI) -- Separatists of the mineral-rich region of
central-eastern India agitated violently for goverment recognition of their
desire for a state within the Indian union for 48 hours, Press Trust of
India news agency reported.
   During the demonstrations a stretch of rail track was blown up,
disrupting train schedules in parts of the Indian state of Bihar for
roughly four hours, officials told PTI.
   In Ranchi, the hub of tribespeoples activities, most shops and business
establishments remained closed, PTI reported. Intercity bus services also
did not run, the news agency said.
   A spokesman of the tribespeople demanded that the Indian government
introduce to parliament, legislation for the creation of "Jharkhand," the
land of forests.
   The rebels suggest that the new state be carved out of the tribal belts
of the Indian states of Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.
   In what may be a breakthrough, the tribal leaders and the Federal
government have agreed to a formula that envisages the formation of an
elected council for the tribal region, which will give the tribal area the
status of a sub-state within the state of Bihar.
   India, a country of more than 850 million people, has 25 states and
seven federally-administered territories.

#8  INDIA TO LAUNCH TWO SATELLITES MADE IN INDIA

   NEW DELHI, March 15 (UPI) -- India will put into space two multi-
purpose communication satellites made in India in the next two years, the
Indian Space Research Oranization said Tuesday.
   An agreement to launch 4,620-lb (2,100 kg) satellites by Europe's
Arianespace was signed last week by ISRO Chairman U.R. Rao and Arianespace
Chairman Ch. Bigot in the southern city of Bangalore, an ISRO press release
said.
   The launches for the ISRO-built satellites, INSAT-2C and 2D, are
scheduled to take place in the second half of 1995 and 1996, the press
release said.
   The first two satellites, INSAT-2A and 2-B, which were launched in 1992
and 1993 respectively from Kourou in French Guiana, were working
satisfactorily and had enhanced India's communications, weather
forecasting, disaster warning and broadcasting services, ISRO said.
   It also said the new satellites would allow India to introduce mobile
satellite communication services to the country.
   India has a broad-based space program that started in the 1970s.
   Indian scientists are trying to develop two powerful space-launch
vehicles that western experts say would boost the country's military
capabilities.
   Indian officials say they plan to offer space-launch services to foreign
clients after they develop the two new rockets.
   Russia is transferring sophisticated rocket technology to India, despite
an announcement made last year under U.S. pressure cancelling the $350
million cryogenic rocket deal for India's space program.
   Indian experts say the country is capable of developing its own
cryogenic engine.
   Cryogenic technology combines liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen to
provide much greater lift-off power to a space-launch vehicle.
   The transfer of cryogenic technology is barred by the western- sponsored
Missile Technology Control Regime which seeks to control exports that have
dual applications in civilian and military space industries.

#9  INDIAN BOURSES CRIPPLED BY FORWARD BAN

    BOMBAY, March 15 (Reuter) - India's major stock exchanges were nearly
paralysed and very few trades were reported on Tuesday as a ban imposed by
the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on forward trading took
effect, brokers said.
     The 30-share index at Bombay, the country's largest bourse, closed
11.06 points up at 3,758.28 amid sparse trade in a market that had been
attracting strong inflows from overseas funds.
     Brokers said prices were fluctuating widely. "There were just a
handful of deals in "A" group shares and the prices have no meaning," said
Antony Sequeira of brokers Uday S. Kotak.
     SEBI, India's main regulator for the capital markets, banned the
carry-forward system of trading, saying it was leading to excessive
speculation in the country's turbulent stock exchanges.
     Forward trading allows investors, for a fee, to carry over a position
from one fortnightly account to another without paying for or taking
delivery of the stock they have bought. This fuels speculation by enabling
investors to cash in on price fluctuations without paying the full cost
shares.
     The SEBI action was part of measures designed to clean up the
country's 22 stock exchanges and end the dominance of a small group of
powerful brokers.
     SEBI said it would allow resumption of the carry-forward system only
if stock exchanges implemented several measures to make trading more
transparent. Brokers say the measures, which include a margin payment of 30
percent on every deal carried forward, are too tough to be implemented.
     They argue that the carry forward system is necessary to provide
liquidity for the market.
     In a bid to revive the flagging trade that has been depressed since
India's February 28 national budget, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) cut
the margin payable on the purchase of shares to 15 percent from the earlier
20, an official said.
     BSE executive director Arvind Kolhatkar said: "We cut the margin in
order to give a boost to the market. Trading is very thin and we hope the
reduction in margin money will help."
     Brokers in Calcutta said equities drifted without any definite
direction for lack of volume and there were no trades at several pivotal
counters.
     Prices quoted had no relevance since neither buyers nor sellers were
present, they said.
     "The stock market is as good as closed," said a leading broker.

