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-
- India News Network Digest Mon, 25 Jan 93 Volume 2 : Issue 12
-
- Today's News Topics:
-
- Indian Airlines pilots call off their strike
- Indian Coast Guard treating an oil leak in Andaman Sea
- Police unearth plot to blast buildings during Major's visit
- Pakistan renews Kashmir talks offer to India
- Britain pushes for economic stake in emerging India
- India, US to stage joint army exercises
- Hijacker jailed under India's anti-terrorist law
- Russia wants to sell trainer jets to India
- India urged to do more to win foreign investment
- Colombo says rebel leader had arms in death ship
- India's child workforce swelling, adult unemployment rising
- India says its oil reserves may last 21 years
- RBI announces new guidelines for entry of private sector banks
- Indian surgeon shows cheap alternative to liver transplants
- US charges Pakistan of persecuting minorities
-
- Editorials & Commentary:
-
- India chooses to remain silent over Pak nuclear reports
- - by N V Subramanian [ Part 2 ]
-
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-
- Date: 24 Jan 1993 14:12:07 -0500 (EST)
- From: dea@rpi.edu (Anirban De)
- Subject: Indian Airlines pilot call off their strike
-
- Source: All India Radio
- Time: 1pm EST (18:00 GMT), January 24,1993
-
- * Indian Airlines pilot call off their strike
- * Britain announces economic co-operations with India
-
- Pilots of Indian Airlines have called off their one and a half month old
- strike. The decision was made by their union following discussions with
- the minister for Civil Aviation Mr.Ghulam Nabi Azad. The pilots had
- demanded rise in their pay structure and better working conditions. The
- minister assured them that the government will consider their demands.
- ******
-
- Britain has announced various co-operative programs with India. This has
- come during the British Prime Minister Mr.John Major's on going visit to
- India. Among the ventures announced in London by the British Overseas
- Development minister was a 21.4 million pounds hydro-electric power project
- in Orissa.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: 24 Jan 1993 18:14:13 -0500
- From: dea@rpi.edu (Anirban De)
- Subject: Indian Coast Guard treating an oil leak in the Andaman Sea
-
- Source: All India Radio
- Time: 5pm(EST), January 24,1993
-
- Two Indian Coast guard vessels and several aircrafts are treating an oil
- leak in the Andaman Sea. 3 lakh (1lakh=100,000) tonnes of oil leaked into
- the sea when a Danish supertanker collided with a Japanese tanker near the
- Indonesian island of Sumatra.
-
- The oilslick, which is 400 meters across, is reported to be 40 miles from
- the Great Nicobar Island and moving in a north-westerly direction. The
- Coast Guard vessels are dropping chemicals on the oilslick and monitoring
- its movement.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: 24 Jan 1993 20:54:49 -0800 (PST)
- From: "Sukhjinder Singh Bajwa" <bajwa@asd.ENET.dec.com>
- Subject: Indian Police foil bomb plot during Major's visit
-
- * POLICE UNEARTH PLOT TO BLAST BUILDINGS DURING MAJOR'S VISIT
- By BRAHMA CHELLANEY
- NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- Four underground Sikh militants were arrested
- Sunday on charges they plotted to blow up government buildings in the
- Indian capital with a sophisticated Japanese-made remote control while
- British Prime Minister John Major watched a parade nearby. Major is scheduled
- to be the chief guest Tuesday at the three-hour annual Republic Day parade,
- which marks the anniversary of India's becoming a republic on Jan. 26, 1950,
- nearly three years after Britain withdrew from the Indian subcontinent in
- August 1947.
- Police in recent days have carried out a series of raids on suspected
- rebel hideouts and stepped up security throughout New Delhi to deter any
- terrorist attacks designed to disrupt Major's visit, said New Delhi Police
- Commissioner M.B. Kaushal. "The arrests are a major breakthrough in our
- efforts to keep the capital free of terrorist violence," Kaushal told a news
- conference. Besides the remote-control device, police also seized explosives,
- a sophisticated communications set and a Chinese-made pistol from the
- extremists, the police commissioner said.
- Major, who arrived in New Delhi late Saturday, begins his official visit
- on Monday. He is scheduled to leave India Thursday from Bombay. "Militants
- feel aggrieved by the recent Indo-British extradition treaty, and we don't
- want to take any risk on the Republic Day parade," Kaushal said.
- It will be the first time that a British prime minister will have the
- honor of being the chief guest at the colorful Republic Day parade. The parade
- travels each year from India's British-designed presidential palace to the
- 17th-century Red Fort, built by the same Mogul emperor who constructed the Taj
- Mahal, India's monument to love. Kaushal said investigators broke up the
- alleged plot after police captured Sukhjit Singh Sukhi, a leader of a splinter
- faction of the Khalistan Commando Force, one of several separatist groups in
- Punjab state waging hit-and-run campaigns.
