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Border row on agenda for Indian PM's visit: Chinese official  (REPORT)

Atmosphere for polls favourable for BJP: Vajpayee

          Thane, June 18: Asserting that the NDA government's performance has impressed the people, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Wednesday asked BJP workers to strive single-mindedly to achieve victory in the forthcoming Assembly polls in five states and in the 2004 parliamentary elections. The atmosphere in the country is favourable for BJP and its allies ... let our entire army of workers go to the people with self-confidence and explain to them about our achievements in the past and about our vision for India", Vajpayee said inaugurating the brain storming session of the BJP at Uttan in nearby Thane district, about 50 km from Mumbai.

          "People have formed a good opinion about our party because of the work done by us in the past five years on diverse fronts. We have succeeded in giving a stable government", the prime minister told BJP's 'Chintan Baithak'. The government's fight against cross-border terrorism was becoming effective, Vajpayee said adding BJP and NDA had grown in stature nationally and internationally. "However, contrary to the propaganda of adversaries, it is being widely perceived that we care for all sections of people and take all of them along with us", he said. "Our asset is the credibility that we have gained both before and after we came to power as a party that always works in the interest of the nation", the prime minister remarked.

Pakistan may get F-16s: Report (Go To Top)

          Washington, June 18: The United States has decided to provide F-16 warplanes to Pakistan in return for Pakistan's support for US stance against Iran and North Korea, the US Defence and Foreign Affairs daily reported Wednesday. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was said to have informed Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani during his recent visit to Washington about the US decision. The decision could be announced during Musharraf's US visit, the report said.

Advani and Musharraf tell different 'Line of Control' stories (Go To Top)
-by Trevor Barnard

          London, June 18: Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had opposing stories to tell journalists at Press conferences in London today. Musharraf declared that "nothing was happening" across the the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, while Advani claimed that during the ten days he had been away from India he had received daily reports of infiltrations. The Pakistani President spoke briefly after a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the first stage of a four-nation tour that will also include talks with President Bush at Camp David next week. He denied that Pakistan was allowing militants to cross the Line of Control, saying: "There is nothing happening across the Line of Control; let us not be blackmailed on this issue by the Indian side".

          Asked for his response at a joint Press Conference with British Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary Jack Straw, the Deputy Prime Minister said: "I left India on the 7th of this month, today is the 17th; even in these ten days, almost daily I have been getting reports of the attempts at infiltration, and how some of these attempts at infiltration have been aborted by the security forces, eliminating the infiltrators. In fact this interception of infiltration is the only hard way in which we come to know whether infiltration is declining, or is the same, or is increasing". This pointed to the conclusion, he said, that though two months had passed since Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had offered to open talks on friendly relations with Pakistan there had been "no perceptible decline in the level of either infiltration or terrorist excess". Musharraf also told his Press conference that, contrary to what India was saying, the "rebellion" in Kashmir was a local matter.

          Jack Straw was asked what the British point of view was on this issue. Standing beside his Indian guest he said: "We have a single definition for terrorists. We have supported the Government of India's comprehensive draft convention on terrorism, which defines terrorists as terrorists". Advani's meeting with Straw wound up his talks with British ministers. On Monday he had talks in the garden of 10, Downing Street, with Blair, and lunch with Home Secretary David Blunkett at the House of Commons. Today he had lunch as the guest of his counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and an evening interactive session with the "Friends of India" of all three major political parties.

          He described his meeting with Blair as the highlight of his visit, and said he had given the British Prime Minister an overview of India's position on the resumption of a dialogue with Pakistan. He said Blair had expressed complete understanding of India's demand that cross-border terrorism must cease and the terrorist infrastructure dismantled, and had undertaken to underline these concerns during his meeting with Musharraf today. What precisely Blair told the Pakistani President has not been reported, but Musharraf was able to tell journalists that there was total understanding across the lunch table on issues ranging from Afghanistan to relations with India.

Some rain in Delhi, some relief for people (Go To Top)

          New Delhi, June 18: Pre-monsoon rains brought down the temperatures here on Wednesday, bringing relief to the people. The city experienced cool breeze as temperatures came down to 25 degrees Celsius after rising as high as 45.8 degrees Celsius during the month-long heat wave conditions. Residents said they felt happy as the unexpected rains brought relief from the sweltering heat. "It's really feeling good. There was a lot of heat for the last few days and the temperatures had really gone up. There was a lot of humidity in the atmosphere due to which it had become increasingly difficult for us to come out of the house," said Vandana, a local resident.