#10  RUSSIA TRANSFERS ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY TO INDIA DESPITE U.S. PRESSURE

 By NEELAM JAIN
   NEW DELHI, March 15 (UPI) -- Russia is about to complete the transfer of
sophisticated rocket-technology to India despite an earlier announcement
canceling the deal under U.S pressure, newspaper reports said Tuesday.
   Moscow had transfered 80 percent of the technology to Indian Space
Research Organization by last October, The Pioneer said. The $350 million
deal froze in November.
   To complete the remaining 20 percent, dozens of Indian scientists were
taken to Glavkosmos, the Russian space agency, for "training", which in
effect was "technical aid", the newspaper quoted sources as saying.
   Moscow announced last July it was canceling the contract with India to
sell the rocket engines and related technology. The announcement came after
U.S. President Bill Clinton raised the issue with Russian President Boris
Yeltsin at the G-7 summit in Tokyo.
   However, to hasten technology-transfer, the number of Russian scientists
working in India's space center involved in research and development of
space technology, including rockets and satellite launch vehicles, has been
doubled, the report said.
   Technical aid, which included technology, fabrication and quality
control, if given overtly would have invited U.S. sanctions under the
Missile Technology Control Regime.
   Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization Prof. U.R. Rao was not
immediately available for comment. He was busy with a Russian team, his
office said.
   The deal between the two countries involved cryogenic technology, which
combines liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen to provide much greater
lift-off power to a space-launch vehicle.
   India said it needs the 12-ton cryogenic engines to build powerful
rocket boosters to place in orbit a new generation of telecommunications
and meteorological satellites.
   Moscow and New Delhi renegotiated the 1991 contract last January, with
Russia promising two additional engines as compensation for denial of
technical aid.
   In May 1992, Washington imposed limited trade sanctions against India
and Russia to discourage the two countries from going ahead with the
cryogenic deal.
   The transfer of cryogenic technology is barred by the Missile Technology
Control Regime, a Western organization.
   Founded in 1987, the group seeks to control exports of components and
technologies that have dual applications in civilian and military space
industries. India and Russia are not members of the group but have pledged
to adhere to its guidelines.
   The United States contends the cryogenic technology could be diverted by
New Delhi to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. India and Russia,
however, contend cryogenics are unsuitable for ballistic missiles and that
no nation employs them for that purpose.

#11  INDIA PROBES STOCK MARKETS OVER DRUG-MONEY ALARM

    By Jawed Naqvi
     NEW DELHI, March 15 (Reuter) - Police have investigated several
accounts at Indian stock exchanges for alleged laundering of money from
gold and drug smuggling, Finance Ministry officials said on Tuesday.
     Revenue intelligence officials said they were also monitoring the
previously unknown phenomenon of foreign currency being smuggled out of the
country after major seizures of dollar bills.
     "Between March and November last year we seized $125 million worth of
havala (illegal banking) and foreign currency transactions," a Finance
Ministry official told Reuters.
     "The amounts involved are unusually high and the incidence of foreign
currency leaving the country is puzzling."
     The official said the fleeing foreign cash was possibly being used to
buy drugs and perhaps arms for militants, leaving no traceable records of
the transactions.
     Unofficial estimates say India's black economy, based largely on gold
smuggling and tax evasion and, in recent years, the drugs trade, form 60
per cent of the total Indian economy.
     "Our hunch is that much of this money finds its way to fund
Euro-issues and local equity markets," the official said.
     There have been reports of Colombian drugs money getting involved with
Indian stock markets, but officials say they have no solid evidence of
this.
     "Up to now we have not been able to get any concrete evidence that
money laundered has come into this business in India," Indian Revenue
Secretary M.R. Sivaraman told Reuters.
     "There have been one or two reports. We pursued the leads but it did
not give any results to us to come to a conclusion that large scale money
laundering is taking place which has originated in the drug trade."
     But opposition deputies say the government is complacent about the
threat to its rapidly opening stock markets, both at home and abroad.
     "You can't take an ambivalent attitude on this simply because
unaccounted money, after being laundered, is returning into the money
systems as it were, that therefore it is not such a bad thing at all,"
opposition deputy Jawant Singh said.
     "We ought to examine very closely the societal consequences. We would
be naive if we thought that money earned out of narcotics or smuggling of
gold or silver is somehow money that when it returns to India is all right
money."
     Senior Indian and U.S. narcotics officials will meet in New Delhi this
week to review an apparent rise in drug trafficking from India to Western
countries.
     India is flanked by the world's largest heroin producing areas: the
Golden Crescent in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, and the Golden
Triange, where Thailand, Laos and Burma meet.
     It is also a major exporter of legal opium and officials say
substantial amounts of officially grown opium finds its way into the
illegal heroin market.
     A recent UN-sponsored study says heroin seizures continue to rise
after almost doubling in 1992 from the previous year.