- Information gained during Sukhi's interrogation led to the arrest of his
- three accomplices, the police commissioner said. During police questioning, the
- militants revealed that they had planned to blast several government buildings
- in the heart of New Delhi, Kaushal said. "The Japanese remote control had been
- smuggled into India via Canada," he said, adding that the device could set off
- a blast from a distance of at least 1.2 miles. Kaushal blamed the four
- secessionists for more than 50 slayings in Sikh-dominated Punjab, India's
- breadbasket.
- Analysts have said the visit by Major and planned visits by Russian
- President Boris Yeltsin, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and German
- Chancellor Helmut Kohl were part of an attempt by Prime Minister P.V.
- Narasimha Rao's embattled government to refurbish its international image.
- Rao's 19-month-old, minority government is facing growing criticism for its
- failure to control sectarian and ethnic unrest in India, where more than
- 1,600 people have died in communal violence since December alone. The
- government also confronts a serious economic crisis that has prompted it to
- seek up to $9 billion in additional credit from the International Monetary Fund.
- Britain and India signed an extradition treaty last September in a move
- to combat growing terrorist activity, particularly by Indian dissidents in
- Britain and at home. The treaty, denounced by Sikh and Kashmiri rebels as
- undemocratic, is to be presented to the British and Indian parliaments for
- ratification. The two countries also have signed an agreement to confiscate
- funds of militants and crack down on their money-laundering operations.
- Britain has a large number of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent,
- many of them from the troubled Indian states of Punjab and Kashmir. In the
- early 1980s, an Indian diplomat was assassinated by Kashmiri extremists in
- Britain. Indian Interior Minister S.B. Chavan told visiting British Home
- Secretary Kenneth Clarke earlier this month that large money-laundering
- operations in London were financing "terrorist violence" in India.
- Major's government has strongly supported India's efforts to curb
- militant violence, and has urged Pakistan to halt its "material aid" to
- Indian rebels. India accuses Pakistan of training and arming Sikh and Kashmiri
- militants -- a charge Islamabad denies, but which many of the rebels
- themselves acknowledge. Kaushal claimed the detained extremists had procured
- their explosives from Pakistan via a group of Kashmiri Muslim guerrillas.
- In an interview published Saturday in the Hindustan Times, New Delhi's
- largest newspaper, Major said: "There is an international battle against
- terrorism and it is a battle that needs to be joined by governments around
- the world and by civilized people around the world. "Thousands of people have
- perished in India in the past one year alone in hit-and-run attacks by
- underground extremists. Ethnic and sectarian unrest has emerged as India's
- top national-security problem.
-
- * PAKISTAN RENEWS KASHMIR TALKS OFFER TO INDIA
-
- ISLAMABAD, Jan 24, Reuter - Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on
- Sunday renewed an offer for talks with India to settle the festering
- dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir. He said in a statement Pakistan
- was ready "to engage in meaningful negotiations with India aimed at achieving
- a peaceful solution of the Kashmir issue taking into account the wishes of the
- Kashmiri people." Sharif made the statement while praising British Prime
- Minister John Major's call for India-Pakistan talks to settle the Kashmir
- dispute, which led to two of their three wars since independence from Britain
- in 1947. Relations between India and Pakistan have been tense because of a
- three-year-old revolt in the Indian two-thirds of Kashmir.
- India accuses Pakistan of training and arming Kashmiri militants
- fighting for an independent Kashmir or its accession to Pakistan. Pakistan,
- which controls the remaining one-third of the region, denies the charge and
- says it provides only political, moral and diplomatic support.
- Major called for the talks in an interview published by Indian newspaper
- The Hindustan Times last Friday ahead of a five-day visit to India from Sunday.
- Sharif had proposed talks on Kashmir in a letter sent to his Indian counterpart
- Narasimha Rao last August after New Delhi refused to discuss the matter in talks
- between the top foreign ministry officials of the two countries.
- Pakistani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mohammad Siddique Khan Kanju
- said last month Rao's response was "couched in terms that virtually shut the
- door on the possibility of a dialogue." Sharif said he hoped "the personal
- interest of the British prime minister would lead to a way out of the present
- impasse." Relations with New Delhi deteriorated last month after Hindu
- revivalists razed an ancient mosque in northern India and the two nations
- expelled each other's diplomats on spying charges.
-
- * BRITAIN PUSHES FOR ECONOMIC STAKE IN EMERGING INDIA
-
- By David Storey
- NEW DELHI, Jan 24, Reuter - Britain launched an aggressive bid on
- Sunday to build up trade and investment in India, taking advantage of
- liberal economic reforms in the world's second biggest nation. A group of 17
- top businessmen and industrialists, travelling with Prime Minister John Major,
- had a full day of talks with Indian businessmen and senior government
- officials to work for a bigger stake in the country's future.
