These news clips are sponsored by the Indian American Center for Political Awareness.

--- South Asian News, October 22, 2002 ---

In Pakistan, the military government has come up with a new anti-terrorism law that allows police to detain suspects for up to a year without charge. Also in Pakistan, a doctor has been detained by security forces for helping Taliban militants to prepare chemical and biological weapons. In Indian Kashmir, two key political parties failed to forge a coalition in Kashmir as voters express impatience over the wrangling even as the militant violence continues in the valley. In the editorial section read about the other side of the Kashmir war which has forced millions of Hindus to flee Kashmir which was also their homeland and also how Pakistan's elections could prove detrimental to its return to democracy. The business section gives a report on how European and American companies are outsourcing basic product research and development to India in a bid to cut down costs.

Top Stories

* Government touts new anti-terrorism decree that gives authorities sweeping powers to detain suspects (Las Vegas Sun) (San Francisco Chronicle) (Star Tribune)
* Pakistan Minister: Musharraf to begin power transfer this month (Wall Street Journal)
* Doctor accused of helping Taliban (Wall Street Journal) (LA Times) (Washington Post) (ABC News) (San Francisco Chronicle) (Star Tribune) (Las Vegas Sun) (Anchorage Daily News) (MSNBC)
* Pakistan mulls lifting of overflight bans (Wall Street Journal)
* U.S. to return some detainees to Pakistan (CNN)
* India to start Pakistan troop pullback in 10 days (NY Times) (Washington Post) (ABC News)
* India and Pakistan: the dispute burns on as armies withdraw (NY Times)
* Parties deadlocked over Kashmir government (Wall Street Journal) (NY Times) (Washington Post) (Reuters Alertnet) (ABC News)
* Fighting in Kashmir kills 10 (Wall Street Journal) (NY Times) (Washington Post) (San Francisco Chronicle) (Star Tribune) (Las Vegas Sun)
* India, US conduct joint air force exercise (Reuters Alert)
* One Nepali soldier killed, 5 hurt in rebel attack (Wall Street Journal) (MSNBC)
* Sri Lanka politics could push peace to back burner (MSNBC)
* Sri Lankan court ruling could mean snap election (Wall Street Journal) (MSNBC)

Editorial/Op-Ed

* Once diverse, Kashmir is now valley of Muslims (Christian Science Monitor)
* Pakistan elections are setback for democracy (News Day)
* Stop ignoring militant Islam's role in atrocities (Chicago Sun Times)

Business/Technology

* UK's Blair urges India to confirm jet trainer deal (Wall Street Journal) (CNN)
* In shift, IT vendors outsource R&D to India (International Data Group) (InfoWorld Media Group)
* Diplomatic-Malaysia to invest more in Pakistan (Global Sources)

Other Stories

* Exposing problems in India (Daily Pennsylvanian)

Top Stories

* Government touts new anti-terrorism decree that gives authorities sweeping powers to detain suspects

Islamabad -- Pakistan's military government defended a controversial new anti-terrorism measure that allows police to detain suspects for up to a year without charge, saying Tuesday that it was vital to keep dangerous suspects off the streets.The law, signed into effect by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf over the weekend, has been criticized by human rights groups, who say it grants authorities too much power. But Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said the new measure is similar to laws passed in other countries since Sept. 11.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2002/oct/22/102208950.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/10/22/international0645EDT0497.DTL
http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3380890.html

* Pakistan Minister: Musharraf to begin power transfer this month

Islamabad -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will begin transferring power to a civilian government this month by swearing in the newly elected parliament, Information Minister Nisar Memon said Monday. "The transfer of power from the military to the civilian government will not be delayed," Memon said. However, no date has been set for the ceremony, he said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021021_001598,00.html

* Doctor accused of helping Taliban

Lahore, Pakistan -- The family of a prominent orthopedic surgeon being detained by Pakistani security forces said Tuesday he has been accused of helping prepare chemical and biological weapons for Taliban fighters and Islamic militants. Dr. Amer Aziz was picked up in Lahore for questioning by security police Monday for allegedly treating Taliban and Islamic militants in various hospitals.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021022_001291-search,00.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-pakistan-doctor1022oct22,0,6008901.story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AOct22.html
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20021021_473.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/10/22/international0504EDT0472.DTL
http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3380836.html
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2002/oct/22/102208855.html
http://www.adn.com/24hour/special_reports/terrorism/story/586530p-4568155c.html
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters.asp?reg=ASIA