#12  BRITISH, INDIAN LEADERS DISCUSS CONFLICTS IN BOSNIA, KASHMIR

   LONDON, March 14 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister John Major held
discussions with Indian leader P.V. Narasimha Rao Monday, expressing
concern about the ongoing conflict in Kashmir and welcoming steps by New
Delhi to monitor allegations of human rights violations in the region.
   Major welcomed the creation of the Indian human rights commission and
the decision by New Delhi to begin allowing international observers into
Kashmir, a spokeswoman for Major's office said. Major also expressed
support for Indo-Pakistani talks to resolve the conflict between the two
neighbors.
   Rao questioned Major about the ongoing conflict in Bosnia- Herzegovina,
including European peace-making efforts and Britain's involvement in
peacekeeping and humanitarian aid work, the spokeswoman said.
   The emphasis of the talks between the two sides was the Indo-British
Partnership Initiative, aimed at boosting bilateral trade. The spokeswoman
said the initiative boosted British exports to India by 20 percent over the
past year and lifted Indian exports to Britain by 26 percent.
   She said new British investment was 139 million pounds ($209 million) in
1993, compared with 26 million pounds ($39 million) in 1992. Britain was
second only to the United States in the amount of new investment in India
over the past year.
   Because of the success of the initiative, the two leaders agreed to
continue the program for another year. They signed an investment promotion
and protection agreement between the two countries.
   Business leaders attending the meeting signed memorandums of
understanding agreeing to more bilateral projects, including one deal
between Britain's GEC corporation and India's Ispat for a 1.5 billion pound
($2.25 billion) thermal power plant in India.

#13  BRITAIN SIGNS INDIAN DAM DEAL, TRADE BOOMING

    LONDON, March 14 (Reuter) - Britain's General Electric Co Plc on Monday
signed a $1.5 billion deal to build a power station in India's Maharashtra
state, setting the seal on a new trade relationship between the two
nations.
     After talks with visiting Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao,
British leader John Major said economic reform was being tackled in India
as successfully as anywhere in the world.
     The success story of bilateral trade dominated the talks with the two
countries deciding to extend for another year the India-British Partnership
Initiative.
     The initiative was set up last year to increase British firms'
awareness of Indian economic reforms.
     Britain is the largest investor in India with assets of more than two
billion pounds ($3 billion), while Indian exports to Britain last year
jumped more than 20 percent to top one billion pounds ($1.5 billion) for
the first time.
     "With both countries reaping rewards from the Initiative and India's
1994 budget proposals signalling a desire to go for growth, the 1990s look
set to become the golden era for trade between our countries," said British
trade minister Richard Needham.

