India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) # 85
9 June 2002

[information & news for peace activists on arms sales to the region,
defence budget figures, acquisitions & updgrades of weapons systems,
development and deployment of new weapons, implications of militarisation
(of the state, of non-state actors and wider civil society); the
developments on the
Nuclearisation front and the doings of the 'intelligence' agencies.
Bringing such information to wide public knowledge is our goal here. No to
secretive & exclusive control of this information by technocrats, planners
who plot national security hidden from public scrutiny. Please help us in
the information gathering work for wide public dissemination in South Asia.
Send Information via e-mail for IPARMW series to: aiindex@... for
inclusion in the Emailings.]

The complete IPARMW archive is available at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/messages


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////\
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[1.] The military dynamics (Rahul Bedi)
[2.] Women and conflict - A book review by (K.S. Subramanian)
[3.] The disarming pitch - Peacemakers are also arms sellers. (Rahul Bedi)
[4.] Arms and education (C. Rammanohar Reddy)
[5.] Many defence deals in the offing (Sandeep Dikshit)
[6.] India, Pak. urged to end use of landmines
[7.] Stop British Arms Sales to India and Pakistan !
[8.] Pakistan Shoots Down Unmanned Indian Spy Plane
[9.] Intelligent Defence
[10.] Mumbai prepares for war (Jayashree Lengade)
[11.] US opposes Russia's sale of uranium fuel to India
[12.] India and Bangladesh play politics with the fate of 2,000
people in exodus (V. Sudarshan)
[13.] Border Villages - Life In Mined Fields (Murali Krishnan)
[14.] 'Head for movie halls to survive air raids'
[15.] Govt to up defence spend by 25-30%
[16.] India says use of UAV routine
[17.] Indian defence suppliers see no spurt in orders
[18.] India has no data on cost of war
[19.] On the edge in Jammu, Kashmir (Ron Allen)
[20.] Kashmiri Militants Angry at Being Blocked From India (Dexter Filkins)
[21.] War talk takes its toll (C.Rammanohar Reddy)
[22.] Paying the piper (Sandeep Dikshit)
[23.] Spy Plane Jitters & Titters
[24.] Rs 10b increase in defence expenditures next year
[25.] [ Automatic weapons on Campus] Bangladesh student shoot-out kills one


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1.


Frontline
Volume 19 - Issue 12, June 8-21, 2002

The military dynamics

The Indian military is evidently eager to seize the opportunity and
"call Pakistan's bluff". A look at strategy and state of play.

RAHUL BEDI
in New Delhi

INDIA and Pakistan are now on the sixth rung of an eight-point
conflict escalation ladder, before they cross the nuclear threshold,
and Indian military officers predicting imminent hostilities claim
that it is only a matter of time before war is thrust upon the
country.

AIJAZ RAHI/ AP
Motor guns positioned under camouflage netting near Jammu.

Senior Army officers claim that the "war genie" has been let loose
and it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the beleaguered
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to bottle it
again, fully aware as it is that it would face oblivion if it even
tried to do so, or blinked this time round.

"If we do not attack now, we never will," a military officer in the
Jammu sector said. To wait once again after nearly six months of
deployment and acts of intense provocation like the Kalu Chak
garrison strike will be counter-productive, he said. "It's like
training for the World Cup without knowing when the matches will be
called," a senior General who participated in the 1965 and 1971 wars
said. The Army has gone through its paces, trained for the offensive,
laid minefields and erected defences but now impatiently awaits
orders, he added. "We will lose face if we do not fight after such a
build-up and withdraw," another officer said. It would only give
Pakistan and the world the message that India merely postures and
does not follow it up with action, he added.

An internal Army analysis has said that the nuclear-armed rivals,
following an "established" pattern, had long crossed the five stages
of no-war-no-peace that included daily artillery and mortar duels
across the Line of Control (LoC) and the build-up of a crisis over
militant strikes followed by political, diplomatic and economic
pressure. The next step, already crossed, was a show of force and
significant troop mobilisation backed by the naval deployment on the
western seaboard within "striking distance" of Karachi harbour
through which 90 per cent of Pakistan's oil supplies pass.

Three-dimensional battle groups including frigates, destroyers and
submarines from both the Western and Eastern fleets have been
deployed off the Pakistan coast, while amphibious units of the Army
and the Indian Navy have been shifted from the Andaman and Nicobar
archipelago for a sea-borne landing, ready for war. "Karachi is
Pakistan's jugular vein and we are poised to choke it," a senior
naval officer said. Strangulation at sea, he added, is slow but
deadly, and realising that this was imminent, Pakistan had ended the
Kargil War by signing an agreement in Washington to withdraw its Army
in June 1999.

The rungs that remain to be ascended are border "incidents", a
euphemism for military raids into enemy territory, and limited or
"surgical" strikes by one or the other side following the breakdown
of international diplomatic and political initiatives that are
currently under way. This, in turn, would trigger a full-blown
conventional war, whose outcome would eventually determine the
nuclear, apocalyptic option the world dreads. "We are close to war,"
said a senior Army officer, declining to be named, adding that the
military was as ready as it ever would be.

Some officers indicate that bold plans are in place to launch air
strikes - which are being practised - inside Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir (PoK) in mid-June, before the monsoon sets in over the
region, in order to isolate the disputed area from the rest of
Pakistan. This would be followed by the Army advancing, in keeping
with battle plans honed at the time of the Kargil conflict, to "take
over" - and eventually hold - the area from where Kashmir's "proxy
war" has raged for 13 years.

According to reports from Almaty, a determined Vajpayee, attending a
regional security summit there, told Washington that India would not
be "trapped" into a situation that might end up being nothing but a
replay of what was witnessed after General Pervez Musharraf's January
speech. Then cross-border terrorism declined temporarily, before
picking up a few weeks later to levels higher than in previous years.
Vajpayee reportedly does not want to neutralise India's offensive
"window" with the onset of the monsoon by stepping back, knowing that
a "good war" is an election winner.

According to existing operational plans - mooted by the Indian Air
Force (IAF) immediately after last December's suicide attack on
Parliament House, but shot down by the Army on the grounds that it
was premature (see box) - Delhi needs a "two-week attack window" in
June.

AMAN SHARMA/ AP
The daily drill, in preparation for war.

The tactic is to execute degrading air strikes that will induce
Pakistan into extending the conflict by opening up a wider front.
Experience has shown that in an India-Pakistan war, the attacker
invariably takes the larger number of casualties as its "do or die"
thrust for swift gains stands to weaken its overall fighting
potential. India's military, steadily hemorrhaging for 13 years from
Pakistan's "proxy war", plans to reverse Islamabad's military
capability by at least 30 years and to push it back into the "dark
ages", an officer said. "We will call Pakistan's nuclear bluff. It
(the nuclear factor) cannot deter us any more," he declared.

The IAF is also delighted that Pakistan will be fighting under an
Army General who even more than his Indian counterpart has an
insufficient understanding of the Air Force. The Pakistani Army has
enjoyed untrammelled political power since Independence, even during
the brief democratic experiment in the 1990s, and it has treated the
Air Force - and the Navy - like poor cousins. Besides, the IAF feels
that the Pakistan Air Force, with around 350 fighter aircraft that
include Mirage 5, Mirage III and 28 of 32 operable F-16 fighters, is
no match for its 730 combat planes. These include varied fighter
planes in the Russian MiG series, Jaguars, Mirage 2000Hs and the
upgraded multi-role SU 30 MkIs, 10 of 40 for which orders have been
placed will arrive soon.

Military officers hinted that the BJP leadership, having
categorically opted to exercise the military option irrespective of
Washington's ongoing diplomatic initiative, has embarked on a massive
"deception ruse" comparable to the secrecy and duplicity involved in
the 1998 nuclear tests. The subterfuge and sheer effrontery
surrounding the two rounds of nuclear tests fooled even the
ubiquitous Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

"The U.S.-led move to shift non-essential diplomatic staff and their
families out of Delhi indicates that Washington has been informed of
India's intentions of hitting Pakistan and is taking them seriously,"
a military officer involved in planning the offensive declared. He
also indicated that India had assured Washington that in the event of
war it would give the American bases at Jacobabad, Pasni and
Dalbandin close to the Afghan border a wide berth. External Affairs
Minister Jaswant Singh declared at a press conference last month that
American presence in Pakistan was not an inhibiting factor in India's
military policy determination. Senior Army officers seconded that
stand. Reciprocal visits by Indian and U.S. military officials to
Delhi and Washington have also helped clarify India's position.

Security sources also hinted that Washington, broadly aware of
India's military plans, had slowly begun shifting its military
personnel out of Pakistan, with contingency plans for a swift
withdrawal. The U.S. is believed to have assured India that despite
Pakistan's nuclear belligerence, Washington will ensure that the
nuclear threshold is not crossed. Casual but chilling statements by
Gen. Musharraf and his United Nations envoy Munir Akram about using
nuclear weapons against a conventionally superior India, which sent
alarm bells ringing in world capitals, were significantly toned down
in the Pakistani President's June 1 interview to CNN television.

"India should not have the licence to kill with conventional weapons
while Pakistan's hands are tied regarding other means to defend
itself," Munir Akram said two days after being appointed his
country's envoy to the U.N. in New York towards the end of May.
Islamabad has to rely on the nuclear means it possessed to deter
Indian aggression, he said in a statement obviously cleared by Gen.
Musharraf.

Under pressure from Washington, Gen. Musharraf allayed concerns over
a nuclear war. He toned down his belligerence, declaring on CNN that
neither side was "irresponsible" enough to go to the limit of using
weapons of mass destruction. "I would even go to the extent of saying
one shouldn't even be discussing these things, because any sane
individual cannot even think of going into this unconventional
(nuclear) war, whatever the pressures," Gen. Musharraf said. He also
reiterated Pakistan's desire for a no-war pact with India.

Military officers in Delhi, however, warn that if the present
opportunity is not seized, the onset of the monsoon would cause the
postponement of the campaign to September or later, and perhaps even
indefinitely. This would come as a major disappointment to the now
impatient military - jawans and officers alike - which is incensed by
the May 14 attack at the Kalu Chak garrison in which soldiers'
families were killed. "The militants can attack us, but not our women
and children," a soldier in Jammu's Raghbir Singh Pura said. Another
soldier at a border post nearby said India must not waste the
military build-up now and should "sort" out Pakistan once and for all.

In such an operation "casualties in terms of men and machines will be
high and the military has firmly told the politicians to prepare the
nation for losses and delayed results as the fighting will be
fierce," an Army officer said. According to him, Pakistan has
concentrated the majority of its forces in and around PoK and would
unleash its Chinese M-9 and M-11 missiles. Most officers anticipate
that the conflict would not last more than a week, before the U.S.
and other Western countries ensured that it ended, neutralising even
the slimmest chance of a nuclear exchange.

MEANWHILE, there is a certain collective arrogance displayed by
India's military and political establishment and the media that are
of the view that India merely has to declare war on Pakistan for it
to capitulate. According to Army assessments, India's edge over
Pakistan in terms of conventional weapons has been steadily closing,
and stands today at 1:1.4, giving Delhi the slight advantage. While
the Indian Army has one of the highest teeth-to-tail ratios of 1:3 or
one fighting man for a three-man support group - in the Kargil War
this went up to 1:5 because of the harsh terrain - Pakistan has
force-multipliers such as its numerous paramilitary forces and
thousands of lashkars (militants) who would play a major role during
war. Innumerable Pakistani paramilitary units, such as the Sutlej,
Thar Sindh and Cholistan Rangers, have traditionally trained
alongside the Army in peacetime manoeuvres to enhance its
war-fighting capacity.

Pakistan also has the advantage over India of terrain, operating on
an "interior line" or relatively shorter lines of communication with
the ability to shift forces swiftly from one theatre to the other.
Pakistan can "penny packet" its defences, confident that these can be
reinforced quickly from an adjoining sector. Pakistan's 1 Strike
Corps, also known as Army Reserve North, for instance, can
simultaneously tackle the threat to Lahore, Sialkot and Gujranwala.
This is Pakistan's only structured strike corps; it comprises two
infantry divisions, one armoured division, one independent armoured
brigade and one artillery division.

The Indian Army, on the other hand, operating on exterior or longer
lines of communication, is forced by the topography to deploy 'stand
alone corps' across Jammu and Kashmir and in sensitive areas such as
Pathankot and Amritsar and all along the Rajasthan and Gujarat
border, each one aware that back-up would be scarce or non-existent.
And though the Army's fundamentals - such as jawans and junior
officers - are strong, the top leadership does not inspire confidence
in the former in the higher management of war. The snafus in the
Kargil War do not bear repetition, but the levels of confidence the
junior officers have in the top army brass is questionable.