* Pakistan mulls lifting of overflight bans

Karachi, Pakistan -- Pakistan may lift a ban on Indian aircraft flying over its territory, after the two sides decided to re-deploy troops from a shared border last week, a Foreign Office spokesman told a televised news conference Monday. "We are considering this and will announce the response when it is ready," said Aziz Ahmed Khan in Islamabad. In June, India lifted a six-month-old overflight ban on Pakistani aircraft, but Islamabad didn't announce similar measures nor did it allow its aircraft to fly over India.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021021_001165,00.html

* U.S. to return some detainees to Pakistan

Washington -- A small group of detainees being held by the United States will be returned to Pakistan from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within the next few days, CNN has learned. The move would be the first release of detainees to their home country under a policy that they can be returned if they no longer pose a threat or have no intelligence value.

http://asia.cnn.com/2002/US/10/21/detainees.release/index.html

* India to start Pakistan troop pullback in 10 days

New Delhi -- India said Monday it would take at least eight days to begin pulling back troops massed on its border with Pakistan because land mines had to be cleared and bunkers closed down before the withdrawal could start. India and Pakistan said last week they would move tens of thousands of troops to peacetime locations, but this would not include those on a tense cease-fire line in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars between the nuclear-armed rivals.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-southasia-india.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AOct21.html
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20021021_108.html

* India and Pakistan: the dispute burns on as armies withdraw

New Delhi -- In an undertaking almost as mammoth as preparing for war, India and Pakistan are getting ready to pull hundreds of thousands of troops back from their border after the largest and longest peacetime standoff in their history. Seeing the possibility of a new beginning in the stalemate's end, American officials have begun talking hopefully of renewed dialogue between the nuclear-armed rivals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/22/international/asia/22INDI.html

* Parties deadlocked over Kashmir government

Srinagar, India -- Two key political parties failed to break an 11-day-old impasse on forming a coalition government in Indian Kashmir Monday as voters expressed impatience over the wrangling. Officials from India's main opposition Congress Party and the Kashmir-based People's Democratic Party (PDP) were confident they could forge a coalition to replace the National Conference, ousted in a state election this month.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021021_002027,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-kashmir.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AOct21.html
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/538384
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20021021_136.html

* Fighting in Kashmir kills 10

Jammu, India -- Fighting between government troops and Islamic militants in Kashmir left 10 people dead, officials said Monday, and the troubled Himalayan province was still without a government as parties failed to decide who should get the state's most powerful post. Four militants, three army officers and a police officer, a civilian and a political activist were killed in separate clashes in the region, police said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021021_002519,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Kashmir-Government.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AOct21.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/10/21/international1120EDT0573.DTL
http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3378889.html
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2002/oct/21/102107151.html

* India, US conduct joint air force exercise

New Delhi -- India and the United States held Tuesday their first ever joint air force exercise in Indian airspace. The weeklong exercise began in India's northwestern city of Agra where heavy transport aircraft executed joint maneuvers to prepare for search and rescue operations.

http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=CpBtnqbebAw5KAweTDxmTC3bVD

* One Nepali soldier killed, 5 hurt in rebel attack

Kathmandu -- One Nepali soldier was killed and five wounded on Tuesday when Maoist rebels fighting to overthrow the constitutional monarchy attacked a patrol in the west of the Himalayan country, a government official said. Guerrillas have stepped up attacks since King Gyanendra sacked Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on October 4 after Deuba called for the postponement of elections due to begin in November because of threats by the rebels to disrupt the vote.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021021_001298,00.html
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters.asp?reg=ASIA

* Sri Lanka politics could push peace to back burner

Colombo -- Sri Lanka's unfolding peace bid to end nearly two decades of war may be forced onto the back burner if domestic politics is thrown into fresh turmoil by a Supreme Court decision due on Tuesday. The widely leaked court ruling is expected to block a government attempt to clip President Chandrika Kumaratunga's powers to dissolve parliament, raising the odds of the island's third general election in a little more than two years.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters.asp?reg=ASIA

* Sri Lankan court ruling could mean snap election

Colombo -- Sri Lanka could be headed for a snap election after the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday the government had to call a referendum if it wanted constitutional changes to limit the president's power to dissolve parliament. The government has already rejected the idea of a referendum and said it could go to the polls, which would delay a peace process that has brought about the first direct talks in seven years aimed at ending an ethnic war that has killed 64,000 people.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021022_001117-search,00.html
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters.asp?reg=ASIA