- Major will meet Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and other government
- ministers on Monday to try to enhance Britain's political and economic role
- as India moves away from its close alliance with Moscow. British officials
- said the meetings showed India willing to open up to British companies, with
- special opportunities in power generation and supply, telecommunications and
- trade. Howard Davies, director-general of the Confederation of British
- Industry, told reporters there were still barriers, including India's labour
- laws which have encouraged overmanning, import tariffs and a need to make the
- rupee fully convertible.
- But one British official said it appeared "the political steam was
- there" for India to see its market reforms had not been undermined by a
- recent wave of communal violence. To underline the will for better ties,
- Britain is set to sign a double taxation agreement with India on Monday and
- announced 90 million sterling ($136 million) aid grants to the country on
- Sunday. After decades of suspicion from India towards the former colonial
- power both sides believe it is time for a new start. This has been symbolised
- by the invitation of Major as chief guest at Republic Day celebrations on
- Tuesday.
- "Diplomatically, commercially and economically there is a very powerful
- reason for being here," Major said in an interview with the British
- Broadcasting Corporation, partly in response to criticism of his trip at a
- time of big economic problems at home. He wants to build up new economic links
- across the world as part of moves to reverse Britain's alarming balance of
- trade problems. "Exports abroad mean jobs at home," he said.
- He also wants Britain to play the lead role for the European Community
- in this region. Two other EC leaders, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany and
- Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales, are due in New Delhi in the coming
- weeks. Britain is one India's top investment countries, but the level has been
- falling off and it is only 20th in the list of import sources. "What we
- have achieved up to now is just the tip of the iceberg of prospects for the
- future," Major said. In his talks with Indian leaders Major was expected to
- soft-pedal on two delicate issues that have long concerned Britain -- reports
- of human rights violations in the troubled northern state of Kashmir and
- India's nuclear potential.
- India says the conflict over divided Kashmir should be left to India
- and Pakistan to sort out and rejects pressure to sign the nuclear
- Non-Proliferation Treaty, arguing it discriminates between those who have
- and have not got nuclear weapons. Major leaves for talks with business leaders
- in Bombay on Wednesday before flying home on Thursday. India's protocol
- services have been stretched to the limit -- Russian leader Boris Yeltsin
- arrives on Wednsday in New Delhi.
-
- * BRITISH PREMIER ARRIVES HOPING TO CLINCH BILLION-DOLLAR HAWK DEAL
-
- NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- British Prime Minister John Major arrived with
- a high-powered business delegation in the Indian capital late Saturday,
- hoping to clinch a billion-dollar warplane deal and expand trade and
- economic ties. Major, criticized for leaving Britain at a time it is facing
- major difficulties, will meet with another leader, Indian Prime Minister P.V.
- Narasimha Rao, who is under growing national attack for his failure to tackle
- his country's growing domestic problems. For the first two days, Major is on
- a private visit and will stay at the British high commissioner's residence
- until he receives a ceremonial welcome Monday and moves to India's British-
- built presidential palace. Before leaving for home Thursday via Oman, Major
- will witness the signing of an agreement with India on avoidance of double
- taxation.
- "We have a big trading relationship...with India, but it can bigger.
- Many of these businessmen will be looking at investment in India, others at
- trading opportunities," the Hindustan Times, New Delhi's largest newspaper,
- quoted Major as saying in an interview before his departure from London.
- Major also has human-rights and arms-control issues on his agenda, according
- to British officials.
- India, which is wracked by growing sectarian and ethnic unrest, will be
- urged by Major to permit foreign human-rights groups to tour the troubled
- northern states of Kashmir and Punjab, both bordering Pakistan, the
- officials said. India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of "sponsoring terrorism"
- in the two states, and Major's home secretary, Kenneth Clarke, urged Islamabad
- earlier this month to halt its "material aid" to Indian dissidents,
- particularly Muslim fundamentalists in Kashmir. "We have urged Pakistan to do
- all it can to stop the violence in Kashmir," Major was quoted in the newspaper
- interview as saying.
- Major is expected to urge India to reconsider its opposition to the 1970
- Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, although British officials said that
- issue will not be high on his agenda. India, which demonstrated its nuclear
- capability in 1974 by detonating a plutonium device, says it cannot give up
- its atomic-weapons option because neighboring China has a large and growing
- nuclear arsenal and another rival, Pakistan, is engaged in a clandestine
- nuclear-arms drive.
