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India News Network Digest    Thu, 17 Mar 94      Volume 2 : Issue 207

Today's News Topics:

   Paramilitary Police capture the Commander of JKLF
   India sabotaging world meet on Tibet - Deputies
   Bombay arrests
   Indian priest beheads relative at temple festival
   Militant Hindu group gets new chief
   Court upholds India's controversial anti-terrorist law
   Indian Journalists' letter to Comrade Kim Chong-il
   Bhutto comments on raising Kashmir issue at UN
   US 'new posture' toward India, Kashmir examined
   Minister rules out visit of Islamic Conference Organization to Kashmir
   U.S.-India relations turn sour
   Populous India no contender when it comes to sports
   India: Japanese style - Courtesy the West Midlands

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Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 21:31:11 -0500 (EST)
From: "Sukhjinder S Bajwa" <bajwa@asd.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Paramilitary Police capture the commander of JKLF

#1  PARAMILITARY POLICE CAPTURE THE COMMANDER OF JKLF

By QAISER MIRZA
 Associated Press Writer
   SRINAGAR, India (AP) -- Paramilitary police captured the commander of
the main Kashmiri separatist group when he drove to a crowded market
Saturday.
   Javed Ahmmed Mir, president of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, did
not resist during his arrest in Srinagar, capital of Jammu-Kashmir state,
witnesses reported.
   The Indian government called the arrest a breakthrough in its fight
against the separatist campaign, which has killed 8,200 people the past
four years in India's only state with a majority Muslim population.
   Two jeep-loads of Border Security Force troopers intercepted Mir's
vehicle at Maulama Azad Road in the Residency neighborhood of Srinagar.
   Witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 30-year-old Mir
might have felt he would safe going to the market because it was packed
with people on the eve of a Muslim festival.
   Businesses closed and people hurried home as news of Mir's arrest
spread. Sporadic gunshots were heard across the city, but no one claimed
responsibility, police said.
   The outlawed Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front conceded Mir's arrest was a
setback. It called for a statewide strike Sunday or Monday, depending on
when Muslim clerics announce the observance of the Eid-el-Fitr festival.
   The holiday comes at the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan and
will be observed Sunday or Monday depending on when clerics sight the moon.
   Kashmir has troubled India since the 1947 partition of the old British
colonial India into predominantly Muslim Pakistan and mostly Hindu India.
   Jammu-Kashmir, then a princely state under a Hindu king, chose to merge
with India, but Pakistan claimed it because of its predominantly Muslim
population. The two countries fought wars over Kashmir in 1948 and 1965
that left it divided into Pakistani and Indian sectors.

#2  INDIA SABOTAGING WORLD MEET ON TIBET - DEPUTIES

    NEW DELHI, March 12 (Reuter) - Irate Indian parliament deputies on
Saturday said that the government had struck a deal with China to sabotage
a proposed world parliamentarians' conference on Tibet next week.
     "India is tacitly shifting its approach to Tibet to please China and
compromising on country's strategic interests and betraying history,"
George Fernandes, Indian parliament deputy and chairman of the conference
said.
     The three-day conference is due to begin on Friday in the Indian
capital New Delhi.
     "The conference is being obstructed by the Indian foreign office,"
Fernandes told reporters, adding that the government was denying visas to
participating delegates.
     Indian embassies in Finland, Sweden and Ireland were not only denying
visas to the parliamentarians, but also trying to persuade them to withdraw
their participation in the conference, Fernandes said.
     "This is against common diplomatic protocol," he said.
     A foreign office spokesman declined to comment on the conference but
said: "Standard procedures are being followed for issuing of visas."
     Fernandes said that the conference was aimed to draw world attention
to the gross violation of human rights in Chinese-occupied Tibet and a
threat to Tibetan identity.
     More than 100 parliamentarians from 30 countries are expected to
attend the meeting, being held to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the
Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
     "India is looking at its short term interest. China may want trade
relations with India, but its foreign policy with regard to Pakistan and
Burma indicates that India is being encircled," Fernandes said.
     Fernandes and another Indian deputy Mohan Singh said they regretted
that India was sabotaging the conference at a time when parliamentarians
from world over were keen to discuss an important issue such as Tibet.
     The Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama is not attending the
conference.
     "Tibetans are treated as untouchables in their own country and India
has a responsibility towards them. Tibet should be on the agenda of
Indo-China talks," Fernandes said.
     India and China fought a war in 1962 and had troubled relations until
mid-1980s when there was a thaw leading to increasing trade between the two
neighbours.
     "The issue of Tibet is very much linked to peace, stability and
security of India. Placating China now may appear to be in our short-term
interest, but in the long-term it will prove expensive," the two deputies
said in a statement.
     Fernandes also warned that China had been playing havoc with Tibet's
environment and was dumping its nuclear waste there, which could harm
India.