A novel "caste system" governing promotions to the Army's higher
ranks that was arbitrarily instituted by the former Chief of the Army
Staff, General Ved Prakash Malik, and has been continued by his
successor Gen. S. Padmanabhan, is causing widespread resentment
amongst officers, who feel that the service has been effectively
"Mandalised". Army officers said that such "narrow" promotion
policies reversed over 50 years of established practice under which
merit was the sole criterion for promotion, irrespective of the arm
to which an officer belonged. "The general cadre's aim is to provide
able leadership to the Army on merit and not fall prey to a
self-defeating system of affirmative action," said one officer.
Promotions to higher ranks, he added, had become all the more crucial
after the Kargil conflict during which the quality of generalship had
seriously come under question from within the force.

The Army also fears that a "Fifth Column" of around 3,000 insurgents
across Jammu and Kashmir State will severely degrade its fighting
ability in the event of war. Military officers in Jammu recently said
that the Pakistan-backed armed guerillas were poised to disrupt the
Army's supply lines and sabotage its rear-area security by blowing up
bridges and rail lines, attacking soldier convoys and laying siege to
National Highway 1A, which is the State's lifeline.

Interdicting Highway 1A has been Pakistan's military objective during
the three wars and the Kargil conflict, with the aim of cutting off
the Jammu region from the rest of Kashmir. Blowing up a handful of
bridges close to Jammu would block quick access to the strategic
Rajouri and Poonch. Despite the importance of this area, no
alternative routes have been built for over half a century, and the
rear area security grid has thinned out as personnel from the
Rashtriya Rifles (RR), tasked with protecting the Army's
communication lines, have reverted to their parent arms.

Local Kashmiris, strongly opposed to the Army's presence for the last
13 years that the Islamic insurgency has raged in the State, are also
likely to try to dilute the military's capabilities during
hostilities, an intelligence officer said. "Anticipating war, this
brigade strength of armed, trained and highly motivated lashkars are
repositioning themselves in key locations in Kashmir waiting to
strike," a senior military officer said, declining to be named. A
reserve infantry brigade deployed on counter-insurgency operations
has recently been withdrawn and relocated to deal with the
anticipated threat posed by these "fifth columnists", he added.

According to Military Intelligence, Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) has specially trained groups of six to ten
terrorists each for "hit and run" raids on Indian Army units. Besides
in ambushing the security forces, these guerillas are experts in
laying mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at key
locations. "Their strategy is to keep the Army under constant
threat," a senior military officer said. Security officers said their
weaponry had also been upgraded to include anti-aircraft guns, rocket
launchers, heat-activated missiles and anti-tank mines.

Around 45 attacks by fidayeen or suicide militant squads on Army
bases in Kashmir over the past two years killing scores of soldiers,
have demoralised the Army and, revealed to the enemy that India's
military simply did not have the numbers to fight and protect itself
from internal attacks. Intelligence officers said a Pakistani Army
mountain division recently conducted exercises across the LoC
alongside some 3,000 insurgents drawn from various militant groups
that are fighting Kashmir's war. They said the Army aimed at
infiltrating these "irregulars" drawn from the 14-party Unified Jehad
Council based in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered
Kashmir, to join their tanzeems (militant groups) across the border
in order to harass the Indian Army.

Meanwhile, military officers argue that the dynamics of Pakistan's
jehadi organisations, nurtured by the military establishment, are
such that if not deployed in Kashmir they are likely to turn inwards,
leading to heightened violence and turmoil in that country. This is
one of the reasons why the Indian military feels compelled to
"degrade" Pakistan's military machine, convinced that this alone
would end cross-border terrorism and the security threat on its
flanks that is severely draining the economy and claiming thousands
of lives each year.

According to intelligence estimates, over 30,000 Islamic mercenaries,
trained in guerilla warfare and armed with sophisticated weapons, are
in Pakistan today, waiting to be transported to the next jehad. And,
if Kashmir is taken away from them, the Pakistani junta is in
trouble; not only are the insurgents trained in urban guerilla
warfare, but they are wholly familiar with the inner workings of the
Pakistani military and the ISI. The jehadis are also an ace up Gen.
Musharraf's sleeve that is played dexterously in his dealings with
the U.S. "The U.S. realises that the fight against terrorism cannot
be engaged effectively without dealing with its source inside
Pakistan. And it now plans to use its newfound 'proxy', India, to
deal with this menace while it doles out placebos to Gen. Musharraf,"
said an Army officer. It is a case of the strategic interests of
India and the U.S. intersecting, he added.

Already there are signs inside Pakistan of proliferating sectarian
tensions and unrest, alongside the steady "Islamisation" of society
that even the military junta finds incapable of controlling. In his
January speech decrying terrorism, Gen. Musharraf said groups such as
the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and the Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan
(TJFP), representing the Sunni and Shia sects respectively, were in a
state of constant strife. This strife claimed over 400 lives across
Pakistan last year.

Pakistan's highly Islamised military is also unwilling to abandon the
Kashmir struggle. The Pakistan Army's "Islamisation", which is the
key to the continuing jehad in Kashmir, began after 1977 when Gen.
Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and
it has steadily grown. After launching the jehad against the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan, Gen. Zia set out to legitimise his regime
in the name of Islam by creating a Muslim theocracy and nurturing
Muslim fundamentalist groups.

Under Gen. Zia, the extremist Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) took firm roots
within the Army and the ISI. The JeI, like the militant groups it
spawned, decrees that Islam is not only a way of life but a complete
system of politics, economics and culture. It is virulently opposed
to Western secular democracy and socialist doctrines and believes
that the Sharia, or Islamic law, is an "organic" set of regulations
that govern all aspects of life. The JeI also advocates jehad in
order to achieve an Islamic state, and Qazi Hussain Ahmed, its head,
has long been articulating the concept of an Islamic Caliphate
spreading from Kashmir to Central Asia, including Afghanistan, with
Pakistan as its pivot.

Encouraged by the JeI, newly commissioned defence personnel consider
themselves to be soldiers not only of the state but also of Islam.
And, by making Moscow's eviction from Kabul part of a jehad, Gen. Zia
found it easier to receive financial assistance from Saudi Arabia and
attract volunteers from other Muslim states such as Egypt, Algeria,
Yemen and Sudan, many of whom were members or sympathisers of the
extremist, Egypt-based Akhwan-ul-Musalmeen (Muslim Brotherhood).
"Gen. Zia officially sanctified the Islamisation of the Pakistani
Army, an indoctrination that has got progressively worse, and its
consequences are now being felt in Kashmir," said Kalim Bahadur, a
Pakistan specialist at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Supported by the CIA, Gen. Zia and the ISI permitted the Islamic
parties to recruit serving and retired service personnel to train
their cadre in the madrassas and supplied them American weaponry for
use against the Soviets. He also inducted religious teachers into the
Education Department and recognised madrassa certificates as
equivalent to regular university degrees for recruitment to
government service. This, in turn, led to increased "Islamisation" of
the lower and middle ranks of the defence services and the emergence
of a parallel, "freelance" armed force comprising the
military-trained and equipped madrassa graduates or an "army within
an army". In the early 1990s they began their "death of a thousands
cuts" operation in Kashmir, and in the mid-1990s emerged as the
Taliban.

_______


2.

Frontline
Volume 19 - Issue 12, June 8-21, 2002
BOOKS

Women and conflict

K.S. SUBRAMANIAN

Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir edited by Urvashi
Butalia; Kali for Women, 2002; pages 316, Rs.350.

THE overwhelming desire for peace on the part of women and the more
specific and compelling desire of women's groups from Jammu and
Kashmir and the rest of India to come together for a better
understanding of each other's needs and aspirations constitute the
main thread that unites the several moving essays, including a photo
essay, collected in this volume. A photo exhibition in New Delhi on
the plight of Kashmiri women some time ago brought forth interesting
and positive responses from the viewers. The responses reinforced the
desire and need on the part of these women's groups, indicating the
growing strength and self-awareness of women's movements in India.
Women's groups that have emerged in Jammu and Kashmir have been too
subject to patriarchal mores to organise themselves for social action
at the village level as women's groups in the northeastern States,
for example, have done. However, the women of Jammu and Kashmir have
increasingly articulated a pressing need for an across-the-board
dialogue among all groups to help find a peaceful solution to the
collective crisis that afflicts the State. However, developments in
the State indicate that it is the state machinery that is not
interested in promoting dialogue. Therefore, as noted by Yoginder
Sikand and Krishna Mehta, the State remains extremely polarised, in
sharp contrast to the 'secular and mixed tradition' of the past. The
editor hopes that the very publication of these essays would, in some
way, promote a climate for a dialogue towards peace and
reconciliation. It is when no alternatives seem to be in sight that
an alternative may perhaps be expected to take shape!

While Kashmir has been central to political discussions in India, the
impact on women and children of the ongoing conflict in the State has
received little or no attention. There are no precise estimates,
official or non-official, of the number of women widowed or children
orphaned. Resounding official silence has attended a recent
revelation by a BBC correspondent that the number of children
orphaned by conflict in the State was of the order of a hundred
thousand and that most of them are engaged in child labour. In this
context, the recent initiative by the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) to look at the impact of armed conflict on children in
States such as Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland is to
be welcomed. One study in respect of Jammu and Kashmir is in progress
and others are to follow. The Government of India has not undertaken
similar studies although India is a signatory to the U.N. Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the
Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Urvashi Butalia's study shows how more than a decade of conflict has
deeply affected people's livelihood, their living environments,
health, eating habits, their work and workplaces, their access to
education and so on. It is the women of Kashmir who have felt the
impact most severely. Yet not much is being written about their
response to the conflict. The volume documents the experiences of a
wide range of women in coping with the impact of the conflict on
their lives and raises relevant questions regarding their coping
strategies and the options before them. Interviews with Kashmiri
women, personal reflective pieces, excerpts from various reports and
books, a photo essay, journalistic dispatches and a socialistic
excerpt on the rights and privileges promised to women in the Naya
Kashmir Manifesto adopted by the National Conference in 1984 are
among the contents of the volume.

The author in her sensitive and insightful introduction traces the
historical background to the conflict situation in the State. The aim
of the volume is to look at the impact of the recent years of
conflict on women's lives as part of an Oxfam project on violence
mitigation and amelioration. It is also the outcome of a workshop on
Women in Kashmir, organised by a New Delhi-based non-governmental
organisation. Women rarely initiate conflict but along with their
children are its main victims. Although the Kashmir conflict has
generated a vast literature on national security little of it relates
to women's lives and concerns. The conflict has created a large
number of widows, 'half-widows' (those whose husbands have
disappeared with no proof of whether they are dead or alive), mothers
who have lost their sons, or those whose daughters have been
subjected to rape, young women who dare not step out of the house,
women who have been pushed out of employment by the fear and
uncertainty of conflict and women who suffer from medical and
psychological conditions related to stress and trauma. Conflict can
also push women into the public sphere, nudging them to carve out a
space for themselves and their humanitarian demands such as locating
the 'disappeared' men.

The Oxfam project adopted a two-pronged approach. One involved
conducting detailed interviews with the women affected by conflict
(Pamela Bhagat in the volume); and the other involved working with
locally based groups, holding workshops on stress and trauma and
collecting quantitative data on the number of families affected,
number of children out of school, number of widows who have received
assistance and so on (Sahba Hussain). Stress, trauma, depression,
spontaneous abortions and miscarriages are common. The conflict has
created a situation of tremendous fear and uncertainty in the lives
of women in Kashmir. Another consequence of conflict has been the
increasing distrust even amongst family members and growing domestic
violence.

Several essays in the volume refer to the problem of the involvement
of women's groups from outside in working with Kashmiri women.
Autonomous activist groups have been reluctant to get involved in the
State's electoral politics. This is perhaps on account of a perceived
clash of competing nationalisms - Indian and Kashmiri. The fact that
the women's movement in India has not undertaken a full-scale
critique and analysis of the role of the Indian state has, in its own
way, created ambivalences for mainstream women's Indian groups
working in Jammu and Kashmir, where separatist demands exist.
Further, the activity of women's groups is often confined to the
Valley and work in the area of human rights violations by security
forces. More recently, the plight of the Pandit women displaced from
the Valley has become an important focus for women's groups working
in Jammu and Kashmir. But there is still a certain reluctance to get
involved with the problems faced by women associated with the
security forces or militant groups, whether as wives, daughters or
mothers. In a conflict situation, building trust with those one works
with is a complicated process that slows down the process of
engagement.

Women perceive peace as a condition free of any kind of violence in
society. This implies the co-existence of all people with basic human
dignity. This concept of peace begins with one's immediate family and
goes on to cover the whole region, country and the world. When there
is violence in society, women feel its impact first. Therefore, women
must play a decisive role in negotiating the peace process. In order
to make this possible, they must be empowered politically,
economically and represented adequately at all levels of
decision-making. However, state and non-state agencies make no effort
to involve women in peace processes. They ignore the impact of
conflict on women and marginalise their needs and aspirations.

Mainstreaming gender as a major human rights priority becomes
complicated when a technocratic and masculine concept of 'national
security' dominates the discourse on conflict-affected areas such as
Jammu and Kashmir. An alternative concept of 'human security' has
acquired salience in recent global discussions on development. The
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has noted that 'human security' is the key
idea in "comprehensively seizing all the menaces that threaten the
survival, daily life and dignity of human beings and to strengthening
the efforts to confront these threats". As Urvashi Butalia points
out, these menaces are nowhere more sharply active than in the
strife-torn State of Jammu and Kashmir. She must be complimented for
the sensitivity with which the trauma and travails of the women of
this most beautiful but also perhaps the most unfortunate State of
India has been documented.

