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SOUTH ASIA NEWS




STRING

     US NEWS SOURCES -May 21, 2003

---IN TODAY'S NEWS---

BREAKING NEWS / NEWSWIRE

* IBM sets up tech design centre in India *(Reuters)
 

International Business Machines Corp on Wednesday launched a technology centre in India that would provide design services for advanced chips and hardware boards to companies across Asia. The unit, based in Bangalore, is part of IBM's engineering and technology services divisions in the United States, Europe and Japan, the company said in a statement. "The centre will enable IBM to leverage a vast and talented Indian information technology talent pool, competent in large integration and embedded software design," said Uday Shukla, director, technology group labs at IBM India. The company declined to give the staff size of the new centre.

  http://in.news.yahoo.com/030521/137/24hdo.html  
* Republican Jeb Hensarling joins India caucus
 

Congressman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas, is the latest entrant to the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, the largest country caucus on the Hill. Hensarling said: "I was very pleased to join my colleagues on the Caucus for India and Indian Americans." He added: "As the world's largest democracy, India remains an important economic and strategic ally of the U.S. And, as a member of the Congress, I hope to promote a stronger trade and cultural exchange with India while continuing to recognise the valuable contributions of Indian Americans here at home." There is a large concentration of Indian Americans in Texas, several of whom are active politically.

  http://in.news.yahoo.com/030521/43/24ham.html  
* Benazir decries US double standards on dictatorial regimes *(ANI)
 

Former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto has said that the world political standards varied, according to political expediency, as those decrying dictatorship in Iraq were staying close to dictators in Pakistan. Addressing the founding conference of the World Political Forum convened by the former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in the Italian city of Turin, she said: "Democracy for Iraq, but dictatorship just miles away. Iraqi violations of the UN resolutions bring a strong response. Violations of UN resolutions in the Middle East or in South Asia draw a less vocal reaction." The topic of her discourse was "Democracy and Internationalism: Post Iraq". Benazir said that President Bush claimed that war on Iraq was war for liberty and against tyranny. In the post Iraq, tyrants should fear but it was troubling that some of those tyrants still feel little fear and some of them were still close allies of Washington, a party press release said. "In the case of Pakistan, a repressive regime exiles the popular opposition, imprisons dissidents and rigs elections".

  http://in.news.yahoo.com/030521/139/24hb6.html  

A U.S military report on the active role played by Pakistan in the war against the Taliban irks Islamic leaders in Pakistan. Pakistani and U.S. officials meet to discuss ways to limit the spread of conventional, chemical and biological weapons in South Asia. The Prime Minister of Pakistani Kashmir calls for the bifurcation of the disputed Kashmir region on religious lines as a probable solution to the decade long dispute. USA multinationals, Pepsi and Coke are accused of unlimited exploitation of groundwater in Southern India. In the business section, IBM sets up a chip design center in India's high-tech city Bangalore, catering to customers across Asia.

HEADLINES

TOP STORIES
Sikh shooting called hate crime   (Arizona Republic)
Untochable   (National Geographic - Subscription Required)
Bush Eyes Easing of Missile-Export Rules  (NY NewsDay)
Pakistan, U.S. discuss stopping spread of weapons in South Asia (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Pakistani role in Afghan war brings anger (New York Times - Registration required) (Indianapolis Star) (Miami Herald) (Las Vegas Sun) (News Day) (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (San Francisco Chronicle) (Star Tribune) (The Oklahoman - Registration required) (Chicago Tribune - Registration required) (Sacramento Bee) Arizona Republic (Philadelphia Inquirer)
New Delhi police brace for riots over water, power (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Protests in India deplore soda makers' water use (New York Times - Registration required) (Mercury News)
Muslim leaders: Pakistani President must quit army job by August 14 (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers likely to attend Tokyo aid meeting (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Pakistan navy chief: New port to boost Central Asian trade (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Missing journalist found alive, in chains in Bangladesh (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Nation Pleads for Aid After Devastating Floods  (LA Times - registration required)
Rickshaw pullers endure hardship and officials' scorn  (Philadelphia Inq.)
EDITORIALS / OP-ED
N/A
BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY
Indian workers begin strike to protest privatization (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Washington Post)
Siemens Mobile: India becoming 2nd biggest Asian market (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
IBM chip design center in India (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Forbes) (Staten Island Live) (Washington Post) (The Boston Globe)
SABMiller forms new joint venture in India (Forbes)
Pirated movies, software swamp Pakistan markets (Forbes)
OTHER STORIES
Sherpas called unsung heroes of Everest (New York Times - Registration required) (Indianapolis Star) (Seattle Times) (Star Tribune) (Star Tribune) (San Francisco Chronicle) (News Day) (Newark Star Ledger) (Sacramento Bee)
In rebuilding, India's needy become savvy aid consumers (Christian Science Monitor - Subscription required)
Challenge cup (Chicago Tribune - Registration required)
Kashmiri leader calls for religious divide (New York Times - Registration required) (Washington Post)
$5 million bail for man accused of killing wife (Chicago Tribune - Registration required) (Daily Herald)
One hot curry, from one cool summer fruit (Los Angeles Times - Registration required)
Mystery Disease Stalking Vultures in Asia  (National Geographic)
New Visa Tracking System Unveiled  (NY NewsDay)
India's Sinha: Last chance for peace over Kashmir (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Former government minister stabbed to death in Southern India (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)