#3  BOMBAY ARRESTS

   BOMBAY, India (AP) -- Police have taken at least 2,700 people into
custody as "a precautionary measure" on the anniversary of bombings that
killed 257 people, police said today.
   "We are not apprehensive, but we leaving nothing to chance," Joint
Commissioner of Police O.P. Bali said.
   On March 12, 1993, Bombay was rocked by 13 bomb explosions that killed
257 people and wounded 700. Police blame the blasts on Muslim radicals
taking revenge for the demolition of a mosque by Hindu zealots.
   A total of 189 people have been charged in the explosions. Their trial
is likely to start later this year.
   Most of those detained in the past 10 days are considered habitual
offenders by police. They have not been formally charged, but are being
kept in police lockups. Bali did not say when they will be released.
   Hundreds of policemen patrolled in Bombay today. Police set up road
blocks and checked vehicles for hidden arms and explosives.

#4  INDIAN PRIEST BEHEADS RELATIVE AT TEMPLE FESTIVAL

    NEW DELHI, March 12 (Reuter) - Police are searching for a temple priest
in India's southern Tamil Nadu state who beheaded his brother-in-law in
front of horrified villagers attending a festival, the Press Trust of India
(PTI) said on Saturday.
     The villagers had gathered at a temple in Seemanendhal, south of the
state capital, Madras, to watch a goat being sacrificed when the priest
grabbed a giant sickle and beheaded the man, who was kneeling in prayer,
PTI quoted police as saying.
     It said the two men had fallen out after the brother-in-law returned
money collected for temple renovations because the priest had not taken
steps to start the repairs.
     The priest escaped before the dazed crowd could respond, it said.

#5  MILITANT HINDU GROUP GETS NEW CHIEF

    NEW DELHI, March 11 (Reuter) - The 79-year-old head of an Indian Hindu
militant group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), stepped down on
Friday on health grounds, the United News of India (UNI) news agency said.
     "I am keeping indifferent health, cannot undertake the journey and
guide the swayamsevaks (volunteers); therefore I am entrusting my
responsibility to Rajendra Singh," UNI quoted Balasaheb Deoras as saying.
     In accordance with the group's practice, the new head was not elected
but unilaterally decided upon by the outgoing chief. But there was one
departure from tradition.
     Instead of leaving his successor's name in a sealed envelop, to be
opened only after his death, Deoras publicly announced the 72-year-old
Singh as his successor.

#6  COURT UPHOLDS INDIA'S CONTROVERSIAL ANTI-TERRORIST LAW

   NEW DELHI (UPI) -- The Supreme Court, saying extremists have declared
war on India, has upheld a controversial anti-terrorist law that empowers
police to detain suspects or search homes without warrant. The court said
it is upholding the law in the face of escalating terrorist violence that
threatens the survival of India's democratic political system.

#7  INDIAN JOURNALISTS' LETTER TO COMRADE KIM CHONG-IL

(MAR. 16) PAC RIM INTELLIGENCE REPORT -
   Pyongyang, March 13 (KCNA)-A letter to the dear leader Comrade Kim
Chong-il was adopted at an Indian national seminar of journalists on the
chuche idea and the role of mass communication in the era of independence
which was held in New Delhi. The letter says that Indian journalists held
the seminar on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the proclamation of
the program of modeling the whole society on the chuche idea by Comrade Kim
Chong-il in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
   It further says: Your excellency, an outstanding theoretician, broke a
new ground in the ideological and theoretical development in the era of
independence and has performed great exploits by formulating the
revolutionary idea of the great leader his excellency President Kim li-song
as an integral system of idea, theory and method of chuche and further
developing and enriching it. Your excellency, a great statesman in our
times, have won deep respect and reverence of the world people by lighting
the way ahead of mankind like a beacon with your most scientific insight
into and wise analysis of the present international situation and
international relations. The Indian journalists will lift up louder voices
supporting the just cause of the Korean people and Korea's reunification
and always advance side by side with the Korean journalists in the way of
accomplishing the just cause in the future.  The letter wishes Comrade Kim
Chong-il a long life in good health.
   From Pyongyang KCNA in English Date 13 March 1994