Editorial/Op-Ed

* Once diverse, Kashmir is now valley of Muslims

Srinagar, India -- Javed's parents always talk about what Kashmir used to be - a land where Hindus and Muslims were friends, celebrated holidays and weddings together, ate each other's food. But Javed, a high school student here, says his parents might as well be describing life on the moon. He was 3 when a violent insurgency against Indian control tore apart the state, causing Hindus to flee by the hundreds of thousands. He has never had a Hindu teacher or friend, never tasted Hindu food.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1022/p01s02-wosc.html

* Pakistan elections are setback for democracy

Pakistan's politics often set the world on edge, and this month's fundamentally flawed and predictably fragmented elections are likely to annoy allies and enemies for years to come. By manipulating every aspect of the polling, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf mocked the value of the elections, risked regional security and set back the country's transition to civilian government.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpnew222973940oct22,0,702434.story

* Stop ignoring militant Islam's role in atrocities

Militant Islam keeps on killing, but politicians and journalists still avert their eyes.One terrible example comes from Pakistan, where a sequence of assaults on Christians, local and foreign, has taken place over the last year:There have been many more non-lethal assaults on churches and church services. There is no doubt about the motives of the perpetrators: Militant Islamic groups brazenly speak their minds, declaring their goal is ''to kill Christians'' and afterward bragging of having ''killed the nonbelievers.''

http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-pipes21.html

Business/Technology

* UK's Blair urges India to confirm jet trainer deal

London -- U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair urged India's visiting prime minister to sign a contract for U.K. training jets, Blair's office confirmed Monday. The Indian leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, met with Blair on Oct. 12 at the prime minister's country retreat, Chequers. The U.K. defense contractor BAE Systems (U.BA) hopes to sell 40 or more Hawk trainer jets to India. The deal has been under negotiation for a decade.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021021_000855,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/UK/10/21/blair.india/index.html

* In shift, IT vendors outsource R&D to India

In a bid to cut product development costs in the face of a continuing slump in demand for IT, U.S. and European technology vendors are outsourcing basic product research and development (R&D) to Indian companies. In just one recent example, Ericsson India Pvt Ltd., the Delhi subsidiary of Stockholm-based telecommunications equipment maker Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, announced that it had signed a letter of intent to sell its three R&D centers in India to Wipro Ltd., a Bangalore technology services company.

http://www.idg.net/ic_958313_1794_9-10000.html
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/10/21/021021hnindia.xml?s=IDGNS

* Diplomatic-Malaysia to invest more in Pakistan

Islamabad -- The Malaysian Prime Minister ,Dr Mahathir has said his country will make more investment in Pakistan and increase imports to narrow down gap in bilateral trade that is heavily tilted in favor of Malaysia. He stated this while speaking at a function arranged by the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Pakistan Malaysia Economic Cooperation Committee here Friday.

http://www.globalsources.com/TNTLIST/2002/10/19/eng-transdata_ppi/eng-transdata_ppi_150135_.htm


Other Stories

* Exposing problems in India

Lalit Vachani was a man with a mission.The Penn alumnus wanted to expose what he believed to be a deceitful organization in India. So he set out to utilize the media and show the public what he had witnessed.Vachani, a 1989 alumnus of the Annenberg School for Communication, spoke about his movie The Men in the Tree last night at Annenberg. Vachani directed the movie, which was about the RSS, a right-wing Hindu fundamentalist organization.Communications Professor and event organizer Larry Gross said, "We need to inform the community about important events in India. These events need to be better exposed

http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/10/22/3db503d67f19d

* Fashioned after the New York subway map, a palm-sized guide to healthy living makes a great gift

New York -- The Vastu Living Pocket Guide to Good Health is the brainchild of Kathleen Cox. Based on the science of ayurveda, the laminated guide focuses on each person's dosha -- or mind-body type -- to maintain optimum health.The guide shows how to determine your dosha-vata, pitta, or kapha; then reveals the healthiest diet, exercise program, and bedroom and office design for each dosha. The Vastu Living Pocket to Good Health ($6.99) is available online at http://www.vastuliving.com and Amazon.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/569/3380834.html

================================================================================================