_______


3.


Frontline
Volume 19 - Issue 12, June 8-21, 2002
COVER STORY

The disarming pitch
Peacemakers are also arms sellers. Countries that have launched
diplomatic offensives to avert a war between India and Pakistan are
also desperate to provide them more arms.

RAHUL BEDI

A DELICIOUS irony pervades the efforts of the countries working hard
to avert a conflict between India and Pakistan, while they queue up
to sell the nuclear rivals military hardware worth billions of
dollars.

Led by the Untied States and its close ally Britain, France and
Russia have collectively launched diplomatic offensives of varying
intensity to stop New Delhi and Islamabad from going to war, fearing
it might escalate into an apocalyptic nuclear exchange. Their leaders
are sparing little effort at shuttle and telephone diplomacy to ease
the tensions over Kashmir, which they have declared to be a "nuclear
flashpoint". But paradoxically, backed by their governments, the
military industrial complexes of these very countries are either
supplying India or Pakistan or both varied military goods or
negotiating desperately for access to the world's largest arms market.

The U.S. has taken the lead in this collective hypocrisy by signing
in April a $146-million deal with India for eight AN/TPQ-37
fire-finder/counter-battery radar built by Thales Raytheon Systems
Corporation of El Segundo, California, at a time when over one
million Indian and Pakistani soldiers are locked in a stand-off along
the 3,200-km long frontier.

Another 20 "big ticket" military items have been approved by the Bush
administration for sale to India. These include 40 General Electric
(GE) F404-GE-F2J3 engines and advanced avionics for the indigenous
light combat aircraft (LCA) programme, submarine rescue facilities
and ground sensors and electronic fencing for installation along the
Line of Control. Pakistan too is being sold these satellite-linked
sensors made by the Los Angeles-based Cooperative Monitoring Centre
of Sandia Laboratories and has unofficially been told that "low key"
military sales will resume shortly.

The U.S., which has acknowledged the Indian Navy as a "stabilising
force" in the Indian Ocean Region and is keen on working closely with
it as it best serves Washington's long-term regional strategic aims,
is interested in selling it Sea Black helicopters to replace the
ageing GKN Westland Mk 452 Sea King fleet, P-3C multi-mission
maritime reconnaissance aircraft and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Along with the U.S. Navy, the Indian Navy has begun patrolling the
Malacca Straits, ostensibly to combat piracy, but in reality to try
and counter the People's Liberation Army Navy as it advances into the
Indian Ocean Region, cementing relations with Myanmar and
establishing signals facilities off the Coco's islands, 30 nautical
miles from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in order to monitor
India's missile tests. The U.S. also wants to ensure the smooth flow
of oil to close ally Japan from West Asia, over 80 per cent of which
passes through the Malacca Straits.

U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, imperiously hectoring
Delhi to pursue the path of peace and restraint, has declared that
U.S.' defence links with India, of which arms sales were a part, were
"gaining more altitude". He hinted that measures were being initiated
with Congress to release 20 arms licences to New Delhi.

American arms lobbyists speciously argue that the U.S. is merely
selling India "defensive military equipment", the kind that is
guaranteed not to trigger a regional arms race or enhance its
offensive capability. While this analysis is open to debate, the
harsh reality is that faced with a shrinking global market, the U.S.
military conglomerates have, for years, eyed India as a potential
growth area, as it lumbers towards modernising and upgrading its
predominantly Soviet and Russian military machinery that has reached
collective obsolescence.

Much to Washington's chagrin, Israel stole a march over it in the
late 1990s by selling India naval missiles, radar, electronic and
other military hardware which was intrinsically American in origin,
but sufficiently retrofitted to bypass any U.S. export control
regulations. U.S. sanctions following India's 1998 nuclear tests
boosted Tel Aviv's sales significantly. Israel is India's second
largest weapons supplier after Moscow.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led federal coalition considers Israel its
"natural ally" and strategic partner that is "wholly dependable" in
times of conflict. "Russia delivers the hardware - tanks, aircraft
and ships - and Israel provides the weapons systems, the radar, the
electronic control systems and other high-tech add-ons," a military
official said. The only irritation is that the U.S. has not been
dealt a hand.

And, while India has declared that it will continue to acquire basic
military hardware from Russia and Eastern Europe owing to competitive
prices and assured supplies, single service users too are looking
"positively" at U.S. manufacturers for force multipliers such as
radar, laser-guided bombs and electronic items.

Signing the General Security of Military Information Agreement
(GSOMIA) has paved the way for the sale of American military hardware
to India and the joint production of weapon systems. GSOMIA was
finalised during Defence Minister George Fernandes' visit to
Washington earlier this year, weeks after the Indian Army was
mobilised along the border after the attack on Parliament building
last December. The agreement was ostensibly meant to develop a
"long-term strategic" partnership, but its real purpose was for the
U.S. to gain access to India's hungry weapons market.

Britain, equally keen to tap India's poverty for its riches, may have
dispatched Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to Islamabad and New Delhi to
lower tensions in the region, but it is desperate to close the deal
with the Indian Air Force (IAF) for 66 BAE Systems Hawk training
aircraft worth around Rs.7,000 crores.

"The possibility of war is real and disturbing," a perturbed Straw
said in London after tensions between India and Pakistan spiralled
following the Kalu Chak militant attack. This is a crisis the world
cannot ignore. India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons and a
capacity to use them and have talked about a possible nuclear
exchange," Straw added before embarking on his South Asia trip.

In New Delhi, Straw was quick to refute news reports that that
Britain had imposed an arms embargo on India and that it had opposed
the sale of Hawk trainers. In a desperate damage-limiting manoeuvre,
he told Fernandes that the confusion arose from a senior Labour Party
leader speaking out of turn. A possible nuclear holocaust, however,
did not deflect Straw, with his eye to the economic main chance, from
again pushing for the Hawk. The astute Foreign Secretary had pressed
equally vehemently for the jet trainer during his visit to India in
February, following up the sales pitch of Prime Minister Tony Blair
and Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon, both of whom visited India and
Pakistan this year to broker peace. If British politicians were
insufficient, Sir Kevin Tebbit, Britain's Permanent Under Secretary
in the Defence Ministry, too pitched in for the BAE trainer during a
visit to Delhi earlier this year as head of a delegation seeking to
further "strategic dialogue". It seems that as in previous instances,
when AB Bofors, the Swedish company, was economically resuscitated
after India bought 410 FH 77B howitzers and the U.K.'s Westland was
saved from closure after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi acquired 21
Westland-30 helicopters in the mid-1980s, Delhi will once again
intervene to rescue BAE financially and help avoid hundreds of
lay-offs. It is merely incidental that the Bofors kickbacks scandal
is still under investigation and that the Westland-30s, bought for
¦60 million, were sold recently for a pittance after lying around in
crates at the Safdarjung Airport in New Delhi for years waiting for a
bidder.

Meanwhile, Russia which is calling upon General Musharraf and Prime
Minister Vajpayee to meet at a regional security conference at Almaty
in Kazakhstan this month, remains the largest military hardware
provider to India.

Around 50 of the 310 Russian T-90 main battle tanks (MBTs) that India
bought last year for around $700 million have arrived and been
absorbed in three 'sabre' or strike squadrons in regiments deployed
across Rajasthan against Pakistan's Ukrainian T 80UDs based in Sind.
Their operational task is to counter an Indian Army thrust to cut off
the southern province from the rest of Pakistan.

Alongside, about 10 of the 40 Su-30 Mk-I fighter aircraft, fully
upgraded to their multi-role capability with French, Israeli and
locally developed avionics and weaponry, are scheduled to arrive
soon. Almost a squadron of upgraded MiG 21 'bis'-93 ground attack
interceptor fighters are ready. The deal for the 44,500-tonne
Kiev-class Soviet aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, and the
"associated" leasing of two Akula-class Type 971 nuclear-powered
submarines, is also nearing fruition.

India is also believed to have invoked its Friendship Treaty and
Strategic Partnership Declaration of 2000 with Russia, calling for
urgent security consultations between the two countries. Diplomatic
sources said that K. Raghunath, the Indian Ambassador to Moscow,
called on Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov for
talks following a series of meetings in Delhi of the Cabinet
Committee on Security (CCS). This bilateral pact signed during
Russian President Boris Yeltsin's 1993 visit to India and extended to
2010 by his successor Vladimir Putin, provides for urgent
consultations between the two sides in the event of a security threat
to either country and for close cooperation to alleviate danger
jointly.

FRANCE too is not far behind others in pushing its military wares in
the region, but preoccupied with parliamentary elections, it has not
dispatched a peace envoy to South Asia. President Jacques Chirac,
however, has spoken with both Musharraf and Vajpayee to try and
dissuade them from the path of conflict.

Commercially-minded France, however, is not one to miss a business
opportunity to exploit a ripe market. Its Direction des Constructions
Navales is on the verge of closing a deal with the Indian Navy to
build six Scorpene submarines at Mazagon Dock Limited for Rs.900
crores to Rs.1,000 crores. The two sides had last year signed a
memorandum of understanding for the Scorepenes and armament industry
sources said the contract was "imminent".

Under Project 75, the Indian Navy had initially decided to build a
"locally redesigned" version of the German HDW Shishumar, Type 1500,
conventionally-powered patrol submarines. Two of the four German
boats in service with the Indian Navy were assembled at MDL, but the
HDW deal was plagued by allegations of corruption, and two years ago
the Navy opened negotiations with DCN for six Scorpenes. Official
sources said the first Scorpene boat would take at least five years
to build after the deal is signed and for all subsequent vessels the
period will be 18 to 24 months. Indian Navy sources said that France
had agreed to arm the Scorpenes with Exocet SM 39 anti-ship missiles
made by Aerospatiale, giving the Navy a decisive edge over the
Pakistan Navy.

DCN is also bidding for the propulsion system for the Indian Navy's
locally designed 24,000-tonne air defence ship (ADS) that is to be
built at Kochi Shipyard and completed by 2008. The ADS design is
based on the blueprint prepared by DCN in the late 1980s.

The IAF too has opened preliminary discussions with Dassault Aviation
of France to acquire Mirage 2005 fighter aircraft to enhance its
strike and nuclear deterrence capabilities. Official sources in New
Delhi said that the IAF plans to acquire 126 Mirage 2005s to equip
seven squadrons that will comprise the "backbone" of India's
Strategic Nuclear Command (SNC)

Commanded by Air Marshal T.M. Asthana who was recently appointed to
head the IAF's Southern Command, the SNC will be based in
Thiruvananthapu- ram. Functioning under the newly created Integrated
Defence Staff headed by Lt. Gen. Pankaj Joshi, a large proportion of
the SNC's air and sea-based assets will eventually be based on the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the headquarters of India's first
tri-services command established last October.

The IAF, convinced of its pre-eminent strike capability, had wanted
sole control of India's nuclear assets and was perturbed when the
government announced the raising of the Army's second Strategic
Rocket Regiment last year to induct Agni-II, the indigenously
designed intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) that entered
series production in June 2001. The IAF was of the view that the
Army, with a "40 km perspective", was doctrinally unsuited to handle
long-range missiles. But the government decided that the Army's
missile expertise and its vast manpower, compared with the Air
Force's, equipped it to secure and manage nuclear missiles in an able
manner.

Official sources said that the IAF wants 36 of the 126 Mirage 2005s
to be delivered in completed form with the remainder to be assembled
by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore. HAL units in Bangalore
and Kanpur have been servicing the IAF's Mirage 2000's since 1998
besides making a small range of spare parts.

According to Jane's Defence Weekly, Dassault officials in Paris
confirmed that they were engaged in talks with the IAF for a new
order for Mirage fighters in addition to the 10 Mirage 2000Hs that
India booked two years ago.

India sanctioned Rs.150 crores for the 10 Mirage 2000Hs, delivery of
which will begin by September 2003 and be completed a year later. Six
of the 10 that are dual-seaters are replacements for the existing
fleet of 38 Mirage 2000Hs.

Indian and French officials said the status of bilateral defence
relations was shifting from a buyer-seller one to one of joint
developer and manufacturer. After India's 1998 nuclear tests the two
countries established a Committee of Cooperation for Military Affairs
to focus on nuclear arms control, closer cooperation in military
affairs and civilian nuclear energy generation.

_______


4.

http://www.hindu.com/stories/2002060800501000.htm
The Hindu
Jun 08, 2002
Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Arms and education

By C. Rammanohar Reddy

Any society will be embarrassed when annual defence spending is...
six times the outlay on all forms of education.

MANY IRRESPONSIBLE statements have been made over the past few weeks
on both sides of the India-Pakistan border. In India, we have heard
members of the Union Cabinet speak about flying the tricolour all
over Pakistan, defence experts say a war will teach Pakistan a lesson
once and for all and political leaders claim India can win a nuclear
war. Just as high up in egregiousness is surely the observation last
week by L.K. Advani that India has not lagged behind other countries
because of its record in education and health, but because of its
neglect of defence. And that the economist, Amartya Sen, is wrong to
highlight India's failures in the social sector.