- In the newspaper interview, Major said: "I understand the position of
- the Indian government (on NPT) -- they look at China." The British leader
- has brought senior aerospace officials to help clinch a deal to sell the Hawk
- -100 advanced jet trainer to the Indian Air Force. Indian Defense Minister
- Sharad Pawar earlier told the national Parliament that the competition to win
- the deal now was between the Hawk, favored by the Indian Air Force, and the
- French Alpha jet. Major is hoping that India, which has the world's fourth
- largest military machine, would agree to buy at least $500 million worth of
- Hawks initially. India, however, is reeling under a severe economic crisis,
- and is seeking $7 to $9 billion in additional credit from the International
- Monetary Fund. Until early 1991, India was the world's largest arms importer.
-
- * INDIA, U.S. TO STAGE JOINT ARMY EXERCISES
-
- NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- India and the United States are to stage joint
- army exercises and organize another naval maneuver together, American and
- Indian officials said Saturday. The two nations held their first joint naval
- exercise last June in the Arabian Sea and the next maneuver will be staged
- in the Bay of Bengal in the spring, the officials said.
- The exercises by the U.S. and Indian armies are to be in the form of
- simulated, computer-guided maneuvers, according to the officials, who spoke
- on condition of anonymity. The decision is regarded by analysts as significant
- because the U.S. Army has held such exercises only with its allies. The end of
- the Cold War has led to a perceptible warming of U.S.-Indian relations after
- two decades of tension-plagued ties.
- India was the former Soviet Union's closest ally outside the communist
- world, but now is forging a close strategic relationship with the United
- States.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: 24 Jan 1993 20:59:59 -0800 (PST)
- From: "Sukhjinder Singh Bajway" <bajwa@asd.ENET.dec.com>
- Subject: Hijacker jailed under India's anti-terrorist law
-
- * HIJACKER JAILED UNDER INDIA'S ANTI-TERRORIST LAW
-
- NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- A young Hindu radical was jailed Saturday
- under a sweeping anti-terrorist law for commandeering an Indian domestic
- airliner with 48 passengers on board, including two federal ministers.
- A police spokesman said Satish Chandra Pandey, 22, was imprisoned in
- Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state, under India's Terrorist and
- Disruptive Activities Act, which permits detention without charge or trial.
- Claiming to be armed with a chemically-laced bomb, Pandey hijacked an
- Indian Airlines plane on a flight to New Delhi Friday, forcing the pilot to
- return to Lucknow and then surrendering before a top leader of the
- pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata (Indian People's) Party, or BJP.
- Pandey said his three-hour hijack drama was intended to highlight the
- Hindu demand for the construction of a temple at the site where a 16th-
- century mosque was demolished last month when a BJP-sponsored rally turned
- violent. The hijacker, who claimed to be a BJP member, also demanded the
- release of all Hindu activists arrested in connection with the mosque
- demolition and the lifting of a recent government ban on three radical Hindu
- organizations.
- BJP leader Atal B. Vajpayee, a former Indian foreign minister who
- persuaded Pandey to surrender at Lucknow Airport, disputed the hijacker's
- claim he was a BJP member, pointing out that the youth failed to recognize
- him or his voice when he boarded the aircraft. "This is a conspiracy to
- defame me and my party," said Vajpayee, a nationally respected politician
- who represents Lucknow in Parliament. All passengers on board the hijacked
- plane escaped injury and were flown to the Indian capital on Saturday.
- A federal minister on board the commandeered aircraft, Krishna Shahi,
- said it became apparent to the passengers and crew members after a while
- that the handkerchief-wrapped object in Pandey's hand was not a bomb. However,
- "We did not want to take a chance. It was a tense situation," Ms. Shahi told
- reporters. Tariq Anwar, another senior politician of India's governing
- Congress Party traveling by the same plane, said: "Somehow the hijacker's
- declaration that he had a bomb in his possession was not convincing" to
- most passengers, and that he "kept on joking with fellow passengers."
- The dispute over the mosque site in Ayodhya, near Lucknow, continues to
- charge sectarian passions across South Asia. More than 1,600 people have
- perished in continued sectarian unrest in India since December. In Muslim
- Pakistan and Bangladesh, mobs last month wrecked scores of Hindu shrines
- and left thousands of minority members homeless. The mosque had idols of
- Hindu deities inside since 1949 and was open only to Hindu worshippers under
- court orders. Hindus believe the disputed site is the birthplace of their
- religion's legendary warrior- king, Lord Rama.
- The Indian government recently asked the Supreme Court to arbitrate on
- claims of Hindu archaeologists and religious figures that the Ayodhya mosque
- was built by a Mogul invader on the ruins of a temple he destroyed. The action
- was part of a government peace plan to help resolve the bitter, 450-year
- dispute over the site. Muslim and Hindu groups, however, have rejected the
- plan. Islamic fundamentalist leaders have called for a boycott of India's
- Republic Day celebrations next Tuesday.
- In recent years, India has been wracked by growing sectarian and ethnic
- unrest, which has emerged as its top national-security problem. Several
- parts of the country remain troubled by separatist insurgencies or
- greater-autonomy movements.