STORIES

TOP STORIES

*

Sikh shooting called hate crime
  A Sikh man was shot Monday night in north Phoenix in what authorities are calling an unprovoked hate crime. Avtar Singh Cheira, a 52-year-old truck driver who lives in Phoenix, was shot twice by men in a red pickup near Ninth Street and Bell Road, police said. The Indian immigrant, who has lived in the United States for 18 years, was wearing a turban as he waited for his family to pick him up from work about 9:20 p.m. "I heard that voice say, 'Go back to where you belong to,' and at the same time I heard that shot," Cheira said Tuesday at a Valley hospital, where he winced with pain each time he moved his legs. Cheira was hit twice in the legs with bullets from a small-caliber gun. His youngest son found him, scooped him up and waited for an ambulance. Police have no suspects. "There is no doubt this is a hate crime," said Phoenix police Detective Tony Morales. "To think that this kind of ignorance is still out there and can fuel such an ugly racist action is just appalling." The shooting is the second in the Valley targeting a member of the Sikh community since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On Sept. 15, 2001, Balbir Singh Sodhi, 49, was fatally shot at his Mesa gas station. Police believe his killer mistakenly believed Sodhi was an Arab and shot him simply because of the turban he wore as part of his Sikh faith. The suspect, Frank Silva Roque, 43, is scheduled for trial on June 24.
  http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0521hatecrime21.html

*

Untochable
  Discrimination against India's lowest Hindu castes is technically illegal. But try telling that to the 160 million Untouchables, who face violent reprisals if they forget their place .... To be born a Hindu in India is to enter the caste system, one of the world's longest surviving forms of social stratification. Embedded in Indian culture for the past 1,500 years, the caste system follows a basic precept: All men are created unequal. The ranks in Hindu society come from a legend in which the main groupings, or varnas, emerge from a primordial being. From the mouth come the Brahmans—the priests and teachers. From the arms come the Kshatriyas—the rulers and soldiers. From the thighs come the Vaisyas—merchants and traders. From the feet come the Sudras—laborers. Each varna in turn contains hundreds of hereditary castes and subcastes with their own pecking orders.
  http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0306/feature1/index.html

*

Bush Eyes Easing of Missile-Export Rules
  The Bush administration is looking into whether stiff controls over missile-technology exports should be relaxed so U.S. missile defenses can be more easily shared with certain other nations ..."It is a silly trade-off. It shows the administration is willing to compromise international controls to transfer missile technology" in hopes of advancing its missile-defense ambitions, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the private Arms Control Association. As an example, he said an Israeli proposal to sell its Arrow missile defense system to India could not go forward under the current rules but could if the restrictions were eased. Such a sale would come under U.S. jurisdiction because the Israeli system is based on U.S. technology.
  http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-bush-missile-defense,0,5505469.story

*

Pakistan, U.S. discuss stopping spread of weapons in South Asia
  May 20, Islamabad -- Pakistani and U.S. officials met Tuesday to discuss ways to limit the spread of conventional, chemical and biological weapons in South Asia, a Foreign Ministry statement said. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen G. Rademaker and Pakistan's acting Foreign Secretary Tariq Usman Hyder met for talks in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, the statement said. "Both sides exchanged views on regional and strategic security issues and reviewed the progress of arms control treaties to which the two countries were signatories," the statement said, without giving any other details.
  http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/newsurl.asp?doc_id=NR_524f0001f2a7156e
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030520_003964,00.html

*

Pakistani role in Afghan war brings anger
  May 20, Islamabad -- A U.S. military report giving new details on Pakistani help during the war to oust Afghanistan's Taliban regime angered Islamic leaders Tuesday, who argued the government wasn't honest about the extent of its assistance. Leaders of hard-line religious parties threatened to call street demonstrations to protest the revelations. Some urged the resignation of Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S. campaign against terrorist groups.
  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-may21,1,7746946.story
  http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/world/story/893706p-6225769c.html
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AMay20.html
  http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0521islamic21.html
  http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/5907004.htm
  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Islamic-Anger.html
  http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/9/.html
  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/2003/05/21/news/world/5907564.htm
  http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2003/may/20/052007564.html
  http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-pakistan-islamic-anger,0,1510024.story
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030520_002861,00.html
  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/05/20/international1654EDT0676.DTL
  http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3893910.html
  http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=1028117&TP=getarticle