This is an outlandish observation to be made by the Union Home
Minister (who sees himself as a Prime Minister-in-waiting) in a
country which is home to the largest number of children not at school
and whose health indicators are among the poorest in the world. It
also flies in the face of history which shows that no country has
been able to attain even a modicum level of development without first
providing for a functionally literate and healthy population. But Mr.
Advani's statement is actually an extreme manifestation of a deep and
insidious set of arguments which are widely articulated by the
strategic community in India. One argument is that India needs to
spend much more on defence. The second is that it is meaningless to
talk of human security (i.e. human development) without first
ensuring external security. Put the two together and we have the
intellectual underpinnings of the Home Minister's observation. But
both kinds of arguments made by the intellectual guardians of India's
defence sector can be contested.

The defence budget for 2002-03 is Rs. 65,000 crores. Is this
adequate? Is it a burden on the Government? The experts point to
India's current level of spending, which is in the range of 2.5 to
2.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), compare it with the
expenditure in Pakistan which is over four per cent of GDP, to
highlight the `neglect' of India's defence sector. We are told that
India should be spending at least three per cent of GDP (a level
reached in the late 1980s) and that under-funding has affected
modernisation of India's defence forces.

There are many problems with such statistics and comparisons. One is
the use of the defence-GDP ratio, which in India has increased but
only very slowly since the mid-1990s. But Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen
(yes, the same Prof. Sen) have shown recently that India's real
defence expenditure, in absolute amounts, has risen by as much as 10
per cent a year since the mid-1990s, a phenomenal growth by any
standards. Other estimates point out that while in real
dollar-denominated terms India's defence spending grew by just 10 per
cent between 1990-91 and 1996-97; the jump has been as much as 66 per
cent between 1996-97 and (budgeted) 2002-03.

Second, the official Indian data on defence spending are
under-estimates. They do not include funding of pensions and
paramilitary forces under the Army, which according to standard
international practices should be accounted for. Once these large
items of expenditure and other minor ones such as allocating a small
proportion of spending on nuclear and space research to defence are
included, India's current level of spending turns out to be as much
as 30 per cent higher than the official figure - taking it well above
the so-called threshold of three per cent of GDP. Third, spending as
a proportion of GDP may not be the best yardstick for judging the
affordability of arms and armaments. A more appropriate indicator
would be defence spending as a proportion of Central Government
expenditure. Here, according to World Bank estimates, India's defence
expenditure consumed 14.6 per cent of Central Government outlays in
1999, which was higher than the average of 13.8 per cent for all
low-income countries. The picture then is of India spending
relatively more than other countries in the same income category. And
if we consider the more inclusive definition of defence spending, as
much as 20.6 per cent of Central Government spending in 2002-03 will
go the way of defence. This will be the largest single item of
expenditure this financial year.

In the end, judgments of adequacy and affordability cannot be decided
on the basis of numbers such as either the defence-GDP or
defence-Central Government spending ratios. The right question really
is not if it is enough or affordable, but how much of defence
spending can be avoided. The answer to that will depend on India's
ability to improve relations with the countries in its neighbourhood.
But this is not something of interest to the defence experts and arms
dealers who have a vested interest in maintaining and increasing
defence expenditure.

The basic premise of the second set of arguments, which give priority
to defence expenditure and implicitly deny that there is a
corresponding cost borne in the form of lower allocations for social
development, is that human development has no meaning unless external
security itself is ensured. That is a truism of a certain kind. And
the question that here as well must be first asked is: what is the
best way to ensure external security? The temptation to fudge issues
and use blackmail in public debate on defence expenditure is strong
when Government spending on the social sector is grossly inadequate
and the record in human development has been so disappointing as it
has been in India. Any society (and its Government) will be
embarrassed when annual defence spending is more than 20 times the
yearly Central Government funding for health services, 15 times the
allocation for elementary education and six times the outlay on all
forms of education. This is the stark comparison in India which can
be painted over only by making defence expenditure a sacred cow.

There are, of course, many ifs and buts in such a comparison. First,
when total public spending by the State and Central Governments are
assessed, the difference between social sector and defence spending
does get narrowed. Moreover, since funding decisions are taken by the
Central Government, it is quite appropriate to look purely at
expenditure choices by the Centre. Second, less spending on defence
will not automatically result in "a social dividend" in the form of
higher allocations for public health and education services. Third,
with a higher tax-GDP ratio it should in theory be possible for the
Government to spend more on the social sector - and on defence.
Fourth, since it is not just the volume of spending but about how the
services are organised and provided, a higher allocation for the
social sector does not necessarily mean that there will be a
corresponding improvement in the quality of life. All these are
legitimate caveats that can be posed in a defence versus human
development comparison, but they cannot explain away the fundamental
failures of the Indian state in providing basic social services.

The issue then is not whether Prof. Sen is right or wrong in
emphasising the importance of education and health, or of our Home
Minister throwing out altogether the centrality of human development
in the larger development process. It is more a question of what it
reveals of our political priorities when an emphasis is placed on
militarisation and even the fig leaf of lip service to education and
health is discarded.


______


5.

The Hindu
Jun 08, 2002

Many defence deals in the offing

By Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI JUNE 7. With a representative and relatively transparent
purchase procedure having been put in place, defence purchases are
following a smooth trajectory, according to highly placed Government
sources.

Deals on purchasing several military hardware are expected to be
finalised in the coming months. Most of the equipment are force
multipliers that would add punch to the armed forces.

In the case of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, the report of
the technical committee has been accepted and steps to begin final
price negotiations have been initiated. A committee set up last week
is expected to submit its report within six weeks. "We are keen to go
ahead (with the purchase). There are no doubts on this count. All the
blocks have been removed,'' said sources.

The purchase of Admiral Gorshkov has been a matter of much
conjecture. Reports have alternatively suggested that India might or
might not purchase it. The navy is keen on the acquisition as it will
then have two carriers on both its coastal flanks. Moreover, by the
time Admiral Gorshkov gets into its stride, the country's sole
aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, would be at the end of its service
life. The overlapping purchase of Gorshkov would ensure that the
difficult-to-acquire skills in handling an aircraft carrier would not
be lost but passed from one carrier to another once Viraat's vigil of
the high seas comes to an end.

Although the Navy was keen on purchasing the `P3C Orion', a
long-range maritime surveillance aircraft from the United States,
latest indications point to a certain coolness to the proposal. The
Navy would be quite willing to keep the focus on the aircraft carrier
and manage with the shorter range Ka-31 choppers.

But another U.S. military hardware deal- export of GE engines- will
accelerate plans to develop the light combat aircraft (LCA). Engine
exports from the U.S. were frozen after Pokhran-II in 1998 and though
defence planners may not admit it, the curb had affected the LCA
development programme. The light weight, supersonic LCA will
gradually replace the Indian Air Force's mainstay of MiG series of
fighter aircraft.

The army is poised to receive equipment for its special forces (para
commandos) from the U.S. including night vision devices and unmanned
remote sensors. Most of the equipment will come in handy for
counter-terrorism operations.

The armed forces are also acquiring more unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) and the experience so far has been that they are "very
effective''. On the 15-year-old proposal to purchase advanced jet
trainers from Britain, the sources reiterated that the price
negotiation committee has submitted its report and a nod from the
Union Cabinet is awaited. Officials discounted reports on
malfunctioning of the recently purchased T-90 tanks from Russia,
maintaining that their deployment in Chamb and Akhnoor in J & K was
"a great morale booster''.

______


6.

http://www.hindu.com/stories/2002060802001200.htm
The Hindu
Saturday, Jun 08, 2002

India, Pak. urged to end use of landmines

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 7. Alarmed by the extensive mining along the Indo-Pak.
border, Amnesty International, in India and Pakistan, Greenpeace
India and the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy
today urged the two countries to immediately put an end to the use of
anti-personnel mines and ratify the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty.

In a joint statement, the groups said that the mining along the 2,897
km-long border could be one of the largest mine laying operations in
the world since 1997 when the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty came into force.

Pointing out that India and Pakistan were among the 14 countries that
still produced anti-personnel landmines, they said the stockpiles of
the mines were the sixth and fifth largest in the world.

The two Governments should ratify the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty and
comply fully with all its provisions and take immediate steps for
mine clearance. Further, "the two countries should uphold and respect
at all times the standards and fundamental principals of
international human rights and humanitarian law'', the statement said.

The organisations also questioned the track record of India and
Pakistan in abiding by the Amended Protocol II of the 1980 Convention
on Conventional Weapons which restricts and regulates the types and
manner of use of anti-personnel mines.

"The string of reports, suggesting a large number of civilian
casualties on both sides of the border, indicates poor compliance
with one of the most important clauses of the Protocol - the
effective exclusion of civilians from mined areas.''

______


7.

Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002

Dear friend,

As soldiers trade mortar fire across Kashmir's disputed border
and peasants flee the area, British leaders are at odds about
whether they should continue to allow the sales of weapons and
aircraft to India and Pakistan. Roger Berry, the chairman of the
Commons committees investigating arms exports, has said that the
conflict between the two countries was "as clear a case you could
get" for an arms ban. But Jack Straw continues to justify the
sale to India of 66 Hawk aircraft -- which can be used to train
soldiers for nuclear bombing raids -- on the basis of "British
commercial interests."

It's time to embrace a policy of common sense: Britain will not
aid and abet this war mongering; "commercial interests" do not
take precedence over the lives of thousands of Kashmiris and
millions of Indians and Pakistanis. As long as British arms make
their way into the arsenals of these nuclear rivals, attempts to
broker peace are hypocritical. As the Guardian points out, the
UK would be "making peace in conflicts which our own arms exports
may have helped to exacerbate."

Given the rift in the national leadership, we have a real
opportunity to make a difference if we act quickly.

Please contact your MP and ask him/her to support an immediate
weapons embargo on India and Pakistan and to make your concerns
known to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

You can do this at:

http://www.faxyourmp.com

If that doesn't work, you can look up the relevant contact
information at:

http://www.locata.co.uk/commons/

You can also contact Jack Straw directly:

Fax: 020 7272 2144
Mail: House of Commons, London SW1A OAA
Email: strawj@...

Patricia Hewitt, Dept Trade and Industry, can be reached at:

Fax: 020 7215 5468
Mail: House of Commons, London SW1A OAA
Email: npst.hewitt@...

Even a short message is better than none at all. And the more you
communicate in your own words, the more attention will be paid to
your call to action.

In your message, you may want to highlight some of the following
talking points:

* The British government is hardly a passive bystander in the
arms trade. To the contrary, as author Arundhati Roy put it:
"Tony Blair's 'peace' mission a few months ago was actually a
business trip to discuss a one billion pound deal . . . to sell
Hawk fighter-bombers to India. Roughly, for the price of a single
Hawk bomber, the government could provide 1.5 million people with
clean drinking water for life."

* By most estimates, a nuclear exchange between the two
countries would leave 12 million dead and over 7 million
seriously wounded. Britain must do everything in its power to
restrain the two countries from such violence; an arms embargo
would emphasize that the nation is serious in its demand for a
peaceful resolution.

* Even if a nuclear attack doesn't occur, a conventional war
would still devastate Kashmir and result in the deaths of
thousands of innocent non-combatants. In these deaths, the UK
would be especially culpable, since some are likely to be
inflicted with British-made weaponry.

* According to scotsman.com, the military firm BAe has sold
fighter jets to India and is also currently training Pakistani
troops in air combat. Providing such aid to both sides can only
increase the damage that will occur if war breaks out.

* In 2001, the combined military expenditure of India and
Pakistan was 18 billion dollars. Yet over 40% of their
populations -- 450 million people -- live below the poverty line.
Britain shouldn't encourage this irresponsible spending behaviour.

Once you've taken action, please let us know at:

http://www.9-11peace.org/embargo.php3

Keeping a good count will help us enhance this lobbying effort.
You can also sign up there to receive future email alerts on
this and other peace-related topics.

And please encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same
by forwarding this email to them.

Thank you for your help. Together, we can ensure that Britain
stops fanning the flames of South Asian conflict.

Sincerely,

--Eli Pariser
9-11Peace Campaign
MoveOn.org
Thursday, June 6, 2002


P.S. If you'd like to make even more of an impact, consider
attending this event on Saturday at 10 Downing St:

South Asia Solidarity Group:

"No War in South Asia!"
"Stop British Arms Sales to India and Pakistan!"
"Vajpayee and Musharraf Must Negotiate!"

Mass Protest outside Downing Street and
Human Chain Against War and Communalism
Saturday 8 June
11.30am to 2.00pm

Contact by telephone at 020 7267 0923 or by email at
southasia@... for more information

______


8.