-
- * RUSSIA WANTS TO SELL TRAINER JETS TO INDIA
-
- NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Russia wants to sell trainer jets to India's
- air force and has joined a race with Britain and France to try to clinch
- the $500 million deal, a defense industry source said Friday. The disclosure
- comes as British Prime Minister John Major arrives in India on Saturday and
- President Boris Yeltsin of Russia on Wednesday for state visits. Their visits
- overlap but the two leaders are not scheduled to meet.
- Although Britain and France have long been in the race to sell India the
- aircraft, India could choose Russia because it owes Moscow billions of
- dollars in debts from trade with the former Soviet Union. Major and Yeltsin
- are both expected to outline deals to provide the Indian government with 88
- trainer jets, which can be converted from simple training aircraft to front-
- line fighter aircraft.
- The Russians first made an offer last year, according to the industry
- source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He declined to provide
- details. This is the first time a Russian interest in the deal has been
- reported. India once bought almost 80 percent of its military equipment from
- the Soviet Union. It now owes Russia as much as $15 billion. The Indian
- government had previously disclosed offers from British Aerospace for its Hawk
- aircraft and from the French company Dassault for the Alpha jet.
-
- * INDIA URGED TO DO MORE TO WIN FOREIGN INVESTMENT
-
- By Jeremy Clift
- BOMBAY, Jan 22, Reuter - Foreign firms are keen to invest in India
- despite recent riots, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao said, but India's
- central bank chief says more must be done to convert such interest into
- reality. Speaking ahead of visits to India by leaders of Russia, Britain and
- Germany, Rao told reporters on Thursday that more foreign investors were
- negotiating for Indian tie-ups.
- Major potential investors include Royal Dutch/Shell group, Unilever
- Plc, Siemens AG, Asahi Glass Co and Enron Corp. In a speech in Calcutta on
- Thursday evening, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor C. Rangarajan said the
- economy was showing distinct signs of improvement because of sweeping reforms.
- "There has been a distinct change in the climate for foreign
- investment," Rangarajan said. Investment approvals between August 1991 and
- October 1992 totalled US$1.22 billion, including 38 approvals for existing
- companies wanting to raise their foreign equity to 51 per cent. But he noted
- "most of the proposals approved both by the government and the RBI have yet
- to result in the actual flow of investment." "This does indicate that much
- more work needs to be done to translate the approvals into actuals," he added.
- Until Rao introduced major changes to India's inward looking economy in
- mid-1991, the country had failed to attract the big inflow of foreign
- capital achieved by China and southeast Asia. In 1991, actual foreign
- investment was little more than $100 million. But since then, India has begun
- to open its stock market to overseas investors, made the rupee partially
- convertible and revised the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), the
- cornerstone of the protected economy. Despite the changes, foreign investors
- complain of long bureaucratic delays, conflicting rules, corruption and poor
- infrastructure. "Added to this, political uncertainty now comes into the
- picture," said Manish Chokhani, an analyst with brokers Enam Financial
- Consultants in Bombay. He said following the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque
- by Hindu zealots last month, there was a chance of mid-term elections within
- six to eight months.
- Foreign investors are looking to the national budget at the end of February
- to provide a fresh spur to the economic reform programme by cutting taxes and
- tariff levels. Rangarajan said India's economy was expected to grow by four per
- cent in the financial year 1992/93 ending March against a 1.2 per cent rise in
- gross domestic product the previous year, with a good monsoon helping
- agriculture. Newly-appointed Commerce Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India must
- sharply boost its exports or it could face another balance of payments crisis.
- In an interview published in Friday's Economic Times, he said export growth at
- 5.9 per cent in the first eight months of 1992/93 was too low "and it appears
- we have missed the bus." All efforts must now be focused on improving next
- year's figures, he said.
-
- * COLOMBO SAYS REBEL LEADER HAD ARMS IN DEATH SHIP
-
- COLOMBO, Jan 22, Reuter - A Sri Lankan Tamil rebel leader who died in a
- suicide blast aboard a ship last Saturday was bringing anti-aircraft guns
- and other arms for the rebels, a government spokesman said. "Kittu was bringing
- anti-aircraft guns in the arms shipment when it was destroyed," Industries
- Minister and House leader Ranil Wickremasinghe told parliament on Thursday.
- He did not elaborate. Indian authorities have also said that Sathasivam
- Krishnakumar, alias Kittu, was returning to the northern Sri Lanka peninsula
- with an arms cache for the rebels. Kittu, a former rebel commander, and nine
- others were killed when they blew their ship up rather than surrender to the
- Indian navy, which had intercepted the vessel.
- The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas insist that Kittu was
- carrying only a Western-backed peace plan and have accused India of reneging
- on a promise to allow Kittu safe passage. "We had been informed of the Indian
- government's willingness to give protection and allow the safe passage of Kittu
- on his mission," rebel spokesman Anton Balasingham told a public rally on
- Wednesday in the rebel-dominated northern Jaffna peninsula.