#8  BHUTTO COMMENTS ON RAISING KASHMIR ISSUE AT UN

(MAR. 15) MIDDLE EAST INTELLIGENCE REPORT -
   We have done it again. The much publicized initiative to seek
international censure of human rights abuses in the Indian held Kashmir has
been for the second time in quick succession held back at the eleventh
hour. First it was the Indian offer of talks on Kashmir, and now the
intervention of 16 countries, including our close allies Iran and China
that has apparently deterred Islamabad from going whole hog in pursuit of
its number one agenda in foreign relations. Ironically, the prime minister
had only a few days ago asserted in categorical terms that come what may,
Pakistan will go ahead with its campaign for international recognition of
the Kashmir cause, and the'pme of numbers'  will not stand in its way.
Whether it was an outright foreign policy debacle, as the Opposition would
insist or a tactical retreat dictated by the compulsion of circumstances,
as is likely to be offered as an alibi by the Foreign Office, Islamabad, to
say the least, has been guilty of gross miscalculation in Geneva. And the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be made accountable for misleading the
government and the people about the success of our campaign to win
international support. No matter what diplomatic jargon has been used to
describe our unceremonious retreat, we have, for all practical purposes,
withdrawn our resolution from the Human Rights Commission. And whether we
like it or not New Delhi has scored a major propaganda victory.
   Foreign Minister Asif Ahmad Ali's contention that the objective to
highlight Kashmir has been achieved and 'it has been a great victory for
Pakistan since the resolution remains alive' simply does not hold and is
certainly not good enough to explain away the failure of our initiatives on
Kashmir. Perhaps it is time to review the entire gamut of our Kashmir
strategy and withhold any fresh moves until we have undertaken a thorough
stocktaking of our track record. It is of utmost importance that we should
have the insight to discern where we had gone wrong in our understanding of
world politics, and whether it was our lack of comprehension, or misplaced
optimism on the righteousness of  our cause. Is accent on human rights
abuses a viable strategy to draw world attention to the Kashmir cause? If
the Americans have chosen to project themselves as the custodians of human
rights, it does not mean that they are no longer selective in their concern
for human rights abuses, and are ready for an even-handed approach to deal
with all victims of repression. So is the case with their European allies
who couldn't care less for rape, torture and mass killings let loose on
Bosnian Muslims.
   We have to sooner than later clearly identify our 'constituency' in the
international arena and design our moves to cater for their sensibilities.
The third world countries do not in any case have an enviable human rights
record, whether it is China or Iran or the vast majority of OIC countries.
Human rights is not the kind of issue on which Pakistan can hope to muster
support for the Kashmir cause, particularly when the US is trying to
browbeat them on this score. In the wake of the embarrassment we have
suffered and the despondency it may cause among the Kashmiri
freedom-fighters, it would be in the fitness of things to weigh our gains
and losses in foreign policy. Had we gone through with the vote would we be
closer to our goal today? Would the world have rallied to our call of
liberation of Kashmir, or would it have turned its back on us, as it seems
to have done now?
   From Islamabad Radio Pakistan Network in Urdu Date 13 March 1994