Pakistan Shoots Down Unmanned Indian Spy Plane
By REUTERS

Filed at 6:34 p.m. ET

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Pakistan said its jets shot down an
unmanned Indian spy plane as U.S. diplomatic efforts to cool the
military stand-off between the nuclear-armed neighbors raised hopes
that war could be averted.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Pakistani armed forces said
the Indian reconnaissance drone was shot down at 11 p.m. (noon EDT)
on Friday, with wreckage falling close to the town of Raja Jang,
south of the Punjab provincial capital Lahore.

``The PAF fighter jets intercepted the unmanned aircraft inside
Pakistan's territory and shot it down,'' Pakistan said.

India had no immediate comment.

Senior U.S. envoy Richard Armitage had told India on Friday that
Pakistan was committed to taking permanent action against Islamic
militants, a pledge that could help draw the South Asian countries
back from the brink of war.

Indian and Pakistani troops with artillery and mortars continued
trading fire across the militarized Line of Control (LOC) that
divides disputed Kashmir between the two countries. A million troops
are massed along the border.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, in New Delhi after visiting
Islamabad, said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had told him he
was ready to do anything he could to avert a conflict with India.

``President Musharraf clearly told me he is intent on doing
everything he can to avoid a war, consistent with the honor and
dignity of Pakistan,'' Armitage told reporters after meeting Indian
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

``I was able to convey...the commitment of President Musharraf to
stop all cross-border, cross-LOC infiltration.''

AMERICANS OPTIMISTIC

Armitage will brief Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Saturday on
his talks in India and Pakistan before Rumsfeld heads to the region
himself, a U.S. official said.

Rumsfeld, who was in Estonia, said he has some specific proposals to
present to Islamabad and New Delhi when he travels to South Asia next
week, but declined to give details.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the
United States had detected a significant reduction in the number of
guerrilla infiltrations from Pakistani-controlled Kashmir into the
Indian-held part of the territory.

``We have growing indications that infiltration across the Line of
Control is down significantly,'' he said.

Armitage's mission has raised hopes that both sides can be pulled
back from the brink of a possible nuclear catastrophe through
international diplomatic pressure.

But in a blow for Musharraf, Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar
announced he had resigned for health reasons on Friday. A Foreign
Ministry source said Musharraf had asked Sattar to continue in his
job for the time being.

Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said India was committed to
peace and would reciprocate if Muslim Pakistan acted on its pledge to
crack down on Islamic militants.

``We are very much committed to moving on the path to peace because
to peace there is no alternative,'' he said.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told reporters New Delhi had yet to
see any sign of a decline in infiltration of militants in the past
few days and India would remain ``cautious'' while assessing
Pakistan's actions against Kashmiri guerrillas.

But Uday Bhaskar, a strategic analyst at the New Delhi-based
Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis, pointed to diplomatic
progress that signaled a lessening of the chances of war.

``Everyone is making the right noises. People are talking about
giving Musharraf another four weeks, saying let us see whether he is
implementing what he has said he will do.

``All these noises indicate India won't take any impulsive action.
The prime minister says we want to resolve this peacefully. There is
incremental progress,'' Bhaskar said.

CLASHES

As artillery exchanges boomed across the frontier on Friday, killing
at least eight people, Indian forces and Muslim separatist rebels
clashed in various parts of Indian-ruled Kashmir and nine people were
killed, Indian police said.

The rebels have been battling Indian forces in the disputed region
since 1989 and Indian officials say more than 33,000 people have been
killed in the conflict.

Armitage told reporters there had been discussions on how to monitor
whether militant infiltration had stopped but no decisions on that
had yet been taken.

Checking for infiltration is both practically difficult in the
Himalayan terrain and diplomatically awkward. While Islamabad would
like international monitors, New Delhi, fearing interference in
Kashmir, wants joint patrols only with Pakistan.

New Delhi says it is defending itself against Pakistan-based Kashmiri
separatists blamed for a bloody attack on India's parliament in
December and a raid last month on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir
state that killed more than 30 people.

Fears that millions could be killed in the world's first nuclear war
have also sparked a big evacuation by thousands of foreigners from
both countries. Britain urged its citizens to leave on Friday while
commercial airlines were still operating.

______


9.

The Times of India
SATURDAY, JUNE 08, 2002
EDITORIAL

Intelligent Defence
[ SATURDAY, JUNE 08, 2002 12:00:01 AM ]
The terrorist strike of 9/11 stunned the world because it was
unthinkable that the sole superpower could be hurt in so brazen a
manner.

The initial shock over, it was time for the obvious question: What
happened to the famed American intelligence? Sure enough, it now
transpires that significant pointers to the impending attacks were
available, only that these were not adequately assessed, coordinated
or pro-actively pursued.

Shades of Kargil? Yes, except in India, intelligence failure has
become something of a serial soap. Initially, the Bush
administration's response was not too dissimilar.
There was the same attempt at obfuscation, the same zeal to question
the integrity of those who saw 9/11 as the worst-ever intelligence
failure. But there the comparison surely ends. On Friday, the Bush
administration ordered the biggest reorganisation of the US
government since Harry Truman carried out the integration of the
three defence services into a single defence department. The
newly-created homeland security department, the second largest after
defence, is the loudest message to date that the US means to take the
terrorist threat seriously.

The new agency, a fully accountable cabinet department, will control
the borders, supervise emergencies, organise counter- terrorist
scientific research and, above all, review wide-ranging intelligence
and law enforcement information to produce a single daily picture.

Successive Indian administrations have shown little capability when
it comes to dealing with the country's long-running terror saga. To
be sure, there are currently some murmurs about intelligence-sharing
with the US. But first, Indian intelligence must be rid of such
malaises as inadequacy of coordination, turf rivalry, absence of
pro-active pursuit of intelligence clues and lack of appreciation of
assessment at all levels.

Yet, the government seems unable to think beyond setting up a group
of ministers (GoM) and accepting their recommendations in regard to a
national security framework.

If India is decisively to meet the terrorist threat, it must
streamline its internal security, which doesn't even begin to look
like happening. Instead, the GoM has recommended adding intelligence
coordination to an already overburdened official who is discharging -
perhaps not satisfactorily - the two heavy responsibilities of
principal secretary to the PM and national security adviser. There is
a definite case for separating internal security from all other
aspects of federal management now looked after by the home ministry.

Typically, though, there is a strong resistance to modernisation and
change in the home ministry and the intelligence services. Like
princely overlords, our ministers are zealous about guarding their
turf.

Which is a pity because good intelligence is the best counter not
only to terrorism, but to war, the unfortunate flavour of the current
season.

______


10.

Rediff.com
June 8, 2002

Mumbai prepares for war
Jayashree Lengade in Mumbai

In what could almost be a scene from a Bollywood action film, an
18-year-old girl leaps from the top of a building on to a huge sheet
held by a cheering crowd on the street below.

Minutes later, a body slumped in a chair is lowered from another
building as a group of about 500 people look on in stunned silence.

India's commercial capital, Mumbai, is preparing for war with Pakistan.

The nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have massed a million troops
on their border since a December attack on Parliament that India
blames on Pakistan-based terrorists.

Fears of a war between the rivals - who have already fought three
wars since their independence from Britain in 1947 - have grown since
an attack on an army camp near Jammu in May that India again blamed
on Pakistan-based terrorists.

Officials in Mumbai say the coastal city of 12 million is ready.

"The mock drill is a confidence building measure. It will train
people to deal with a crisis situation," T Singaravel, director of
civil defence in Maharashtra, told Reuters.

Authorities say Mumbai is highly vulnerable because it has an atomic
energy plant and is the nation's financial nerve-centre.

Hour-long drills conducted by groups of khaki-clad volunteers across
the city include lessons in evacuation, detecting nuclear radiation,
first aid, rescuing people from fires and crisis communication with
the police.

As part of the drill, some 250 sirens will wail across Mumbai at the
same time on Monday to get people used to the sound of a loud alarm
if war breaks out.

"So far, we have been testing sirens in low sound to avoid creating
panic among people. But we feel they should know what a siren means
and what precautions to take," Singaravel said.

While it may be business as usual across most of the metropolis where
people still spend long hours drinking at pubs and watching soccer
games on television, authorities are taking no chances.

The state plans to distribute pamphlets informing people about
sirens, blackouts, underground water tanks used by fire fighters and
warehouses that can serve as crisis shelters.

Singaravel said nearly 35,000 trained volunteers from the civil
defence force had prepared a list of hospitals, doctors, pharmacies
and possible shelters.

Authorities are also holding a 14-day civil defence course at centres
across the city to train volunteers. Thousands of people have
enrolled and many more are keen to sign up, Singaravel said.

At one class, about 60 students, including government and court
officials, businessmen and students were taught the intricacies of
nuclear weapons and the damage they could cause.

"I see a lot of hope in this. I may be of some help to people," said
75-year-old Sadashiv Dalvi, a retired sales officer, who had enrolled
for the class.

"We had to increase the number of classes. Since May, there has been
a big demand for this course," he said.

"Anybody undergoing this course can keep a cool head," Singaravel said.

______


11.

The Hindu (India)
Saturday, June 8, 2002
News Update as at 16.00 hrs (IST)

US opposes Russia's sale of uranium fuel to India

Washington, June 8. (PTI): The US has opposed Russia's sale of
uranium fuel for nuclear power plants in India arguing it vio lates
Moscow's non-proliferation commitments, while holding forth the
threat of sanctions if Moscow fails to curtail cooperation on
sensitive technology with countries like Iran.

"In selling uranium fuel to India in the face of overwhelming
opposition from the Nuclear Suppliers Group," Russia has made
decisions contrary to the non-proliferation guidelines to which it is
a party, Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation Thomas
Wolf said.

He accused Russia of putting a narrow interpretation on non- proliferation.

Russia's cash-strapped defence, bio-technology, chemical weapons and
nuclear industries, he said, profit from exports and trans fers to
States on the US list of sponsors of terrorism.

______


12.

OUTLOOK Magazine | Jun 17, 2002

INDO-BANGLA TIES
Wretched Of The Earth
India and Bangladesh play politics with the fate of 2,000 people in exodus
V. SUDARSHAN

It's a touching irony of international politics: India has boxed
Pakistan in the corner over the issue of infiltration across the LoC,
but is then accused of the same crime on its eastern border-of
pushing Bangla-speaking Indians into Bangladesh. On May 12, acting
Bangladesh foreign secretary Anwar-ul-Alam summoned Indian high
commissioner M.L. Tripathi and handed him a note verbale, protesting
against what Dhaka thinks is gross infiltration.
In the note verbale, the Bangladesh government claimed that "several
hundred Bengali-speaking families from India are trying to flee the
communal violence in Gujarat and are attempting to illegally cross
into Bangladesh".

Reports in Bangladeshi press say the returnees are
Bangladeshis fleeing Gujarat. But Dhaka cries infiltration.

It further said that there were reports that the BSF is actively
involved in trying to push these families into Bangladesh. Arguing
that such attempts of the BSF, to "unilaterally push in
Bengali-speaking families", would seriously destabilise the social
harmony in Bangladesh, its

foreign ministry said "there were apprehensions that unscrupulous
elements from among them may create disturbances in the country and
undermine the communal harmony prevailing there".
Interestingly, the note verbale was issued three days after
Bangladesh's The Independent newspaper reported that two
representatives of the US Congress (Frank Pallone and Antony Weiner)
had written, on May 6, to Bangladesh PM Begum Khaleda Zia, expressing
strong concerns over reports of minority persecution in her country.
They urged Dhaka to establish an independent commission to
investigate the atrocities perpetrated against minorities and publish
a White Paper detailing such persecutions over the years. The letter,
which was handed over to the Bangladeshi embassy in Washington,
expressed concern over the steady "Islamisation" of Bangladesh, and
sought the restoration of secularism in the country's constitution,
as it was in 1972.
What Indians find most interesting is the unabashed way Bangladesh
patted itself for not having been witness to retaliatory attacks
after Gujarat. The note said: "...the situation in Bangladesh has
been calm and there has been no outbreak of violence in the country
despite the communal riots in Gujarat that continue unabated since
February 2002." Obviously, Dhaka wasn't impressed by New Delhi's
claims that the Gujarat violence, which began on February 28, was
controlled within 72 hours.
Home ministry sources scoff at Dhaka's allegations, pointing to
reports in the Bangladeshi press which have quoted some of the
returnees as saying that they left Bangladesh for Gujarat about a
decade ago to find employment. Some 400 families- believed to number
around 2,000 people-had settled in the Astrabaj, Chandrala and Shah
Alam areas of Ahmedabad. The Gujarat violence and the selective
targeting of Muslims there made them fear for their security, forcing
them to come back home.
Their return, it's learnt, persuaded Dhaka to double the number of
BDR personnel along some stretches of the border and increase
patrolling in some border districts. Some 'refugees' have also been
arrested for returning to their home districts, to bolster Dhaka's
tenuous claims that there are no Bangladeshis settled illegally in
India.
New Delhi responded to the note verbale on May 14, stating that since
Bangladeshis were returning to Bangladesh, there could be no question
of the BSF encouraging infiltration; that the Bangladeshi authorities
should respond appropriately if some among those returning home
create communal disturbance. It also dismissed the suggestion that
incidents of communal violence in either India or Bangladesh should
lead to counter-violence in the other country.
Sources say Bangladesh hasn't provided the precise number of illegal
immigrants who have returned.But considering Dhaka's and New Delhi's
refusal to accept responsibility for the immigrants, they could well
have entered the category of those who have no country to call their
own, and are inhabitants of no man's land.