- Kittu's ship, the Ahat, was heading towards Jaffna when it was intercepted
- by the Indian navy in what the Indian Defence Ministry said were Indian waters.
- The rebels, who are fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils, denounced
- the interception as a high-handed act of piracy, saying the ship was in
- international waters. Kittu, who lost a leg in a bomb blast in 1987 while he was
- the commander of the Tigers' Jaffna battalion, had been living in Europe and
- was a lobbyist for the rebels.
- Balasingham said the peace plan Kittu was carrying could have paved the
- way for an end to the 10-year-old ethnic conflict, which has killed 28,000
- people. He said the plan had Western backing including the support of the
- British-based Quaker Peace and Service group, which visited Jaffna last
- November for talks with rebel leaders.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: 24 Jan 1993 21:04:21 -0800 (PST)
- From: "Sukhjinder Singh Bajwa" <bajwa@asd.ENET.dec.com>
- Subject: India's child workforce swelling, adult unemployment rising
-
- * INDIA'S CHILD WORKFORCE SWELLING, ADULT UNEMPLOYMENT RISING
-
- NEW DELHI (JAN. 24) IPS - India's huge child workforce is responsible for
- the low economic productivity and increasing adult joblessness in the
- country, say activists. An estimated ten million people outgrow a childhood
- of physical abuse and drudgery every year to become sickly adults who not
- only have poor productive potential but are a burden on the overstretched
- health services. A recent survey by the Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF)
- found that 70 percent of the adult patients being treated in state-run
- hospitals had worked as children. Moreover, the swelling army of child workers
- is matched by growing adult unemployment, says Kailash Satyarthi of the BLLF,
- who also chairs a federation of South Asian activists campaigning against
- child labor in the region.
- India has about 120 million child laborers. And 55 million of these toil
- in subhuman conditions as virtual slaves to their employers even as an
- equal number of adults are jobless, he told reporters here today. "Children
- are the easiest and cheapest available labor in the market," says Satyarthi.
- They are too young to protest against harsh working conditions, and are not
- legally allowed to either unionize or seek legal redress.
- To increase awareness of the plight of bonded working children, Indian
- activists are planning a 930 mile march through some of the most backward
- parts of the country where parents are forced to put children to work to
- earn a living. The protesters who will include children freed from bonded
- labor by the BLLF, will travel in 15 days from Palamu district in eastern
- Bihar state to the Indian capital. Street plays, public meetings, exhibitions
- and films will be shown along the way to persuade illiterate villagers not
- to sell their children to middlemen recruiting for industries.
- Every year thousands of indigent parents in Palamu and Garawa districts
- in backward Bihar are duped by middlemen to part with their children
- against a monetary advance and promise of a regular monthly wage to the
- child. Bihar is the biggest "catchment area" for child workers and the bulk
- of them are the children of the marginalized castes and tribal communities,
- says Satyarthi. While poverty compels families to send their children to work
- instead of school, it is not realized that every working child deprives an
- adult of a job. Worse, children who work outside the home do so for a fraction
- of the adult wage and often for none at all. An estimated 10 million child
- workers face a life of chronic abuse where physical violence, including rape
- by employers is common, he adds.
- Studies show that most child laborers are from families where adults are
- unable to find 100 days of annual employment. "We have found that where
- parents are gainfully employed they prefer sending the children to school,"
- says Satyarthi. In the major carpet weaving region of Mirzapur-Bhadohi,
- 300,000 children work on looms even as 100,000 adults from that belt migrate
- every year in search of a livelihood. Mirzapur has 400,000 grown ups without
- jobs. However, unlike children employed outside their homes, the rest who
- labor with their parents either on small household farms or in a variety of
- low-income family enterprises, work in far more congenial conditions, he
- adds. Among children working outside homes, ten million are either farm
- workers or tend cattle. Another 2.5 million are engaged in the construction,
- stone quarrying, carpet weaving, fireworks, handloom, glass, gem cutting and
- lock industries, all of which are classed hazardous by the government.
- Lung infections, eye, skin and other diseases are common among children
- working in these profit-spinning industries some of which are major foreign
- exchange earners for the country.
-
- * INDIA'S STEEL PRODUCTION MAY FALL SHORT OF TARGET ...
-
- new delhi (jan. 22) xinhua - with sluggish demand and rising inventory
- levels, india's steel production during the current financial year may
- fall below target. during the first three quarters (april-december) the output
- of saleable steel grew by 8.3 percent against the targeted rate of growth of
- 11.6 percent for the full year, the local english newspaper "pioneer" today
- quoted highly-placed sources as saying. for the entire nine-month period,
- total output of saleable steel stood at 8.23 million tonnes against 7.6
- million tonnes in the april to december period in 1991.