          Some Delhi'ites even felt a hint of romance in the air. "I feel basically the weather is quite romantic," said Pearl. Lack of rainfall had caused acute water shortage in New Delhi. The June-September monsoon is crucial to India's economy as about 70 per cent of its one billion people live off farming and agriculture makes up about a quarter of the economy. In the coming weeks, the rains are expected to advance slowly to the rest of the country.

Court directs Shilpa's father to surrender (Go To Top)

          Ahmedabad, June 18: A local court on Wednesday directed Surendra Shetty, father of actress Shilpa Shetty, to surrender before police on or before June 20. Shetty faces arrest in an alleged extortion case which has been linked with the underworld. SV Raju, Shetty's counsel, said his client always wanted to surrender. "Surendra Shetty will appear in front of the police before or on June 20. If the police wants to arrest him, they can, if not then also it's okay...Personally speaking from my side, I felt that it was a good case to argue in the Supreme Court. But my client cannot undergo this agony. Ultimately there is agony, there is always a fear. He has taken a decision, it was his decision to surrender. He wants this matter to end as early as possible," Raju told reporters after the court's decision. Police had registered a case against Shetty, his wife and a gangster for allegedly extorting money from the owner of a garment company, to recover eight million rupees payable to Shilpa, who had acted in an advertisement film produced by the company.

13,000 Muslims in US face deportation (Go To Top)

          New York, June 18: Over 13,000 Muslims, many of them Pakistanis, found to be living illegally in the United States during the special US immigration registration process, are expected to be deported. Last December the US immigration department began requiring young men, mostly from 25 Muslim nations, to register in the hope of keeping track of recent arrivals from countries linked to terrorism, says Dawn.

          The last deadline was late April for males over 16 from Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Similar deadlines had passed for males from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and many other countries. A total of 144,513 immigrants registered nationwide, according to the US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Enforcement, formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Of those, 13,434 have had deportation proceedings started against them. The agency said 2,783 were detained, with 99 remaining in custody as of June 1, the most recent statistics available. Many Pakistanis, who were unable to adjust their immigration status in the United States have either fled to Canada or European nations seeking political asylum, many have returned home. Although US authorities had held out an assurance that the process would be fair and transparent, most of the people fearing deportation left the United States after living here for more than 10 years.

          Even immigrants married to the American citizens, who were unable to adjust their status before registration would be subject to deportation.Immigration lawyers and advocates complain that the registration programme amounts to racial profiling. A spokesman for the newly-established Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Enforcement Service (BCIS) , under the Homeland security office said: "We need to know who's coming in, are they leaving, and what they do while they're here." "In a post-9/11 world, we need to develop a system to track entrances and exits. Lets start with the higher-risk visitors, those who come from nations where Al-Qaeda is known to exist," he said.

Two security men, two militants killed in Kashmir (Go To Top)

          Srinagar, June 18: Two security personnel and two militants, one of them allegedly a Hizbul Mujahideen member, were killed in two encounters in Kashmir Valley since Tuesday night. The Hizb commander and his aide were killed in an encounter with army during search operations at Chilipora village in Pulwama district on Tuesday night, according to sources. A JCO of Rashtriya Rifles died and two jawans sustained injuries in anotrher gunbattle. Meanwhile, a BSF sub-inspector was killed when militants opened fire on a search party at a village in Chrar-e-Sharief area of Badgam district on Wednesday.

Border row on agenda for Indian PM's visit: Chinese official (Go To Top)

          Hong Kong, June 18: The long-standing border dispute between India and China might come up for discussion during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's forthcoming visit to the neighbouring country, according to Chinese foreign ministry spokesman. The Prime Minister's six-day trip to China begins June 22. The statement assumes significance in the wake of comments by a senior Indian official, who last week said that the process of resolving the two countries' border dispute was 'painstakingly slow' and had to be accelerated to improve relations.

          Pakistan's national daily `News' quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao as saying, "I believe China and India will discuss the border issue during Vajpayee's visit." Liu said this on Tuesday during the regular weekly briefing. Sino-Indian relations had enjoyed 'good momentum' in recent years, he said, adding that China was happy with the progress in bilateral ties. "China and India are two large developing countries," he said. "The development of ties between the two not only conforms with their own interests, but with peace and stability in the region and the world as a whole," the spokesman said.

          During the visit, Vajpayee will tour Beijing and Shanghai as well as the ancient capital Luoyang. It will be the first trip by an Indian prime minister to China in a decade, and is expected to give a fillip to the process of resolving the territorial dispute.