______


13.

Outlook Magazine | Jun 17, 2002

BORDER VILLAGES
Life In Mined Fields
One fallout of the subcontinental stand-off has been to deprive
hundreds of families near the LoC of their homes and livelihood
MURALI KRISHNAN
It has been a bitter and empty harvest in the torrid desert sun for
farmers along Rajasthan's border with Pakistan. Ever since the
military build-up following the December 13 attack on Parliament,
thousands of families living in the western and northwestern parts of
the state have been rendered homeless and their fields emplaced with
landmines. The farmers have not only been displaced but have been
left to fend for themselves, with only a trickle of the promised
government support and compensation reaching them.
The scale of suffering caused due to the build-up is to be seen to be believed.

In several cases, the records show a lesser acreage of land
as having been acquired, thus cheating farmers of the compensation
they rightly deserve.

The displacement as a result of the biggest movement of troops in
recent times is evident all along the 1,040-km-long International
Border. The worst-affected areas are the districts of Jaisalmer,
Barmer, Bikaner and Sriganganagar. According to army officials, this
is one of the largest mine-laying operations in the

world since 1997, when 122 nations signed the Mine Ban Treaty, which
prohibited the use and stockpiling of anti-personnel mines.
In parts of Bikaner and most of Sriganganagar districts, hundreds of
acres of mustard and gram fields which stretch right up to the border
are a veritable wasteland. Fields, without water and fertilisers
during the winter, have withered away. "We can see some of the crop
but we will never be able to harvest it," says Gurjant Singh,
wistfully. Gurjant's holding of 14 bighas was emplaced with mines and
he and his four family members coerced to move out. "I am forced to
pay Rs 850 now as rent for a two-room tenement," he adds woefully.
Although the civil administration has worked out a compensation
package for farmers whose land holdings have been taken over, it is
but a pittance for those displaced. The authorities have promised a
remuneration of Rs 6,000 for every bigha of land where cotton was
grown and Rs 7,000 for a bigha on which wheat was cultivated. But
five months after their fields were forcibly occupied, only a quarter
of that amount has been disbursed to the farmers.
Having forced the villagers to evacuate their daanis (settlements),
the district administration has made no effort to resettle those
displaced or provide them alternative land in lieu of their homes
which have come under the mined area. "This is still being worked out
and might take some time," said a district official in Bikaner.
For instance, in Khajuwala tehsil, 125 km north of Bikaner, over 550
families have been forced to evacuate their daanis as their holdings
were mined by the army. Large tracts have been cordoned off with
barbed wire and danger signs warning the villagers not to stray into
the mined fields. Almost half of those displaced have shifted to
neighbouring tehsils, seeking employment as casual labourers, while
others have sought temporary refuge with relatives in other villages.
In Anupgarh, 90 km from Khajuwala, the problem is more acute with at
least 800 families forced to leave. The sight of gun-wielding
soldiers patrolling the streets is intimidating. Tanks dot the
fields. "Who knows when we will be able to till our lands again and
lead normal lives," says Ballu Ram, a small farmer.
The fear of an all-out war after the December 13 attack also forced
hundreds of families to leave their villages. There was no official
evacuation of the villagers but memories of the 1971 war played on
their minds. "There has been a mass exodus from the border towns and
villages. Everyone thought war was imminent and left with all their
belongings," says Than Singh Bhati, a prosperous farmer in Khajuwala.
But realising that not a shot had been fired, everyone returned
within two months only to find their fields mined and their houses
rendered unsafe.
"Now, we are determined to stay.Where can we go when we have lived
here all our lives?" says Kishan Lal Joharar, a farmer in Nagi
village of Srikaranpur tehsil. Residents of this village, bordering
Bahawalpur in Pakistan, complain that the army's trenches put in this
month have cut water supply to their fields. The army has taken
control of the canal systems in most of the 100-odd villages in
Sriganganagar. More minefields have also sprung up following the
Kaluchak incident on May 14.
"By now, I would have sold five quintals of mustard and six quintals
of gram but the entire crop has shrivelled," says Dilip Kumar, a
farmer. According to villagers in Nagi, over 5,000 bighas of land has
been taken over by the army for mining, leaving the livelihood of 400
families in peril.
In countless cases, patwaris did not calculate the compensation
package correctly, allotting less payment to farmers when in fact
more land had been acquired. "My 25 bighas have been occupied by the
army but the patwari has shown only 12 bighas and I have made several
representations to the sub-divisional magistrate," says Tanu Ram.
Likewise, Narain Ram, 56, of Khajuwala claims that only one bigha was
assessed when 10 bighas of land had been occupied by the army. "I
have been doing the rounds of the tehsil headquarters for the last
two months but nobody listens to me," he complains.
The agony of the farmers has been further compounded by landmine
explosions that take place almost on a daily basis in the border
districts. The biggest casualties have been their livestock. Evicted
from the settlements, many farmers have left behind their cows, sheep
and goats which have strayed into the minefields. In the historic
Hindumalkote village of Sriganganagar (before Partition, it used to
link Bahawalpur and Karachi), oustees left behind all their cows in
the first round of exodus in December last year. "We lost all our
cows when we left for Draj in Punjab. The administration does not
even talk of compensation for our livestock," says Mithu Singh.
Accidental deaths caused by landmines have also claimed the lives of
villagers and army jawans. It started with a major blast in December
when 19 soldiers died in Longewala in Jaisalmer while laying mines.
Over 20 villagers who did not pay heed to the danger signs and were
keen to sow their fields also died in similar explosions. "We have no
official record of landmine deaths but they keep occurring," says a
police official in Bikaner.
All this coinciding with a third consecutive drought in Rajasthan,
farmers have been going through bad times. The plight of those
displaced from the border villages is even worse. Even if there is a
good monsoon, they can't go back to their land. Caught in a debt
trap, they will remain at the mercy of the government. And all this
for a war which hasn't even begun.

_____


14.


The Times of India
SATURDAY, JUNE 08, 2002

'Head for movie halls to survive air raids'

AFP [ SATURDAY, JUNE 08, 2002 4:59:11 PM ]
SRINAGAR: With fear of war constantly on the minds of Kashmiris, the
government is recommending ways they can survive an air raid. The
best bet: heading to a cinema hall.
With a million Indian and Pakistani troops positioned for months on
the frontier, the government here swung into action only on Saturday
to instruct Kashmiris how to live through an air strike on this
bitterly disputed region.
In posters plastered around Srinagar, the Directorate of Civil
Defence has launched an education drive on "safety precautions"
during air raids. Interestingly, the signs view cinemas as the best
place to be.
"When in cinema hall, remain seated and keep calm. You are safer
there than anywhere else," says one of the posters printed in English.
There may be another reason why the government views cinemas as safe:
They are already under tight security.
In 1990, shortly after the outbreak of insurgency in the state,
militants forced the closure of Srinagar's cinemas, along with liquor
shops and beauty parlours.
Only two cinemas now operate in Srinagar, both away from major
residential areas.
Kashmir would likely be a frontline in any confrontation between
India and Pakistan.
Another precaution for Kashmiris in the Indian zone: "On hearing the
air raid warning do not run for cover if there is no time. Lie flat
on the ground with your face downward. Keep your chest slightly above
the ground and rest on your elbows."
"Plug your ears with cotton and if cotton is not available plug them
with the corner of a turban," a poster advises. "Place a rolled-up
handkerchief between your teeth to keep the mouth open and not to be
affected by the earth shock, which may cut your tongue."
For those who are outside their houses during air raids, the advice
is not to look up.
"Splinters and debris fly outward and upward and, therefore, roll
your self into a gutter or a fold in the ground: you are safer there."
The poster further says walls and doorways can be good protection so
residents should "go stand near them." But it warns: "Do not lean
directly against the wall."
"Inside (a building) it is better to be nearer an inside wall than an
outside wall," the poster continues.
Another place to watch out for is windows. "Remember the extreme
danger of flying glass. The safest part of the house would be away
from the windows and in the angle of a wall."
Those unlucky enough to be on a train during a raid should switch off
their lights.
"Crawl under the seats and do not look out of the windows," the
poster says. "When in a bus, stop it, leave it and go out."
Cars are also to be avoided. If driving during an air raid, motorists
should get out - but keep their engines running. "If you are a
casuality the car can be driven by someone else," the poster says.

_____


15.

Times of India 21-2-02

Govt to up defence spend by 25-30%

JAYANTHI IYENGAR

NEW DELHI: The government is set to increase the defence expenditure
by a whopping 25-30 per cent to Rs 81,000 crore during 2002-2003.

The government had earlier raised the expenditure from Rs 62,000
crore to the present Rs 78,000 crore. The decision was recently
taken at a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, along with the
defence and finance ministers.

At this meeting, defence minister George Fernandes put forth a
demand, double of what was anticipated by the finance ministry.
Sources said the Prime Minister did not want security concerns to be
compromised in any manner. He therefore, directed the finance
ministry to allocate whatever was sought by the defence ministry.

Defence expenditure has been growing at not more than 15 per cent
annually. Hence, doubling up of defence demand for 2002-03 has come
as surprise to the finance ministry.

In case the defence ministry is actually able to spend the allocated
sum, India's defence spending during 2002-03 would be higher than
1999-00, when Kargil upped the defence allocation for the year to 21
per cent as compared to the previous year.

Through the 90s, defence spending has been higher than budgeted, but
there has been a reversal in the trend since 2000-01, causing
concern to defence personnel and experts.

As a matter of fact, a defence saving of Rs 4,126 crore in 2000-01
went a long way towards helping the finance ministry contain the
fiscal deficit. Similar savings are expected during the current
financial year as well.

As a percentage of GDP, defence allocation in budget 2001-02 works
out to be 2.5 per cent of the GDP, as against Pakistan's 2.8 per
cent and China's 3 per cent.

It is as yet difficult to estimate what India's defence allocation
for 2002-03 would be as a percentage of the GDP, considering the Xth
Plan is being prepared assuming an 8 per cent GDP growth.

However, considering that there are few signs yet of India moving
into such a high growth trajectory in 2002-03, which is the first
year of the X Plan, one would not be wrong in assuming that defence
allocation as a percentage of the GDP in 2002-03 would be higher
than what is being estimated for 2001-02.

Since the mini-war in Kargil in 1999, the armed forces have been
demanding an escalation in the arms spend, equal to India's
neighbours. The demand was made in the wake of defence expenditure
falling steadily from 3.4 per cent of the GDP in 1987 to 2.5 per
cent last year.

The consensus post-Kargil has been that defence capability is on the
decline because of a budgetary squeeze over the last a decade and a
half.

The finance ministry has been more than willing to make the necessary
allocation


_____


16.

The Times of India
SATURDAY, JUNE 08, 2002

India says use of UAV routine
PTI [ SATURDAY, JUNE 08, 2002 2:36:05 PM ]
NEW DELHI: India on Saturday said it had lost an unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) over Pakistani territory and that use of such vehicles
was routine.
The Defence Ministry issued a statement saying the UAV, which was on
a routine flight near the Indo-Pak border, lost contact with the
ground control around 2300 hours.
"It is believed to have fallen down within 20 km south-south west of
Lahore," the statement said, adding "in the current state of
deployment of the armed forces, the use of UAVs by either side is a
routine feature".
The Pakistan Defence Ministry in a statement had earlier said the
"Indian aerial vehicle was on a reconnaissance and spying mission
when it violated the Pakistan air space close to Lahore".
Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said, "penetration of the
Indian plane into our airspace can only enhance the dangers existing
in the presence of forces on both sides of the Line of Control."
Sattar added, "in a situation like this, responsible states must
exercise utmost care to ensure that no provocations are made which
might lead to escalation."

_____


17.

Yahoo! India News: Business
Friday June 7, 8:40 PM

Indian defence suppliers see no spurt in orders

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian companies that supply equipment to the
country's armed forces are reporting no upsurge in orders even as the
dispute with rival Pakistan over the Himalayan region of Kashmir
threatens to erupt into war.

India and Pakistan -- both nuclear powers -- have massed a million
solders along their tense frontier and have traded artillery and
gunfire daily for the last three weeks, threatening a fourth war
since liberation from British rule in 1947.

But rising military activity has not translated into higher orders
for companies.

"The delivery of vehicles is happening according to a schedule drawn
up in advance, when the purchase orders were placed. There has been
no unusual rise in demand," said a spokesman for Ashok Leyland,
India's second-largest truck maker.

The Madras-based company supplies its Stallion trucks to the Indian
armed forces in basic form for assembly at the Army's vehicle factory
in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Only one Indian company, which declined to be named, said there was
"frenzied buying" taking place by the armed forces after they swung
into high alert after a militant strike at an Indian military camp in
Jammu and Kashmir.

India, which is estimated to spend 650 billion rupees, or 14 percent
of the government budget, on defence in the year to March 2003,
relies mostly on imports and supplies from state-owned firms to keep
its war machinery running.