- india's steel production in 1991-92 was about 12 million tonnes.
-
- * INDIA SAYS ITS OIL RESERVES MAY LAST 21 YEARS
-
- new delhi (jan. 22) xinhua - india's economically recoverable reserves of
- 725 million tonnes of oil may last for about 21 years at the current
- production rate of about 34 million tonnes per annum. this was announced by
- chairman of kerala state committee on science, technology and environment
- r.ravikumar at a function in trivandrum, the capital of south indian state
- kerala thursday.
- india has produced only 3.5 percent of its prognosticated reserves of 5
- billion tonnes of crude, he said, adding that this was one of the lowest
- reserve to production rate in the world.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 22:49:25 GMT
- From: gnreddy@dpg1.attmail.com (G.Narotham Reddy)
- Subject: Guidelines for Private Sector Banks Announced
-
- Source : The CGI
-
- * RBI announced new guidelines for entry of new private sector banks
-
- Bombay - The Reserve Bank of India on Friday unveiled a detailed 16-point
- guidelines on entry of new private sector banks in the country
- stipulating among other things that they would have to observe
- priority sector lending targets as applicable to other domestic
- banks.
- Such a bank shall be registered as a public limited company under
- the companies act, 1956, and be governed by the provisions of the
- reserve bank of India act, 1934, the banking regulations act, 1949 and
- other relevant statutes, in regard to its management set-up, liquidity
- requirements and the scope of its activities, the RBI said.
- In issuing the guidelines, the RBI said while recognising the
- importance and the role of public sector banks, which have now 91 per
- cent of the total bank branches and handled 86 per cent of the total
- banking business, there was an increasing recognition of the need to
- introduce greater competition which could lead to higher productivity
- and efficiency of the banking system.
- The RBI said in a press release it was necessary that while
- permitting the entry of new private sector banks the following
- considerations have to be kept in view.
-
- (a). They sub-serve the underlying goals of financial sector
- reforms which are to provide competitive, efficient and low cost
- financial intermediation services for the society at large.
- (b). They are financially viable.
- (c). They should result in upgradation of technology in the banking
- sector.
- (c). They avoid the shortcomings such as unfair preemption and
- concentration of credit, monopolisation of economic power, cross
- holdings with industrial groups, etc, which beset the private sector
- banks prior to nationalisation.
- (e). Freedom of entry in the banking sector may have to be managed
- carefully and judiciously.
-
- Based on these considerations, the RBI has formulated the
- guidelines for establishment of new banks in the private sector.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 00:18:16 GMT
- From: gnreddy@dp1.attmail.com (G.N.Reddy)
- Subject: Indian Surgeon shows cheap alternative to liver transplants
-
- Source : Press Trust of India
-
- * Indian Surgeon at Osmania Hospital shows cheap alternative to liver
- transplants
-
- New Delhi - An Indian surgeon has shown that liver cells retrieved
- from aborted human foetuses are a cheap and life-saving alternative to
- expensive liver transplants for patients dying of liver failure.
- Dr.C.M Habibullah, chief gastroenterologist at Osmania general
- hospital, Hyderabad, on Friday announced that his team had successfully
- treated three out of seven patients on the verge of death by simply
- injecting foetal liver cells into their stomachs.
- four patients, however, died due to complications.
- "Hepatocyte (liver cell) implantation is a promising alternative
- to whole liver transplants," Dr.Habibullah said, delivering a special
- guest lecture at the annual meeting o the association of Indian
- physicians here.
- Over 200,000 patients die of liver failure in India each year.
- Liver transplants are the only hope for a majority.
- The Osmania group has shown that clusters of tiny liver cells
- isolated from either aborted human foetuses or animals like dogs of
- goats can take over the function of a diseased or damaged liver.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 00:26:39 GMT
- From: gnreddy@dpg1.attmail.com (G.Narotham Reddy)
- Subject: Pakistan Persecutes Minorities - U.S Charges
-
- Source : Press Trust of India
-
- Washington: The U.S state department has charged Pakistan with persecuting
- minorities - Hindus, Christians and Ahmadi Muslims who have been
- declared non-Muslims by the fiat of the Pakistan government.
- The department's annual human rights report also reports continued
- human rights violations in Pakistan especially the violation of rights
- of non-Punjabis.
- The department also says that Pakistan is ruled not by the elected
- Prime Minister but by a troika of the Prime Minister, President and the
- Army Chief of staff. The Chief of Staff, it says, "wields considerable
- influence on many major policy decisions."
- The report says "Hindus complain of continued kidnapping and forced
- conversions of young women, desecration of Hindu shrines and temples,
- disruption of prayer services, and the burning of Hindu texts as well
- as the torture of detained Hindus."
