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CIA map 'bifurcates' Kashmir into east and west

          New Delhi, May 5: Kashmir apparently is no longer a disputed territory as far as US Central Intelligence Agency is concerned. The new map it has released shows the area east of the Line of Control as "Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir" and describes the region to its west as "Pakistan-controlled areas of Kashmir." If there is any political meaning in the change, it is not immediately clear. (Contd)

Pak ready for composite dialogue, but says Kashmir is core issue

          Islamabad, May 5: Pakistan said on Monday it was ready for a composite dialogue with India, but added disputed Kashmir remained core issue between the two countries. "We are ready to discuss all issues but we feel that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is the core issue and the sooner attention is paid to it, a serious attention is paid to it, is better. But this does not mean and it has never meant that it would be exclusive and we are not ready to discuss other issues as well," Aziz Ahmed Khan, Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson, told reporters in Islamabad. "If you recall even at the finance secretary level when the dialogue was going on between India and Pakistan, there were several areas which were identified, eight different groups of areas were made and it was a composite dialogue. We want the same composite dialogue but we feel that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is the core isssue, is the main problem betweeen Pakistan and India," Khan added.

          Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said earlier he would make a decisive bid to make peace with Pakistan. Vajpayee, who held two failed peace summits with Pakistan in 1999 and 2001, also said New Delhi would restore full diplomatic ties with Islamabad and reopen air links. The nuclear-armed rivals cut air and rail links and downgraded diplomatic relations after an attack on India's parliament in December 2001, which India blamed on Pakistan-based militants fighting India rule in Kashmir.

          Khan said every Indian gesture would evoke positive response from Pakistan. "We hope that the modus operandi to be put into motion all these things that have so far been announced or indicated, would start soon but as we said as far as we are concerned for every gesture there would be a positive response from our side. It's too recent and hopefully it will start soon," said Khan. Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Monday invited opposition leaders to discuss a thawing of relations with arch-rival India. Jamali told US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday he had formally invited Vajpayee to visit Pakistan and would soon announce measures at promoting peace in the region.

Major Iraqi faction heads to run country: Garner (Go To Top)

          Baghdad, May 5: Up to nine Iraqis representing different opposition factions are to run an interim government for the country, US civil adminstrator Jay Garner told reporters Monday. However, he said he did not know how the collective leadership would function specifically. The retired lieutenant general referred to Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, whose elder brother heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

          Garner said the group would likely be expanded to include a Christian and perhaps another Sunni figure. Garner said he expected the newly-appointed career diplomat Paul Bremer to arrive by next week and take charge of the political process within the post-war US administration.

          Meanwhile, Britain has restored diplomatic relations with Iraq after 12 years as its first ambassador to the post-war Iraq arrived on Monday. Christopher Sager will start work with a three-member staff in the British embassy building that was closed during the 1991 Gulf war. The embassy staff will also extend help in rebuilding of Iraq.

Cong, SP demand Togadia's arrest (Go To Top)

          New Delhi, May 5: The Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which otherwise have a love-hate relationship, on Monday found a common platform demanding immediate arrest of controversial VHP leader Praveen Togadia. The two parties accused the rightist leader of disrupting communal harmony in different parts of the country through his "trishul diksha" programmes. Members of both the parties in the Lok Sabha vociferously demanded Togadia's arrest under POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act).

          Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Samajwadi Party member Ramjilal Suman said Togadia should not have been allowed to undertake the "trishul diksha" programme in the Capital on Sunday, as it might have led to communal disharmony. He alleged that a few youths who were demanding jobs and not 'trishuls' were roughed up by VHP activists. He said the rightist organisation was raking up the issue with the objective of reaping political mileage ahead of assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. Supporting SP leader's viewpoint, Congressman Pravin Rashtrapal said Home Minister LK Advani should explain why Togadia was allowed to go ahead with his programme. He also condemned the arrest of Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress chief for protesting against the VHP's programme of 'trishul diksha' on Sunday.

Sars claims 9 more lives in China, 3 in Hong Kong (Go To Top)

          Beijing, May 5: China on Monday reported nine new Sars deaths and 160 new cases, quoting the health ministry. It took the nationwide toll to 206 and the total number of cases to 4,280. Beijing now has 103 dead and 1,897 confirmed cases. An additional 177 suspected cases were noted, including 65 in the Chinese capital, giving a nationwide total of 2,604 and a Beijing total of 1,510. So far, 1,433 people have recovered and discharged from hospital. In Hong Kong another three people died of Sars, while eight new cases of the disease were recorded, health officials said Monday.

28 die in Bangla tornado (Go To Top)

          Dhaka, May 5: Continuous rains and storms killed 28 people in Bangladesh, a press report said on Monday. Nineteen people were killed when Katcha houses collaped in Nauabadi, a remote area of the country. Search for the survivors trapped under the rubble is on. The death toll could rise, apprehended a government official. Lightning killed four people in Sylhet and two in Mymensingh districts.