#9  US 'NEW POSTURE' TOWARD INDIA, KASHMIR EXAMINED

(MAR. 15) MIDDLE EAST INTELLIGENCE REPORT -
   Of late, there have been a few significant developments which indicate
that the US is adopting a new posture towards India, particularly in
relation to the Kashmir issue. President Clinton, in his speech to the U.N.
Ge Assembly on September 27. 1993, said: "Bloody ethnic, religious and
civil wars were raging from Angola to Caucasus to Kashmir." On October 29,
1993, Robin Raphel, US Assistant Secretary of State, at a "background
briefing' for the South Asian journalists, observed: "We do not recognize
the instrument of accession as meaning that Kashmir is for ever an integral
part of India .... The people of Kashmir have got to be consulted in any
kind of final settlement of the Kashmir dispute." A clarification,
subsequently issued by the State Department, confirmed what was stated by
Raphel. It did not change the content of the dish but merely the manner of
serving it.
   On December 27, 1993, President Clinton wrote to Ghulam Nabi Fai,
'Executive Director, Kashmiri American Council, saying that he shared the
latter's concern for human rights and looked forward to working with him to
help bring peace in Kashmir. In reply to a letter from Congressmen Gary
Condit and 15 others, President Clinton observed: "I am aware of the
chronic tensions between the Indian Government and the Sikh militants, and
share your desire for, a peaceful solution that protects Sikh rights." All
these statements and letters, issued in a short span of about four months,
clearly point to the direction in which the wind is blowing. President
Clinton's address to the U.N. Assembly where he virtually equated Kashmir
situation with that  prevailing in former Yugoslavia and Somalia; his warm
response to Fai, a self-styled interlocutor whose activities are funded by
Pakistan, and who is fueling terrorism in the Kashmir Valley; his reference
to Sikh rights as if Sikhs are not like other Indian citizens.
   and Rappel's highly provocative observations, questioning even the
validity of the Instrument of Accession, are all manifestations of US
increasing disposition to ignore Indian sctsnsiti ities, lean towards
Pakistan and indicate, in the process, a subtle preference for independent
or semi-independent Kashmir. There are other straws in the wind which point
in the same direction. On September 27-28, 1993, the Kashmir Bar
Association organized a "Lawyers Meet", at which a series of resolutions
were passed. One resolution (No. 5) says that the people should be given
'an option not to accede to either of the two countries, India or
Pakistan'. Reading between the lines, it is evident that public opinion is
being created to secure modification of the U.N. resolutions and provide
for the 'third option 'independent Kashmir. Efforts of this nature, there
are reasonable grounds to belie e, are being suffeptitiously encouraged by
US policy-makers. For the last two years, the US Institute of Peace,
Washington, a 'think tank' funded by U. S. Congress, has 'been showing
inordinate interest in Kashmir affairs. In continuation of the January 1993
meeting, another meeting was organized by the Institute in January 1994 and
I 5 union-officials from India, Pakistan and both parts of Kashmir', who
are believed by the Institute to exercise neural influence over public
opinion were invited. The 'framework' papers and Patten-of discussions,
albeit informal, seem to suggest that the 'position, of Kashmiris as
central actors' need to be given a 'top slot'.
   The intention was clear. it was to prepare a background for a change in
the thinking of both India and Pakistan. One of the Indian participants, in
an article written after the Washington meeting, argued: "How long can
India be indifferent to the status damage it suffers as a result of the
continuing blood-letting in Kashmir?". I Earlier, some academicians like
Prof Cohen who have a substantial say in the formation of American policy
on South Asia had begun arguing that "the road to accession to
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) runs through Kashmir", implying thereby that
India's current difficulties with regard to the Valley could be used to
pressurize it to sign the NPT. Taking an overall view of the situation and
longterm interests of the US in the region, its policy-makers seem to be
seriously thinking that it would be best to have an independent or
semi-independent Kashmir. Such a state could serve as an effective
instrument for putting pressure on China, if the need for doing so arises
in future. It could also help in acquiring a stronger foothold in five
Central Asian Republics and manipulating events in Russia to prevent an
unfriendly power-structure emerging there once again. Pakistan could become
a client state to a greater degree and India's arm twisted more forcefully
to sign the NPT. The United States is seeing new opportunities for itself
in the troubled waters of Kashmir and it is moving, albeit unobtrusively,
to seize these. Its basic objective is to remain as the only superpower in
the world, President Clinton, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly,
made it clear: "The United States intended to remain engaged and to lead".
An influential section of American academics have also been arguing that
the "bear may be dead but snakes and scorpions still roam". If India
encourages US moves on  Kashmir with a determined stand and by mobilizing
strong opinion in its favor, the US could well abandon or modify the course
it has presently taken.
   After all, Washington cannot afford to incur the hostility of a nation
of 880 million people. In this connection, it is worth recalling that when
the die-hard Try members of the British Parliament, like R. A. Butler and
Winston Churchill tried to browbeat India by espousing the cause of the
Nizam of Hyderabad 'the 'faithful ally of the empire', Sardar Patel firmly
told them not to stand by the 'old world' . He made it clear: "It is only
in goodwill spirit, and not on the malice and venom of Mr. Churchill's
tongue, that an enduring relationship of friendship can be built between
India and Britain and other members of the Commonwealth."; He thus
successfully prevented Hyderabad, which he described as an 'ulcer in the
abdomen of India', from becoming  cancerous. Such a forthright and fearless
stand towards Washington's new posture, I am sure, would help India in
retrieving the situation, besides sending the right signals to the
secessionists in the Valley.
   Unfortunately, India is taking a characteristically meek stand. When
President Clinton wrote to Fai, virtually ignoring the savagery of
terrorism in Kashmir, I wish someone from our foreign office had invited
his attention to what Senator Jackson said when the safety of American
citizens was itself uiider terrorist threat. Jackson observed: "The idea
that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter cannot be
sanctioned. Freedom fighters or revolutionaries do not blow up buses
containing non-combatants; terrorist murderers do.
   Freedom fighters do not assassinate innocent businessmen or hijack and
hold hostage innocent men, women and children; terrorist murderers do. It
is a disgrace that democracies should allow the treasured word 'freedom' to
be associated with acts of terrorists."
   From Delhi INDIAN EXPRESS in English Date 02 March 1994

#10  MINISTER RULES OUT VISIT OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION TO KASHMIR