#14  U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS CHAIRMAN SAYS COMMISSION NEEDS RESTRUCTURING

   GENEVA, March 14 (UPI) -- The chairman of the United Nations Human
Rights Commission, Peter van Wulfften Palthe, said Monday the organization
needs to be restructured because its current bureaucracy slows down
proceedings.
   The 50th session of the Human Rights Commission, which concluded Friday,
came under heavy attack from members and non-governmental organizations for
the confusing way in which it disseminates information, the drawn-out
process of passing resolutions and the unregulated back-door deals that are
done between countries to avoid scrutiny.
   "On many issues there's not enough relevance to the oustide world and we
need to change that if we want to be taken seriously," van Wulfften Palthe
said. "It was difficult at this session of the commission to tackle new
problems. There are much too much speeches at the commission, there are too
many resolutions being tabled, and the resolutions are too long, and
documentation arrives late," he added.
   "We operate on an agenda that reflects the past -- there's a long
history in the agenda but it must be adapted to modern times," van Wulfften
Palthe said.
   But, renovative moves by the newly installed chairman were thwarted by
the 53 member countries who insisted that this year's proceeding continue
in the tried and tested manner.
   However, Van Wulfften Palthe recorded one victory among the staunch old
gaurd by turning attention from South Africa's human rights situation, to
monitoring the transition of democracy following the country's first
multi-party elections next month.
   "In changing (the focus) on South Africa we have entered the road that I
hope will lead to this commission constantly monitoring democratization
process all over the world," van Wulfften Palthe said.
   During the six-week long session, the commission adopted 105 resolutions
and decisions and approved five official statements by the chairman.
   This year, the commission examined the growing concern over development
issues and the effect of foreign debt burdens on the world's poorer
countries. It adopted a resolution to consider policies that would help
create an international economic climate that is more responsive to the
needs of the developing countries, and agreed to hold a meeting sometime in
the future with the heads of international financial institutions.
   The U.N. body also officially condenmed anti-semitism and appointed a
"special rapporteur" to examine incidents of contemporary forms of racism
and discrimination.
   However, informal negotiations over the wording of the resolution
delayed a final vote on the measure for more than two weeks.
   The main event for this year's commision meeting ended in an anti-
climax when a draft resolution to seek information on human rights in China
was defeated through a roll-call vote on a no-action resolution. Also,
while India and Pakistan clashed often in debate and traded numerous rights
of reply over human rights in the disputed Indian territories of Jammu and
Kashmir, a draft resolution tabled by Pakistan was subsequently withdrawn
by the country.
   Officials from non-government organizations at the commission, who
requested anonymity, said India and Pakistan allegedly made an out-of-
commission settlement with China and Iran on condition that Pakistan drop
its tabled motion against India.
   While few observers were surpised about the wheeling and dealing done by
countries behind the backs of U.N. officials, many were disappointed that
the commission could not take a stance on Kashmir.
   "These two countries (India and Pakistan) were using and even abusing
the time of the commission in dealing with this highly political matter
(Kashmir). It seems that human rights violations were never an issue
between them, it was similar agreements and political talks all the time
and these are matters that simply do not belong in the commission for Human
Rights," van Wulfften Palthe said.

#15  AT LEAST 65 DIE WHEN BUS FALLS INTO INDIAN RIVER

     BOMBAY, March 14 (Reuter) - At least 65 people aboard an Indian bus
were killed on Monday when it plunged off a bridge into a river near the
western Indian city of Nashik, the United News of India (UNI) said.
     The Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency said the bus passengers
were mainly women and children.
     A police spokesman said earlier there were between 60 and 65
passengers. He said 11 people had been rescued, while 39 bodies had been
fished out of the Kajwa river, about 200 km (120 miles) north-east of
Bombay.
     UNI said the bus was carrying at least 76 passengers.
     Rescue teams were still searching for bodies, it said.
     PTI quoted a police spokesman as saying 50 bodies had been recovered
and police and villagers were searching for the rest.
     The driver lost control of the vehicle while driving across a bridge.
The bus crashed through railings and fell 35 (11 metres) feet into the
river, PTI said, quoting police.