India set to launch major space rocket again (Go To Top)

          Bangalore, May 5: India said on Monday it plans to launch its biggest space rocket GSLV-D2 again, two years after the first successful test launch. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (Technology) - Demonstrator 2nd (GSLV-D2) would place in a geo-synchronous or earth-stationary orbit an experimental communication satellite, GSAT-2 weighing 1,800 kg. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman said the experimental flight of GSLV has been set for May 8. "Now at this point for the GSLV mission, the forthcoming mission...this mission now we have targeted for the launch into opening on May 8 at 4:58 pm minutes and the window will open on that day from 4:58 pm to 7:30 pm and subsequently we have the windows on the 9th and 10th but they will be for 45-minutes each," ISRO Chairman K Kasturirangan told a press conference in Bangalore.

          Earlier, India successfully lauched GSLV-D1. A key aspect of the GSLV is its use of a Russian cryogenic engine that uses liquid hydrogen as fuel in the final third stage that helps place the satellite in a geostationary or sun-synchronous orbit as high as 36,000 km in space. The GSLV is a successor to the PSLV or Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). With GSLV, India has joined the elite group with the United States, Russia, Japan, China and the European Space Agency which can all hoist hefty communication satellites deep in space. ISRO is also developing its own cryogenic engine which would eventually replace the Russian engines.

          Experts say the GSLV would be big boots to ISRO's capability and replace costlier foreign launch services. The GSLV programme was launched in 1990 with a 14-billion rupee budget. India's decades-old space programme has in the past relied heavily on France's Arianspace group to put its satellites into space.

J and K 'darbar' moves to Srinagar, now that summer is here (Go To Top)

          Srinagar, May 5: As per the annual practive since 1882, the state's civil secretariat shifted from Jammu to Srinagar, the summer capital, on Monday. The government offices will start functioning in Srinagar from May 10. More than 6,000 officials will move during the next ten days. Srinagar is 300 km north of Jammu. The secretariat shifts every spring and autumn between the two capitals in conformity with changing weather patterns. The darbar move has been in vogue since the days of princely rulers. There have been moves by successive governments to stop this practice which is a drain on the exchequer, but they have not been successful so far.

Mango to be cheaper this year (Go To Top)

          New Delhi, May 5: The 'king of fruits' mango is likely to be cheaper, and more affordable, this season due to a bumper crop this year, Union Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh said here on Monday. The minister said that due to unusual cold spell some loss of production was reported from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, but in the rest of the country mango was in plenty. Bumper crop was particularly reported from Uttar Pradesh, Singh said while speaking during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha. He said no state had sought Central assistance to help mango growers cope up with production loss, if any.

CIA map 'bifurcates' Kashmir into east and west (Go To Top)

          (Contd) The point is that the map, certainly approved at the highest level after thorough scrutiny, will be taken as the official US position on the subject and quoted by everyone as and when necessary. Maps often convey more than mere physical details. For example, it was the US Air Force Aeronautical Charts of the early 1960s that drew a straight line joining Point NJ9842 with the Karakoram Pass to the east. This point marks the last point of the mutually agreed LoC according to the bilateral 1972 Simla Agreement, reports the News.

          This line, which depicted the Air Defence Information Zone, was not meant to indicate a boundary and could not be interpreted as such. But within years many of the reputed world atlases started treating the straight line as the eastern boundary of Pak- occupied Kashmir. The Times Atlas, the daily added, had till at least 1967 shown a notional extension of the cease-fire line beyond NJ9842 as going northward (in tune with the 1949 Karachi agreement between India and Pakistan). But its post-1971 editions began to indicate the ADIZ line as the eastern boundary of PoK.

          In due course, Pakistan started to claim this line as the boundary and even cited international atlases in evidence. This is how the Siachen dispute was born, although in reality the line runs along the Saltoro Ridge and should have been called by that name. The current US government map no longer indicates the Siachen region as part of PoK and in fact marks it as "Indian Occupied since 1984" shifting the "Azad" region's limits west of the Saltoro Ridge.

          India had practically reached an agreement with Pakistan by the early 1990s to accept the Saltoro Ridge as the "Actual Ground Position Line," but it was not implemented. The CIA, therefore, has, the paper argues, corrected an old wrong. While it may not go all the way to meet the Indian position, the acceptance of the fact that the area east of the LOC is an Indian state significantly implies that Indian sovereignty over this part of J and K is not disputed by Washington.

          This, incidentally, was the initial position taken by US Secretary of State George Marshall when India took the issue to the UN, till the British canvassing changed it by 1949. Interestingly, this was also the core of the August 13, 1948 UN resolution. The "dispute" thus is really about the "Pakistan- controlled" areas, according to the daily.