(MAR. 15) MIDDLE EAST INTELLIGENCE REPORT -
   New Delhi has expressed the hope that Pakistan will now return to
bilateral talks with India on the Kashmir issue following its setback in
Geneva. The minister of state for external affairs, Mr. Salman Khurshid,
told a press conference in New Delhi today that India had a clear margin to
defeat Pakistan's resolution on Kashmir if it had been put to vote. Mr.
Khurshid, who returned from Geneva last night, said that there was
overwhelming opinion that the bilateral issue should not be raised at Human
Rights Commission forum. He denied entering into any tripartite deal with
Iran and China to enable withdrawal of the Pakistansponsored resolution.
Mr. Khurshid also ruled out any fact-finding commission of the Islamic
conference Organization to Kashmir.
   He, however, disclosed that India has invited the permanent
representatives of the ICO at Geneva to visit New Delhi for discussions.
   From Delhi All India Radio Network in English Date 11 March 1994

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

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 05:31:28 -0700
From: RAJESH <RAJESH_H1@sfov1.verifone.com>
Subject: U.S.- India Relations Turn Sour

#11  U.S.-INDIA RELATIONS TURN SOUR

Both are democracies with values in common. U.S. investment pours in.
On one level, ties have never been stronger. So what's wrong?

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES   (LATM)
Byline:   JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG
Credit:   TIMES STAFF WRITER
03/15/94
   One country is the world's most populous democracy, the other
its wealthiest. Both cast off the yoke of the same colonial power
but kept its language. One has the biggest free-market economy, the
other is moving in the same direction.
   Why, then, have relations between India and the United States
seemed so sour lately?
   The top U.S. official for India, Assistant Secretary of State
Robin Raphel, is due in New Delhi next week. "It's unlikely that
the inventory of the protocol division of the Ministry of External
Affairs includes a black carpet," snapped the Hindustan Times
newspaper. "But there is still time to acquire one."
   Vice President K. R. Narayanan, who was his country's envoy to
Washington in the early 1980s, is said to have observed that India
and the United States are nations divided by the same political
system. And Dennis Kux, a career Foreign Service officer, pointedly
titled his new history of Indo-U.S. relations "Estranged
Democracies."
   Superficially, events over the past six months seem to bear them
out.
   In October, Raphel-a former diplomat in New Delhi, a friend of
President Clinton's and the first head of the State Department's
new Bureau for South Asian Affairs-made some remarks on the
sensitive issue of separatism in the northern Indian state of
Kashmir.
   Kashmir joined India 47 years ago because of a maharaja's wish.
When Raphel suggested that might not be enough to grant India
perpetual title, Indian correspondents treated her off-the-record
comment as tantamount to a U.S. statement putting India's
territorial wholeness in doubt.
   *
   Two months later, the White House added fuel to an anti-American
blaze already raging in Indian dailies. A form letter to a
pro-secessionist Kashmiri group, bearing Clinton's signature, said,
"I look forward to working with you and others to help bring peace
to Kashmir." In another missive to a congressman about conflict in
the Indian state of Punjab-cradle of the Sikh minority and also
home to a secession drive-Clinton wrote of the need to safeguard
"Sikh rights."
   A gleeful band of Sikhs who accuse India's Hindu majority of
genocide of their people bestowed on Clinton the honorary title of
nawab. But much of the Indian Establishment fumed at what they
interpreted as Washington's trafficking with its enemies. The Press
Trust of India said that a "virulent group of anti-Indian
officials" had grabbed control of U.S. policy. The Pakistani high
commissioner, Riaz Khokhar, noted with amused satisfaction that he
was no longer the most unpopular person in Delhi.
   But the outrage of journalists, politicians and participants in
orchestrated protests on the broad streets near the U.S. Embassy is
just one theme in the schizophrenic story of U.S.-Indian relations
these days.
   Dig deeper, and it becomes clear that ties between this former
Soviet proxy and Moscow's chief Cold War adversary have never been
sounder or broader-based.
   In a more open India, more than $1 billion in new U.S.
investment was approved by the Indian government last year-more
than in all the other years since Indian independence combined.
Two-way trade was around $7 billion, with India the net leader by
about half a billion dollars.
   In January, India's president, Shankar Dayal Sharma, used the
tried-and-true language of anti-colonialism to reject foreign
"interference" but was chauffeured to an official function in a
Chevrolet. And a leftist-proposed boycott of Coke and Pepsi this
month fizzled before it began.
   U.S. and Indian diplomats are co-sponsoring U.N. resolutions on
controlling weapons proliferation; last year the two navies held
their first joint exercise.
   *
   Much of the sound and fury may be a last gasp of the
anti-Americanism that was once rife in the Indian political and
foreign policy Establishment. To many, the United States was the
architect of Union Carbide's deadly plant in Bhopal and, most
worrisome of all, an ally of archfoe Pakistan.
   In larger terms, the collapse of the Soviet Union left India
without its most influential friend on the diplomatic scene and
tore the rudder off its foreign policy. It is still seeking a new
course in the post-Cold War world.
   Some Indian journalists blame their colleagues assigned to
Washington or the foreign affairs beat for blowing largely harmless
remarks out of proportion.
   "They don't understand what they're writing about," said Subhash
Chakravarti, diplomatic editor of the prestigious Times of India.
India's leaders are said to be unfazed.
   "The government at the top is more inclined to look at the
opportunities rather than the problems," a high-ranking U.S.
diplomat said. On the most important issue for Prime Minister P. V.
Narasimha Rao's government, economic reform, U.S. support has been
steadfast and tangible.
   There is no single Indian viewpoint, of course, but many Indians
feel Americans don't pay enough heed to their sensibilities.
   "Our country is a young one, really," one former ambassador
said. "We feel it is still fragile. How would you feel if we said
that California was a `disputed territory' of the U.S.?"
   Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the father of modern
India, found Americans "immature" in their political thinking. He
drew the conclusion after his first visit to the United States in
the fall of 1949.
   As author Kux recounts, the Cambridge-educated premier found
talk at the White House less than stimulating-a main topic of one
dinner discussion between then-President Harry S. Truman and Vice
President Alben Barkley concerned the merits of Kentucky bourbon.
   Nehru's supercilious judgment is being heard in updated form
today. "One explanation for what is happening is that the Clinton
Administration is naive and commits blunders all over: Somalia,
Bosnia, etc.," said Satish Kumar, a professor of diplomacy at the
New Delhi university named for Nehru.
   But Kumar doesn't feel that explains everything. "While we know
that Clinton has made no adverse change as far as economic policy,
on political and strategic issues there is a distinct feeling . . .
that the Clinton Administration has taken a turn against India," he
said.
   Differences also abide on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
and alleged brutalities by Indian forces fighting insurgents in
Kashmir. Raphel's remarks, Kumar said, could be "kite-flying" to
test New Delhi's reaction.
   *
   In their most charitable interpretation, Indians say Clinton
Administration officials such as Raphel are proving inept at
getting their message across. The image they are casting,
intentionally or not, from across the ocean ends up affecting the
real stuff of relations as Indians get irked and demand that their
government do something.
   "You'd be ill advised to underestimate the depth of public
sentiment on this issue," Foreign Secretary Krishnan Srinivasan
cautioned an American journalist. India's government can't afford
to underestimate that sentiment.
   Two weeks ago, Home Affairs Minister S.B. Chavan told Parliament
that the United States is looking out for its own interests in
Kashmir and implied that all the talk about human rights from
Washington is a smoke screen. His blistering remarks drew an
expression of displeasure the next day from the top U.S. diplomat
in Delhi, Charge d'Affaires Kenneth C. Brill.
   *
   Brill is highly regarded by Indians, but the fact that since
March, 1993, he and not a full-fledged ambassador has represented
the United States in New Delhi also gives pause to some. The
nomination of former U.S. Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), known
here as a "friend of India," was held up for months as the FBI
conducted a background check.
   As of Monday, the embassy in New Delhi had not been asked to
seek approval from the Indian government, as protocol requires,
before Solarz's nomination can be made public, an embassy official
said.
   For those seeking evidence that the two democracies are still
estranged, the lack of a U.S. ambassador is simply more proof.
   "The fact that we don't mean an insult doesn't mean that the
Indians don't perceive it as an insult," said Sen. Hank Brown
(R-Colo.), who visited in December. "They do."