- "Christians have had difficulty obtaining permission from local and
- federal officials to build new churches and continue to work through the
- courts to regain possession of educational institutions nationalised
- during the 1970's.
-
- ------------------------------
- ______________________________________________________________________________
-
- Editorials and Commentary
- ______________________________________________________________________________
-
- Date: 09 Jan 1993 19:42:25 -0400 (AST)
- From: Prasad Gokhale <f0g1@jupiter.Sun.CSD.unb.ca>
- Subject: India Chooses To Remain Silent Over Pak Nuclear Reports -Part 2 of 2
-
- Article : India Chooses To Remain Silent Over Pak Nuclear Reports
- By : N. V. Subramanian
- Typed by: G. Narotham Reddy (gnreddy@cbnewsf.cb.att.com)
-
- What is India doing to contain this threat ? Defensive measures are
- few. NBC reported that in Spring 1990, the Pakistani Air Force (PAF)
- planned to use a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.
- This is an old technique, used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An aircraft
- flying at over 30,000 feet drops a one ton bomb in much the same way as
- food and supplies are dropped during the war and peace. The plane escaped
- the after shock of the nuclear explosion. But it is still slow enought to
- report the birth of a grotesque mushroom cloud.
- And yet this method as little chance of succeeding today. Suppose a
- Hercules is sent up. Pakistan is just 400 km across. Any Indian radar will
- detect it 150 kms within Pakistani airspace itself.
- Plus, the Herculeus is slow by modern standards. It will never get
- pass air and ground defenses. If PAF fighters are scrambled to protect it,
- its still wont help. Atleast two squadrons will have to be deployed. And
- such a large number of aircrafts will "paint" on Indian radar screens hun-
- dreds of miles from within Pakistan.
- The second problem is that fighters have to slow down to cover the
- Hercules. "And at the C-130's speed of 400 kmph, fighters fall out of the
- sky," joked an air marshal of the Indian Air Force. "They will have to do
- dubious maneovers just to stay airborne. This will reveal their mission."
- It is another matter if the PAF uses tactical strike aircraft to make
- a nuclear attack. The F-16 is equipped for this role. But the Americans
- have denied the PAF crucial accessories that would help.
- "We have no evidence that they have modified F-16 or other strike
- aircraft," disclosed a senior IAF officer. "And, if they have, we can't
- counter them."
- Still, it isn't all that easy to make these modifications. Indian
- defense scientists have been at it since 1988. And there is still little
- reason to believe that they have done any better or worse than the Pakis-
- tanis.
- Several problems come in the way. A transporter can drop any shape of
- bomb. But a strike aircraft imposes limitations. The bomb has to be aero-
- dynamic. This is because they employ a complex maneuver to drop it on the
- target.
- This is called toss bombing. A fighter flies slow and at high speed.
- Fifteen kilometers from the target it undertakes a 45 degree climb and the
- bomb is released. The projectile then takes a parabolic path and strikes
- the target at a speed of 11,000 kmph.
- Indian pilots have acquired a degree of precision in this job. At the
- Pokharam and Jodhpur ranges, they have scored hits within ten yards of the
- target. But they have used conventional weapons. No one knows how a
- nuclear bomb will behave.
- In the west, nuclear weapons are encased in a device not unlike con-
- ventional drop tanks. It is strapped either to the fuselage or the wings.
- It is made of alloys that can stand the high temparatures generated at
- mach to speeds. Which means, the nuclear bomb is safe.
- But this equipment is not tradabale. Indian defense scientists began
- work on this in 1988. They picked the Jaguar. Even the MIG-23 BNs were
- tested becuase they have an inbuilt, toss bombing computer.
- The results, however, are not known. They could be comforting, of
- course. But since the 1974 Pokharam implosion, India has never ridden the
- technology tiger. There is an inbuilt resistance to adopt a posture of
- nuclear offensive. Even this time, some defense analysts urged the estab-
- lishment formally to go unclear.
- But New Delhi has stuck to a position that air commodore Jasgit
- Singh, Director of Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis, quaintly
- calls "recessed deterrance."
- What does it mean?
- "Simply, that we have the capability to produce nuclear weapons, but
- they don't exist on the surface," explains Singh. "After Pokharam, we do
- not have to prove anything to anyone. We have the capacity to weaponise at
- a short notice. And we do not have to cross the threshold unless pushed to
- the wall."
- "This way, the initiative rests with us," says Singh. What about the
- lag time ( between the order to produce an actual production weapons )?
- "shorter than the time required by the other side to use it," he replies.
- And yet, recessed deterrance has its limitations. Not only must bomb
- be just a screw driver away from life, but political and military systems
- must be in place for effective use of the weapon. In simple words: it is
- just not enough to have a bomb.
- You have also got to know how to use it.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- End of India News Network Digest
- ********************************
-