Pattanka also flagged off a convoy of army trucks in Leh, the main city of Ladakh region of the troubled Jammu and Kashmir, which left for Srinagar. "For the BRO (Border Roads Organisation) it throws up a very major challenge because of great difficulty in clearing this," Pattanka said.

"This as you know is one of the two important lifelines towards Ladakh and this also marks the beginning of our movement from Srinagar valley towards Leh-Ladakh. It means a number of things. It means carrying all our supplies to the civilian population, to the troops which are in Ladakh. So it's a very significant event," he added.

The road, the country's highest altitude road, is being maintained by the BRO, which undertakes snow clearance operations every year, to facilitate movement of civilians and military personnel to this region, usually cut off due to snow from the rest of the country.

Amardeep Bassey, a reporter for the Sunday Mercury newspaper, had allegedly crossed over to Afghanistan from Pakistan without obtaining an exit stamp on his Pakistani visa, raising suspicions about his activities.

More Dalits look all set to convert to Sikhism. Eighty-year-old Dangal Rai is now Dangal Singh. All his life, he says, he has suffered discrimination from upper caste Hindus and has now decided to convert to Sikhism. "We were not allowed to enter the temples and were shunned by everybody," said Dangal Singh.

The village of Deomari is part of Jyotiraditya Scindia's parliamentary constituency and also part of the Raghogarh assembly constituency represented by Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.

But here too, Dalits have been traditionally discriminated against and four families in this village alone have converted to Sikhism. Many of the villagers say their first introduction to the religion came when migrant labour from the village went to Punjab.

Conversions have since been reported from 11 villages in Guna district and four villages in Vidisha district. "In January alone 42 people converted. In March at least 200 people converted," said Giani Bhajan Singh of Guru Singh Sabha, Guna.

Dalits here are still learning to tie the turban and the basics of a new religion but the outward changes have still not resulted in a change of the mindset through which others see them. "Even today after conversions we still have problems. We are still shunned and humiliated," said Nishan Singh. Earlier conversions to Buddhism had been reported but this is the first time there has been such large-scale conversions to Sikhism. Critics say this could be a case of coercion with factors like free food provided by Gurdwaras being used to win over poor villagers.

In an interview with CNN, he offered no apologies for funding such groups as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, saying he was merely trying to help their members from suffering in poverty. The Palestinian Authority president said the land of Israel and the Palestinian territories is "terra santa"--Latin for holy land--for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Any independent Palestinian state, he said, will have room for them all. "We hope that we will have this independent Palestinian state side by side with Israeli Jewish state," he said. Asked whether he accepts the Jewish state of Israel, he replied, "Yes."

"A part of the Jews are Palestinians, and they are represented in our legislative council," Arafat said. "Till now, we don't call them Jews. Do you know what we call them? Our cousins." Arafat recalled how as a boy he had Jewish playmates. "Historically, we are cousins."

Reacting to the Arafat interview, Israeli Consul General Alon Pinkas said, "What is it about a Jewish state that he doesn't understand? What is it about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state that he finds so difficult to acknowledge?" "What I heard was someone who doesn't know anything, hasn't heard anything, hasn't seen anything, doesn't know who's responsible for terrorism," Pinkas said. "So forgive me for being somewhat dismissive of his seriousness."

Arafat said he was doing his best to fight terrorism and has tried to investigate those responsible for a number of suicide bombings blamed on Palestinian militants, but complained that even after repeated requests Israel had provided him no information. "We asked the details about the last suicidal bomb, in Rishon Letzion," he said, referring to last week's terror attack that killed 15 Israelis. The Israelis did not give him an answer, he said.

He said he did not know who was responsible for the Passover terror attack that killed 29 people in late March. The bombing has been blamed on a member of Hamas. He conferred with an off-camera aide before shaking his head, no, that he did not know who was to blame. "But we have condemned it," he said. "We are against all this Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, has been labelled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.

Arafat was asked whether he knew who carried out the April 12 suicide bombing in a Jerusalem marketplace-the terror attack killed six people. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a military wing of Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has carried out numerous attacks against military targets and civilians in Israel and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. State Department designated it as a foreign terrorist organization in March. "I don't know," Arafat said. "But you know we have condemned this. And not only that, I gave instructions to search who had sent this."

He seemed astonished that the group would even be involved in militant violence. "Al Aqsa Brigades is engaged in terrorism? Give me one, one example."

His funding of Al Aqsa and other such groups should be compared to the U.S. government's welfare programme, he said. Many of the group members lost jobs in Israel when hostilities heightened and live in poverty, he said.

"I am proud I am giving help for those who have lost their work in Israel," Arafat said. "If I am giving money, I am proud of it."

Arafat said he did not give money to fund the Karine-A arms shipment Israel intercepted in the Red Sea in January, saying the Palestinian Authority did not need to acquire weapons from Iran. "We have weapons in many Arab countries, and it has been known," he said. "When I left Beirut, when I left Tripoli, I left with my arms. Do you think that the Iranian government will give us weapons? When have they given us weapons?" He said Egypt would never have allowed the ship to pass through the Suez Canal to reach the Israeli coast. Arafat scoffed when he was asked whether Palestinian Authority finance chief Foaud Shubaki, accused by Israel of being Arafat's link to Iran, could have funded the shipment without Arafat's knowledge.