#12  POPULOUS INDIA NO CONTENDER WHEN IT COMES TO SPORTS

The huge country must overcome hurdles of poverty, bureaucracy and
politics to compete effectively, critics say.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES   (LATM)
Byline:   JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG
Credit:   TIMES STAFF WRITER
03/15/94
   The 20,000-seat stadium was brand new, the weather dry and
sunny, picture perfect for the National Games. On the eight-lane
polyurethane track, India's fastest men pushed their feet against
the blocks. "Take your marks, get set . . . ," the starter barked.
   Then-nothing but a dry click.
   Half a dozen times, officials lined the perspiring and
increasingly frustrated runners up for the 100-meter race, and just
as often, the starter's pistol refused to fire. While harried
stewards searched for a new gun, longer-distance events were set
off with a whistle.
   When another pistol was found, it was wide-striding Rajeev
Balakrishnan, 22, who finished first, his finger triumphantly
pointing at the sky. But the time clocked by the electrical
engineering student from Iowa State University, 10.78 seconds, was
almost a half-second over the national record for the 100 set 21
years earlier.
   Is any more evidence needed that something is seriously the
matter with Indian sports? "Why we have fallen so low is a basic
question that every Indian is asking," said Narotam Puri, a
celebrated New Delhi sports commentator and physician. "Everyone is
crying himself hoarse, because . . . we have fallen on hard times."
   These days sports are much more than physical recreation or
strenuous entertainment. They are a widely accepted indicator of a
country's development and state of public health, as well as an
often manipulated vehicle for international and domestic political
prestige.
   No wonder, then, that reviewing the overall record is enough to
make an Indian patriot or sports-addicted couch potato want to
change the subject. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, China, the
world's most populous country, grabbed 54 medals. India, the
world's second-most populous country, won exactly-none.
   India's humbling experiences when it competes with the best and
brightest in amateur athletics have been endless. In the past three
Olympiads-Barcelona, Seoul in 1988 and Los Angeles in
1984-individual Indian athletes didn't snare a single gold, silver
or bronze. In fact, since Indian independence in 1947, only one
Indian has won a medal in an individual event (welterweight
freestyle wrestler Khabasha Jadhav took the bronze in 1952).
   All other medals have come in the national sport, field hockey,
and India's fortunes there have collapsed since the introduction of
artificial turf made speed and brawn more important than
stickhandling. India's last Olympic medal in field hockey, a gold,
came in 1980 at the boycott-depleted Moscow Games.
   Indians are wont to compare their performance in everything from
economics to high-tech weapons production with China, and so
atrocious was Indian performance in the 1990 Asian games in Beijing
that shamed Indian reporters took to turning their press
credentials around to conceal their country. Indians won a solitary
gold.
   The ego-crushing nadir may have come this winter, when, at the
South Asian Games, pipsqueak Nepal beat India in soccer-a sport in
which India once finished fourth at the Olympics.
   Thoughtful Indians see in their country's generalized debacle on
the playing fields a reflection of many things they think are wrong
or questionable in their society.
   First, glory in sport has been supposed to serve the leadership,
making it an affair of state. At the 1982 New Delhi Asian games,
Chand Ram won the 20-kilometer walking race. Before he could take a
victory lap, he was frog-marched to the box of Rajiv Gandhi, then
general secretary of the ruling Congress Party, and made to touch
Gandhi's feet in obeisance.
   *
   Even today "what is being done is being done to please the
politicians," tartly summarized the usually cheery Milkha Singh,
63, the "Flying Sikh" whose 3-decade-old national records for the
200 and 400 meters have never been bested.
   "Indian officials are sitting between two stools" in sports,
Puri said. "They didn't know whether to follow the socialist model
where the state tried to control athletics, or the Western market
system." The hybrid result has proven ineffective.
   Since India is a democracy, it could not, like China, take
children away from their families to hone their talents. But since
sports is considered an affair of government, worthy of its own
ministry, bureaucrats inexorably came to head India's sporting
federations.
   "The bureaucracy has killed sports in this country," Shekhar
Gupta, senior editor of India Today and a lifelong sports buff,
complained. "All the budget gets eaten up by the Indian Sports
Authority. It's run by IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officers
who know as little about sports as I do about semiconductors."
   For Gupta, it's people like the courtly Kanti Chodhary, 75, a
member of the elite IAS, who epitomize the problem. The elderly
civil servant has been chosen to head the Fencing Assn. of India,
but acknowledges that the only blade he knows how to wield is a
razor.
   Some, including Puri, see India's mediocrity as a reflection of