India's military, the world's fourth largest, relies heavily on arms
and equipment from Russia, a country with which it has had deep
military ties. Around 75 percent of its 750-plus combat fighters are
Russian-made, mostly MiGs.

The reliance on domestic private companies is usually restricted to
dual-use items, like vehicles.

DOMESTIC SUPPLIERS

There are currently 39 ordnance factories making arms and ammunition
spread across the country and eight state-owned companies
manufacturing equipment and stores for the Indian Army, Air Force and
Navy.

Together, these agencies sold defence goods valued at 135.8 billion
rupees to the armed forces in the past year to March.

"Over 50 percent of these goods could be coming from private
companies, through outsourcing," said an industry official, who
declined to be named.

Most defence units outsource a large number of parts and spares from
small private companies.

Only a handful of large listed companies supply equipment directly,
including the country's largest truck maker Tata Engineering and
Locomotive Co Ltd and utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Leading engineering firm Larsen and Toubro Ltd carries out
fabrication work for the Indian Navy and makes launch systems for the
Indian Army.

An L&T official said these items were made to order, had long
delivery schedules and were relatively shielded from short-term
increases in border tensions.

_____


18.

Rediff.com (India)
June 8, 2002

India has no data on cost of war

BS Economy Bureau

It will be difficult to believe this, but the government has never
undertaken a formal exercise to estimate the economic cost of waging
a full-scale war.

While the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India officials
said any such scenario painting was not possible in 1965 and 1971
because India was dragged into the war then, knowing fully well that
the country could ill-afford it.

The United States and the United Kingdom, however, undertake such an
exercise regularly and so do independent research outfits in these
countries.

Because of the secretive attitude of the Indian government towards
defence, the only clear data that makes the round is the level of
forex reserves.

According to the government, it covers six months of imports and debt
servicing at the current level of $55 billion.

But since there is no data on the daily cost of waging a war
including the estimates of the quantity of armament used and so on,
economists said it was impossible to work out the approximate cost of
even a conventional engagement.

However, one of the first casualties of such a war effort would be
the flow of foreign institutional investment, which might even dry
up, they said.

At present, it is the biggest sustainer of both the Bombay Stock
Exchange and the National Stock Exchange and currently, stands at
above $300 million.

The other impact will be on the quantum of the oil import bill, which
has been projected at about Rs 800 billion for this fiscal.

To sustain the extra deployment of troops and movement of machines,
the bill can rise by a couple of thousand million rupees.

Additional manpower has already been deployed for the security of
power stations, but sources said given the stretched conditions of
the power in the country, it would be difficult to make good the
resulting shortage.

However, other utilities like the Railways said that sustained
redeployment of wagons and coaches for the war effort would have an
impact on the movement of other goods, but maintained that it was
inevitable.

______


19.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/762393.asp

On the edge in Jammu, Kashmir

Tensions mount between India, Pakistan
An Indian soldier keeps watch from a bunker at a village close to the
Akhnoor sector, some 20 miles west of Jammu, on Thursday.

By Ron Allen
NBC NEWS

JAMMU, India, June 7 - In Jammu, the bulletin board in the military
briefing room is blank these days. No one takes the time to fill in
the spaces for "terrorists killed," "atrocities committed" or the
heavy artillery exchanged in the 16th Corp's sector along the line
that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Perhaps no one felt
the need to record such numbers because they've all become so
familiar and routine.

* The nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan DURING THE
PAST few days, the tension has eased a bit, said Col. H. Oberoi, the
press spokesman. "There is a lot of pressure on both sides," he
added. Much of the pressure is from the outside world, which fears
the explosive situation in Kashmir could escalate to war, and a
nuclear exchange.
The 16th Corp has had responsibility for some of the areas of
heaviest fighting since the longstanding Kashmir conflict suddenly
began to make newspaper front pages abroad. The headquarters in Jammu
is not far from Kaluchak, where militants stormed a military housing
complex and killed more than 30 people last month. Many of the
victims are wives and children of Indian soldiers. That attack is one
of the major reasons these two nuclear-armed neighbors now stand
eyeball to eyeball.

A MILITARY TOWN
The dangerous drama is unfolding in one of the
most beautiful places on earth.
Jammu is known as the city of temples because of all the Hindu
shrines here. It's a city with a Hindu majority in a region dominated
by Muslims. As Kashmir's winter capital, it's too hot for much of
anything in the summer. Temperatures soar well above 100 degrees
Fahrenheit daily.
Now, Jammu has become a military town. Trucks filled with
soldiers head from military base to military base. Barbed wire fences
surround the army's camps. My crew and I were told it's all extra
security since the attack in Kaluchak.
On Wednesday, the Indian army spokesman said his forces killed
six more "terrorists" who had infiltrated the country from the
Pakistani side near Rajauri. The tension may have eased a bit, but as
long as raids like these keep happening, these countries will remain
on the brink of war.

The disputed mountain region, held by India, but struggling for
independence, is rife with violence, rich with beauty. India
doesn't believe Pakistan is doing enough to stop militants from
crossing the border and launching attacks inside Indian-controlled
Kashmir. The number crossing in recent days seems to have slowed
somewhat, according to the Indian military, but it hasn't stopped.
"It's a slow and gradual process," said Col. Oberoi. "The border is
too porous to block the entire route."
India says it has intercepted orders from the Pakistani side
telling the militants to cool things off for a while. But India fears
it will indeed be just for a while - until the glare of international
attention subsides. It wants verifiable proof that Pakistan is
committed to stopping the terrorists and destroying their bases - a
Pakistani claim that most people in India don't believe.

JOINT PATROLS PROPOSED

India has proposed joint patrols with Pakistan along their
common border. Pakistan reacted negatively to that, and has renewed
calls for international monitors to do the job. Pakistan denies it is
supporting the Muslims, but at the same time it accuses India of
denying Kashmir's Muslim majority the right to self-determination.
The exchange of proposals was perhaps a positive sign,
especially after Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf barely acknowledged each other
at a recent security conference in Kazakhstan.

INCREASED U.S. PRESSURE
The pressure to step back from the brink has increased in the
past few days, with two U.S. heavyweights heading to the region -
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and then Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It now looks as though Rumsfeld won't
arrive until sometime next week, an indication that the tension here
is in fact easing. Rumsfeld has said he's not coming here to be a
mediator, and will arrive, "when the time is right."
The United States is also concerned that Kashmir is
distracting Pakistan's attention from its western border with
Afghanistan, where America wants help containing the remaining
elements of Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Pentagon officials say that so
far, only small groups of Pakistani soldiers have left the Afghan
border area, but transportation and other logistics equipment is in
place if Pakistan decides to move more troops.

CONCERN FOR AMERICANS' SAFETY

* Middle East & North Africa
* Americas
* Europe
* South & Central Asia
* Asia Pacific
* Africa In New Delhi, U.S. officials are concerned that the 60,000
American citizens who live and work in India aren't taking a
travel warning to leave the country seriously enough. A new advisory
with tougher language has been issued saying the tension in Kashmir
is at "serious levels," and that conditions have "deteriorated." It
strongly urges Americans to leave. Great Britain also upgraded its
warning.
Within the past week, every evening at Indira Gandhi
International airport a steady stream of foreigners departs, heeding
the advice of more than a dozen nations and the United Nations.
"I've got two small children, and in their best interest we
decided to leave, said the wife of a Western diplomat.
"Our government thinks it's a prudent measure for
non-essential staff, so it's as simple as that," said another embassy
staffer on his way home.
The United States expects all non-essential staff to leave India by
the end of the week, but local officials say no one is panicking.
"I don't see that at all," said Gordon Duguid at the U.S.
Embassy in New Delhi. "We will have people who are leaving every day,
and they will be leaving in a fairly organized manner as tickets can
be arranged for them."
The 300-member American Chamber of Commerce is trying to
decide what to suggest to its members. Few companies are encouraging
their employees to leave, but they're taking precautions such as
registering with the U.S. Embassy, limiting their time in public
places and monitoring the news closely.
Even in light of the recent warnings, travel agents say that
tickets are still available, and that flights have been leaving New
Delhi with empty seats.
For now, it seems many ex-pats who've been around for a while
think this is just another brief flare-up of a long-running dispute
in Kashmir.
Some, on the other hand, readily admit they're keeping a plane
ticket "in the their pocket" - just in case.

NBC correspondent Ron Allen is on assignment in Jammu, Kashmir.


____


20.

The New York Times
June 9, 2002

Kashmiri Militants Angry at Being Blocked From India
By DEXTER FILKINS

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 8 - Leaders of Kashmiri militant groups
have been stymied in their efforts to send fighters into India in
recent weeks, following a stiff warning by the Pakistani government
that their infiltration would no longer be tolerated.

The Kashmiri leaders, who are waging a 13-year-old guerrilla struggle
in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, said in interviews this
week that their fighters had been blocked from crossing into India by
Pakistani troops who had stepped up patrols along the mountainous
border. The Kashmiri leaders, who are enraged by the new policy, said
the shift was announced at a meeting with senior Pakistani
intelligence officers in Islamabad last month.
The claims of difficulties by the Kashmiri militants dovetail with
recent assurances given by President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and
statements from Indian leaders themselves, who said this week that
the number of guerrillas coming from across the border appeared to be
dropping.

The decision to crack down on the infiltration followed an attack
last month on an Indian Army base that killed 17 people, many of them
civilians, and prompted threats by Indian leaders of a military
strike against guerrilla sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Indian leaders have threatened military action unless the Pakistani
government blocks guerrillas from crossing into India and shuts down
their camps inside Pakistan. The standoff has fueled fears of a
catastrophic war between the two nuclear-armed states.

"We have not sent anyone across for the past month," said Hussein
Rizvi, leader of Hizbul Momineed, one of the guerrilla groups
battling Indian rule in Kashmir. "Now we have two armies against us,
the Indian and the Pakistani. Our problems have doubled."

Mr. Rizvi, who claims that his group has hundreds of fighters in
Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, said he was able to send a small group
of them across the border in early May, just as the Himalayan passes
had begun to clear of snow, but that he had given up even trying to
send any more.

"We are trying to devise a new strategy," he said in an interview in Islamabad.

If that is true, the Pakistani policy would mark a dramatic shift in
the country's stance toward Kashmir, where successive Pakistani
governments helped sustain the armed struggle against the
Indian-controlled portion of mostly Muslim Kashmir. Since an attack
on the Indian Parliament in December, which was believed to be the
work of Kashmiri separatists, General Musharraf has been under
intense international pressure to end his support for the Kashmiri
guerrillas.

With the threat of Indian military action looming, the Pakistani
government has begun to press the militants in recent days to declare
a cease-fire inside Indian Kashmir, militant leaders said. While some
guerrilla leaders have expressed support for the idea, others,
including Hizbul Mujahedeen, the largest Kashmiri guerrilla group,
have vowed to carry out new attacks against India.

The shift away from the armed struggle comes at great personal risk
to General Musharraf, who has already inflamed the passions of a
large segment of the population by joining America in its campaign
against the Taliban and vowing to lead the country down a more
moderate Islamic path. This week, the leader of the country's largest
fundamentalist party is scheduled to lead a rally in Pakistani
Kashmir that many people say is intended to mark the beginning of a
campaign to unseat General Musharraf.

The Kashmiri militants themselves say they are enraged by the efforts
to block their infiltration.

"People are angry," said Sher Khan, a member of Harkat Mujahedeen, a
Kashmiri militant group that has been outlawed in Pakistan. "We have
reason to be angry. They are tightening the screws."

General Musharraf was so concerned about his political standing that
he summoned several Kashmiri leaders to his office this week to
reassure them that he was not giving up on the Kashmiri cause, a
deeply held and emotional issue for many Pakistanis. One of the
leaders who attended that meeting said the president was deeply
concerned about the possibility of a takeover of the government by
fundamentalist political groups.

"It will be difficult for him to survive," said Altaf Qadri, leader
of the All Party Hurriat Conference, which represents 23 Kashmiri
political groups. "Unless Musharraf has something he can show to his
people, I can envision a very horrible scene across the country."

The meeting last month with the guerrilla leaders was presided over
by Major General Khalid Mehmood, the second in command of
Inter-Services Intelligence, the sprawling agency that has long
served as the guerrillas' prime benefactor.

It was the third such meeting between the guerrillas and the
intelligence officials since the border standoff with India began in
December. Few stiff measures followed the first two meetings, the
guerrillas said. After the meeting last month, the Pakistani military
began to actively prevent the guerrillas from crossing the border.

"Everyone is confused," Mr. Khan said. "We are being forced to reassess."

____


21.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002060900161600.htm
The Hindu (India)
Jun 09, 2002
Opinion - News Analysis

War talk takes its toll

Those who thought that whipping up war hysteria is a cost-less
flexing of muscles are beginning to realise that this is a
double-edged sword, writes C.Rammanohar Reddy.

THE ILLUSION that a country can beat the drums of war and yet assume
that normal life will go on was at last shattered last week. The cost
of a possible war has finally begun to hurt most the very groups
which have been the most enthusiastic supporters of an open conflict
with Pakistan - the urban upper middle and wealthy classes.