#16  INDIA'S OPPOSITION WANTS MORE TROOPS IN KASHMIR

    NEW DELHI, March 14 (Reuter) - India's Hindu nationalist opposition
party called on Monday for more troops to be sent to quell a four-year-old
rebellion in Moslem-majority Kashmir.
     "If it is a question of defending the integrity of the country, we
should not hesitate to send more troops to Kashmir," senior Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) leader Atal Behari Vajpayee said in an interview with
Reuters.
     Officials say India has more than 100,000 troops in Kashmir, along
with a slightly larger number of paramilitary police who handle most of the
day-to-day fighting against the separatists.
     Vajpayee said the ambassadors of three Western countries who recently
visited Kashmir told him that Kashmiris actually favoured more army troops
in the state because they trust the soldiers more than the paramilitary
forces.
     These forces have been the target of most of the widespread charges of
human rights abuses during the bloody uprising in which police and
hospitals have reported more than 16,000 deaths.
     The government admits some abuses have occurred and those responsible
have been punished. Most of the charges, however, are militant propaganda,
it says.
     Vajpayee, a moderate in the hardline BJP, said the party would follow
the Israeli example if voted to power and send back 250,000 Hindus who had
fled the rebellion.
     "We will see to it that they go back to their homes and hearths. It is
the moral responsibility  of any government to see to it that people are
not turned refugees in their own country," he said.
     Most of those who fled are living in camps in the Jammu region, the
Hindu-dominated part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
     Vajpayee, however, did not say what his party would do for the 50,000
Moslems who also fled the fighting.
     The BJP elder, who led the Indian delegation at last week's meeting of
the United Nations Commission at Human Rights in Geneva, said Pakistan's
failure there to rap India over alleged human rights abuses in Kashmir
meant Islamabad would now get more belligerent over Kashmir.
     The Himalayan territory has been the cause of two of the three wars
between the two neighbours since independence from Britain in 1947. India
accuses Islamabad of fomenting the Kashmir rebellion, a charge Pakistan
denies.
     The highly emotional subject has brought relations between the two
countries to another low.
     "We have to get tough with Pakistan and resolve the Kashmir problem
once and for all," Vajpayee said.

#17  KASHMIRIS PROTEST AT MILITANT'S ARREST BY INDIA

    ISLAMABAD, March 13 (Reuter) - Kashmiri groups in Pakistan held
protests on Sunday after Indian security forces arrested a top Moslem
militant in the Indian-controlled part of disputed Kashmir.
     Demonstrations were held at towns in Pakistan-controlled Azad (free)
Kashmir to condemn Saturday's arrest of Javed Ahmed Mir, the acting
president of the outlawed Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), in the
Indian Kashmir summer capital of Srinagar, a JKLF statement said.
     The JKLF's Pakistan-based chairman Amanullah Khan called Mir's arrest
an "irreparable loss to both the freedom movement and the organisation." He
called for more demonstrations in Azad Kashmir on Thursday after the Moslem
festival of Eid al-Fitr.
     Khan said in a statement that deaths or arrests of several JKLF
leaders in the past several years had "failed to deter the JKLF from its
march forward."
     He said a successor to Mir would be appointed after consulting party
colleagues in the Indian-ruled Kashmir valley, the hub of a four-year-old
separatist uprising in which more than 15,000 people have been killed.
     Officials in Srinagar said on Saturday that Mir was arrested on a tip
from an informer.
     The JKLF is among groups fighting for independence for the rich,
mountainous region from both India and Pakistan. Several other groups want
their predominantly Moslem region to join Islamic Pakistan.

#18  AID TO PAKISTAN SEEN AS TACTIC TO CURB ARMS - REPORT

    NEW YORK, March 13 (Reuter) - The Clinton administration is proposing
that congress lift its ban on military aid to Pakistan in exchange for a
halt in Pakistani nuclear production, The New York Times reported Sunday.
     Under the plan, which is in the early stages of discussion, Pakistan
would be allowed to take possession of dozens of F-16 fighter planes that
it has already paid for, but has not taken delivery of because of a
congressional roadblock known as the Pressler Amendment, the newspaper
said.
     The 1985 amendment bans military aid to Pakistan unless the president
can certify that Islamabad has no nuclear weapons and is not trying to
develop them.
     Officials told the Times that the proposal is part of a policy to stem
the spread of nuclear arms in South Asia, where India and Pakistan have
fought three wars since 1947.
     "The idea would be to see what you could get in terms of limits on the
nuclear programme," an administration official told the Times.
     "It's part of an approach to address proliferaton in South Asia
generally."
     A spokesman at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington told the newspaper
that he was not familiar with any talks between his government and the
Clinton administration on the matter.
     The current dispute over India-held Kashmir, where Moslems are seeking
to become either independent or a part of Pakistan, has raised concern in
Washington that it could escalate into a nuclear incident.
     India set off a test nuclear explosion in 1974. Pakistan has never
taken such a step.
     Pakistan ordered 71 F-16s in the late 1980s at a cost of $1.4 billion.
A portion of the planes were built but were prevented from being delivered
because of the Pressler Amendment. They were placed in storage in Arizona.

------------------------------

End of India News Network Digest
********************************