far deeper problems, especially low economic and social
development. "The fact is, we are poor in sport. And we are poor in
sport because we are a poor nation," he explained.
   Tens of millions of his compatriots don't get enough to eat, let
alone have access to special nutrition or sports medicine
specialists, Puri notes, and it's also questionable whether the
vegetarian diet mandated by Hinduism produces champions.
   He is also troubled by the ethos of his country, where a Vince
Lombardi would hardly feel welcome. "Our sacred books tell us to do
our duty and not to worry about results," Puri said. "Indian
athletes generally lack the desire to be a world beater. And our
coaches don't have the skills to put it into them."
   There are Indians who note that cricket, now the reigning
passion, is played by millions of youngsters and that India does
field good teams. Likewise, Indians fare well in other sports of
somewhat blue-blooded pedigree, including tennis, golf and
billiards. That undoubtedly drains some talent. But a homebred
Olympic champion is all it would take for people to become
interested in other kinds of sport, Puri said.
   The vision of a better future, some hope, is now rising on the
dun-colored Deccan plateau outside the city of Pune. In a 300-day
building blitzkrieg, workers erected the Shri Shiv Chhatrapati
Sports City, including a flood-lit stadium with synthetic track, a
velodrome, an Olympic-sized pool and a Wimbledon-style tennis court
with galleries. A 1,000-apartment "Sports Village" to house
athletes went up in six months.
   "This is going to be our training grounds for future champions,"
brashly predicts Suresh Kalmadi, a former fighter pilot turned
member of India's Parliament and president of the Amateur Athletics
Federation of India. The project was Kalmadi's brainchild and that
of the powerful chief minister of Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar.
   And the stadium is only the beginning. Kalmadi foresees massive
investment by private firms for the first time in the history of
Indian athletics. He also wants to take advantage of the demise of
the Soviet Union by putting some of its underemployed athletes
under 10-year contract to supplement homebred coaching.
   The Maharashtra state government plowed more than $13 million
into building the 200-acre sports complex. The Indian government
chipped in $1.6 million.
   With sweating women still carrying pails of dirt and broken
rocks to the site to finish work on the gymnasium, the National
Games, the third such extravaganza in India's history, opened here
in January.
   *
   But while nearly 5,000 athletes took part in the 10-day meet,
only a single national record was broken, in the women's 200-meter
backstroke.
   Kalmadi points to the fact that the National Games marked the
first time private sponsors were allowed to help bankroll the
event-in return for commercial consideration.
   There lies the decisive break with India's past, Kalmadi says.
Once powerful sponsors are involved, they will keep the federations
"on their toes" and insist that the rupees they spend produce
champions, he contends.
   To encourage private companies to foot more of the bill for
sports development, the Indian government has devised a scheme to
make company contributions tax-free.
   Kalmadi promises no miracles by the time the next summer
Olympiad rolls around in Atlanta in 1996. "The gap between other
countries and our country is widening," he said. "Forget the
international level. In the next 10 years, let's talk about
reaching the Asian level."
   In America, as well as countries with monolithic state-run
sports programs like China, sports are often a stepping stone to a
job, even to prosperity. In India, that is rarely the case-another
factor discouraging participation.
   Paradoxically, those athletes who do win secure positions often
seem to lose their hunger to excel. P.T. Usha, acknowledged as
India's top sportswoman, is an example of the promise and problems
of Indian sports. She trained as a teen-ager by running barefoot on
the beach. The Kerala woman was fourth in the 400-meter hurdles at
the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, missing a medal by a hundredth of a
second. She never bettered that time.
   Instead of being coached to focus on Seoul in 1988, Usha's
talent was squandered to soothe Indians' bruised egos. At the 1985
Asian Track and Field Championships, she was entered in nearly
every race within her range, and won five golds and a bronze.
   Since then, Usha has given birth to a son, now nearly 2. And she
is dreaming of a comeback. She intends to begin racing
competitively in June or July in the 400 meters, with her eye on
the Asian games in Hiroshima in October.
   That's the event Indian fans will be watching to see if their
years of Olympic medal deprivation are over. Does Usha dream of
winning at Atlanta? "Maybe," she says. "I'll see how I perform
now."
Second String
The most recent Asian Games, in September, 1990, were humiliating
for India, indicating that the country was not even a regional
force in sports. It took just one gold medal.
   Medal totals
   China: 341
   South Korea: 181
   Japan: 174
   North Korea: 82
   Taiwan: 31
   India: 23
   Source: Competition Success Review Year Book, 1993, New Delhi.