As the fear of war and even doomsday predictions of a nuclear
conflict spread across the world, merchandise exporters are seeing
contracts receding over the horizon, software firms are having to
respond to worried enquiries and an economy that is an aspirant to
becoming the back-office of the world is beginning to realise that a
knowledge of English and a 9-12 hour time difference with the U.S.
are not sufficient criteria to attract foreign business - peace and
stability are just as important. And as consular services are reduced
in missions, that most coveted of keys to career advancement - a visa
for travel and work abroad - is becoming difficult to obtain.

Those who thought that whipping up war hysteria is a cost-less
flexing of muscles are beginning to realise that this is a
double-edged sword: it will hurt the Indian economy even as the
Government seeks to punish Pakistan. The blood of jawans will be
spilt while alongside jobs in the civilian economy will be lost and
businesses will slump. It has been somewhat irresponsible for
analysts of different hues to downplay the effect of even a limited
conflict and for some to even argue that a war will be good for the
economy. We are at last realising that even talk of a war can have a
damaging impact.

It is not just the educated and high-skilled urban classes who are
beginning to suffer. Investment decisions in general are being
postponed. As the Government remains pre-occupied with dealing with
the crisis, the economy has taken the back seat. The longer the
uncertainty and the talk of war continues, the more widespread will
be the negative effect. An open war will naturally have an even
bigger impact.

It may be deliberate strategy on the part of the Western Governments
to play up the talk of war between India and Pakistan and speculate
on the effect of a nuclear conflict, all in order to pressure India
to de-escalate and to force Pakistan to halt its support for
terrorism. But it is a strange naivete on the part of the
spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs to accuse the West
of creating a "needless hysteria". The fact is that if India wants to
be part of the global economy, it has to play by the rules of
globalisation. One of the first of these rules is the provision of
stability. Without an assurance that their interests are safe,
investors and prospective clients will bypass India as they are
already beginning to do.

The perspective of the newly emergent urban upper middle and
high-income classes has been full of dichotomies since the early
1990s, and their support for a war is one more of them. They have
been enthusiastic supporters of economic reform, in particular, and
of globalisation, in general. The possibility of economic advancement
and access to the best of consumer goods and services is only one
reason for this enthusiasm. After decades of relative isolation and
"non-alignment", the opportunity to be part of "a global community"
that is bound by a modern (i.e. western) outlook, common political
attitudes and similar consumer behaviour, is another reason. But at
the same time these classes have been acquiescent or, worse, active
participants in propagating political beliefs and practices which do
not sit well with an engagement with late 20th and early 21st century
globalisation. The support for religious bigotry and atavistic
notions of "righting historical wrongs" are the most discordant of
these practices. The irony is that for the most part the Indians who
hold these views are blind to this dichotomy. The enthusiasm for war
among these classes is of a piece with this blinkered vision. It
should be obvious that if one part of the country is drowned in a
war, the white-collar staff in urban centres elsewhere in the country
cannot continue their engagement with globalisation as if nothing had
happened.

Of course, a common belief among those who support an open war is
that if U.S. can wage war on Afghanistan and Israel on Palestine,
there is no reason why India should not likewise attack Pakistan.

Setting aside the absence of a moral compass that underlies this
argument, it should be obvious that as far as the economy is
concerned India is not the U.S. or for that matter even Israel.
Globalisation imposes its own decrees and a distaste for war between
two developing countries is one of them.

______


22.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002060900191600.htm
The Hindu (India)
Jun 09, 2002
Opinion - News Analysis

Paying the piper

The country would lose thousands of crores, if not more, for
launching a war, says Sandeep Dikshit.

THE "COST" of a war, unfortunately too often, is calculated merely in
terms of hard cash - the money spent on arms and ammunition and the
need to replace these. And there is the argument being heard even now
that at this stage when the country's economy is stable, India can
afford a war, that the price in not unaffordable.

Yet, the harsh fact is that a war, even if limited and brief, costs
hundreds of lives, it destroys families of those killed, it shatters
the everyday existence of the civilian population on the borders (as
it has already done along the Line of Control), and it often leaves
behind a trail of devastating mines which continue to take innocent
lives for years afterwards. And, as for the environment, trees would
be destroyed and entire forests laid waste.

Although economics plays as important a role as diplomacy and tactics
in every segment of statecraft, most discourses on the impact of war
revolve around the tactical and strategic victories circumventing the
burden that is likely to accrue.

The country's strategic planners feel that one option of ending the
cult of the gun in Jammu and Kashmir could be an all-out war to
"degrade the enemy's potential to such an extent that it would be
unviable for it to continue supporting terrorism". But before the
gains start coming in, if at all, the country would lose thousands of
crores, if not more, for launching a war in the first place.

The process of forward deployment from late last year has already
resulted in over 200 soldiers losing their lives. The establishment
might contradict the contention but insiders assert that the total
cost of deploying men and material till now is in the region of Rs.
4,000 crores.

The Kargil war could serve as an even better comparative study.
Despite the limited intensity of hostilities during 1999, the Indian
economy took a hit. Emergency purchases of military equipment alone
cost over Rs. 3,000 crores. The Government's finances were severely
strained and a surcharge was imposed to ease the pressure. A
post-mortem followed and the Government was advised to purchase more
sophisticated equipment. This is being reflected in the addition of
over $ one billion to the defence budget every year.

A full-scale war will cost at least $ two billions (Rs. 10,000
crores) in replenishment of spent ammunition and replacement of
wrecked military hardware including costly purchases such as aircraft
which are priced at several hundreds of crores of rupees a piece.
After the war, another post-mortem would be inevitable and experts
would reflexively call for more sophisticated equipment which would
also be more expensive.

The price of threatening a war is already being paid. Foreign
investments are down to a trickle and the tap might close permanently
if India continues to defy the minders from the West and leans on the
gun to settle its dispute with Pakistan. The West might even punish
the bellicose neighbours with economic sanctions. And even if India
comes out unscathed by the choking of access to foreign funds,
technical know-how and expertise, it would have to pay a heavy price
for devastated cities and destroyed economic assets such as power
grids, railway junctions and oil refineries. Centuries of destitution
impart a strange kind of resilience to Third World nations and India
should be no different after it emerges from the war. But at a time
when countries are rapidly adding to their economic capacities, a
post-war India, bereft of overseas succour, would struggle to rebuild
its infrastructure.

Today, there is an all-round squeeze on finances and should a war
become unavoidable, the price will be paid by every Indian. The price
for defending the country during `peace-time' is already high. A war
will make the life of citizens hugely uncomfortable. This has been
the experience - during 1962, 1965 and 1971 - in the past when
dependence on foreign resources was much less, the financial position
of the state was stronger and weapon systems were relatively
primitive.

After each of these wars, destitution and unemployment jumped and the
political arrangement was severely shaken by the resulting
dissatisfaction. Though popular discontent was not severe in 1962
because the Republic was young, Indira Gandhi was forced to impose
the Emergency inside four years of winning the 1971 Bangladesh war.
Earlier, several States saw discontent being translated into spells
of Opposition rule within years of the 1965 war.

The Centre's financial position is public knowledge while the States
are doing an even worse job with their finances. In the long run, a
war would severely hit the common man. This is the scenario when the
possibility of nuclear exchanges has not been calculated.


_____


23.

The Telegraph (India)
9 June 2002

SPY PLANE JITTERS & TITTERS
FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, June 8:
An unmanned spy plane of the Indian Air Force was shot down in
Pakistan last night but Delhi asserted that it does not signal an
escalation of conflict.

The aircraft, an Israel-manufactured Searcher Mark II, had taken off
from an airfield in Jammu and was brought down in a ball of fire by
Pakistan Air Force combat aircraft some 14 miles inside Pakistan.

In Islamabad, the detection of the spy plane and its interception was
projected as an illustration of how alert the Pakistani air defence
system is. In Delhi, there are titters in air force circles because
the aircraft had nearly reached Lahore.

Pakistan military said in a statement the unmanned Indian aircraft
was shot down around 11 pm on Friday and crashed near Raja Jang,
south of Lahore.

The Pakistan foreign ministry summoned an Indian diplomat to convey
its "deep concern and strong protest on the deliberate violation of
airspace".

Outgoing foreign minister Abdul Sattar struck a note of restraint,
saying "in a situation like this", responsible states must be careful
not to provoke an escalation in tension.

But Pakistan's military establishment toed a more strident line.
"Pakistan's determination to defend every inch of its land and
airspace has been proved by (the) downing of India's spy plane. We
hope that India learns a lesson," Pakistan's military spokesman Major
General Rashid Qureshi said.

In Delhi, the defence ministry said in a statement: "One UAV
(unmanned aerial vehicle) lost contact around 2300 hours on June 7
and is believed to have fallen down within 20 km south-south west of
Lahore." It also described the use of UAVs as a "routine feature"
given the current state of deployment.

Military experts say the increasing use of UAVs is not surprising.
UAVs are considered low-value assets and the cost of one crashing is
less than the loss of a reconnaissance plane and its trained pilot.
UAVs are fitted with sensors to either take photographic images or to
detect enemy radio signals.

Pakistan has about seven different types of UAVs, mostly of Chinese
make. India relies mainly on the Israeli-made Searcher. It has also
been test-flying the indigenously-built Nishant in actual conditions.
But the Nishant cannot fly as high as the Searcher.

Defence sources said that in recent months, India has also bought a
"substantial number" of UAVs, which are used by all three forces.

Both India and Pakistan are negotiating with western firms to buy
airborne early warning systems that will allow faster detection of
airspace transgressions.

In January, when the deployment under Operation Parakram was nearly
complete, a Pakistani UAV - a Chinese-made BS-10 - was shot down over
Poonch. Shortly before that, an Indian UAV - another Searcher II -
was reported to have crashlanded within Indian territory, but
Pakistani gunners claimed they had shot it.

_____


24.

The Daily Times (Lahore)
June 09, 2002

Rs 10b increase in defence expenditures next year

Shaukat Aziz says Annual Development Plan for next fiscal year
slashed by Rs 10 billion
By Zamir Haider
ISLAMABAD: The government has slashed the proposed Annual Development
Plan for the next fiscal year starting July 2002 and ending June30,
2003, by Rs 10 billion, from the originally proposed sum of Rs 144
billion to Rs 134 billion, in order to cater for enhanced defense
expenditures, said the finance minister, Shaukat Aziz, following a
meeting of the National Economic Council chaired by General Pervez
Musharraf on Saturday. Mr Aziz also envisaged GDP growth of 4.5% next
year based on projected growth in the agricultural and manufacturing
sectors. He hoped that GDP growth would be about 3.6% this year
compared to the target of 3.3% and 2.5% last year.
He also clarified that some small allocations for the petroleum
ministry have been taken out of the originally proposed ADP of Rs 144
billion, along with some other "unnecessary" expenditures. "Now those
petroleum ministry projects would be launched through their Public
Holding Company", he said.
Mr Aziz said that the agriculture sector was expected to have grown
by 1.4 % this year compared to minus 2.6 per% last year. Drought, he
explained, had led to this dismal growth rate. The manufacturing
sector will have grown by 4.4 % this year against the revised target
of 3.8%, in which the large scale manufacturing sector is likely to
post 4% growth against the targeted 3.2%. He estimated inflation at
2.5%, exports at $ 9 billion, the Current Account Surplus at an
unprecedented $ 2 billion, workers remittances at an unprecedented $
2.2 billion and forex reserves at $ 6 billion by the end of the
current fiscal year. The external debt has been reduced from $ 38
billion to $ 36 billion this fiscal year, he pointed out.
Talking about next year's ADP, he said that Rs 134 billion is split
up as follows: Rs 23.7 billion for water and power sector projects;
Rs 15 billion for highways, roads, etc; railways Rs 7 billion, while
the social sector and poverty related programmes will get about Rs 39
billion or nearly 40% of the total ADP amount.


_____


25.

BBC News (UK)
Sunday, 9 June, 2002, 00:38 GMT 01:38 UK

Bangladesh student shoot-out kills one

By Moazzem Hossain
BBC correspondent in Dhaka

A female student was killed during a gunfight between two rival
groups of students at Bangladesh's top engineering university on
Saturday.

Police officials said the girl was hit by a stray bullet after being
caught in the crossfire during the gunfight at the Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology in the capital, Dhaka.

Police were unable to say what the students were fighting over but
confirmed that it was between two factions of the student wing of the
ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Eyewitnesses said both sides used automatic weapons during the
hour-long gun fight, firing dozens of shots.

Hundreds of students and teachers were seen fleeing the campus for
safety while several hundred police took position around the
university.

Campus control

Students groups in Bangladesh often fight over the control of
university campuses.

They consider it crucial for maintaining their supremacy in
national-level politics.

Most student groups in Bangladesh work as front organisations for
different political parties and maintain their own armed cadres.

In the past there were calls to ban political activities in the
campus to check the rising incidence of campus violence.

However political parties have failed to reach a consensus over the issue.