#13  INDIA: JAPANESE STYLE - COURTESY THE WEST MIDLANDS

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH  London    (DTEL)
Byline:   CRAIG SETON
03/15/94
   SOME OF India's big industrial concerns, including Mahindra of
Bombay and Hindustan Motors of Madras, have turned to a British
company to help them become more competitive.
   They have signed contracts with Lucas Engineering and Systems,
which specialises in systems engineering techniques to update and
improve manufacturing processes. LE & S, based at Shirley in the
West Midlands, is the consultancy arm of Lucas Industries.
   Within a year the Lucas consultancy, working with Indian
associates, has opened its first two offices in India - in Madras
and Bangalore - to ride the wave of business deregulation on the
sub-continent, which is encouraging firms to bring in overseas
consultancies to aid them modernise manufacturing processes.
   The most recent of more than half a dozen contracts won by Lucas
is worth #400,000. It will bring about a full-scale manufacturing
change at Mahindra and Mahindra, the giant Bombay-based maker of
3,000 tractors a month, plus "off-road" type 4 x 4s and light
commercial vehicles, employing 17,000 at eight sites.
   It has a turnover of #350 million, but uses many traditional
processes regarded as uneconomic. The deal with Lucas is designed
to replace these with Japanese-style production lines.
   Mahindra is planning to increase its exports from five per cent
of total sales to about 15 per cent in two and a half years.
   Other Lucas contracts are with the Madras-based firms of
Hindustan Motors, manufacturer of earth-moving vehicles; TI Cycles,
which produces 3,000 bicycles a week, many of them mountain bikes
for export; Sundaram Abex, a brake-linings manufacturer; Sundram
Fasteners; and the auto-component maker Rane. A machine-tool firm
in Banglore has also signed up.

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