*

New Delhi police brace for riots over water, power
  New Delhi -- Police in India's capital are carefully watching 25 potential trouble areas where they fear angry citizens could riot over continuing water and power shortages, a news report said Wednesday. Citizens in many parts of India go without power and water for several hours a day, especially in the summer months. Angry street demonstrations have been a familiar sight during previous summers. In some poor neighborhoods, a "water mafia" drives tankers door to door to sell buckets of water at high rates, and a "power mafia" has wired homes to illegally sell electricity, domestic news reports say. Any protests would have political overtones this year due to the upcoming Delhi state elections at year's end.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_001239-search,00.html

*

Protests in India deplore soda makers' water use
  May 20, Bangalore, India -- Just as the threats of a boycott against American soft drinks because of the war in Iraq appear to have petered out, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are caught in a whole new controversy here over the water consumed by their bottling plants in southern India. The village government of Pudussery, a rural community in the Palghat district of Kerala state, said last week that it had revoked the water-use license of the Pepsi bottling plant there because the plant had depleted the community's groundwater to the point of causing a shortage. The license was not due to expire until 2005.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/21/business/worldbusiness/21SODA.html
  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5910060.htm

*

Muslim leaders: Pakistani President must quit army job by August 14
  Islamabad -- Hardline Islamic lawmakers demanded Wednesday that Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf resign as head of the army by Aug. 14 or face street protests. The opposition politicians, who have a powerful voice in parliament, have set Pakistan's Independence Day as the deadline for Musharraf to retire from the military and fully become a civilian head of state, said Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, a parliamentarian from the religious right. "It will be good if Musharraf (takes) off (his) uniform when the nation celebrates the national day," Ahmad said.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_001564-search,00.html

*

Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers likely to attend Tokyo aid meeting
  May 20, Colombo -- Tamil Tiger rebels, who are moving tentatively toward reviving Sri Lanka's fragile peace process, said Tuesday they will likely attend a key donor conference in Tokyo next month. Earlier they said they would boycott the meeting. Rebel leader S.P. Thamilselvan was expected to announce the Tigers' participation in the aid conference at a press briefing Wednesday in the northern rebel-held town of Kilinochchi, rebel sources said on condition of anonymity. Last month, the rebels suspended peace talks and pulled out of the Tokyo conference, accusing the government of not doing enough to resettle and improve the living conditions of some 800,000 Tamils displaced by the island's 19-year civil war.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030520_002215,00.html

*

Pakistan navy chief: New port to boost Central Asian trade
  May 20, Islamabad -- A new port that Pakistan is building near the Iranian border will up new trade routes into Central Asia and stimulate economic activity for the entire region, Pakistan's navy chief said Tuesday. The $250 million port in the remote coastal city of Gwadar near the Iranian border is being built with Chinese backing and is expected to be completed within two years. "India and Pakistan have huge economic stakes associated with their sea-lanes. The upcoming Gwadar Port project promises (to be) a trade conduit to Central Asian States and a major hub of commercial activity in the region," Admiral Shahid Karimullah told a graduation ceremony at Pakistan's Navy War College, according to a navy statement.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030520_003118,00.html

*

Missing journalist found alive, in chains in Bangladesh
  Chittagong, Bangladesh -- A Bangladeshi journalist missing for nearly three weeks in southeastern Bangladesh was found Wednesday abandoned by a roadside with his hands and legs bound in chains, police said. Atahar Siddik Khasru, a reporter for the national daily Ittefaq newspaper at Sitakund, went missing April 30 from the nearby port city of Chittagong. Following an anonymous phone call to his family early Wednesday, police found Khasru dumped in a bush by a highway at Sitakund, an industrial town near Chittagong, 215 kilometers southeast of the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_001516-search,00.html

*

Nation Pleads for Aid After Devastating Floods
  Sri Lanka needs international aid after its worst flooding in five decades, which has killed at least 300 people and left an estimated 150,000 homeless, the government said. An additional 200 people are missing, many buried by landslides in the weekend deluge. "I appeal to the international community to urgently help us with bottled water, shelter material, clothes and medicine," Rehabilitation Minister Jayalath Jayawardene said.
  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs21.1may21,1,740615.story

*

Rickshaw pullers endure hardship and officials' scorn
  Wiry and wrinkled from 40 years of pulling rickshaws through Calcutta's clamorous streets, Ganesh Shaw fingers the round bell that serves as his horn, rolling it like a prayer bead as he wipes sorrowful eyes with a blue plaid sarong wrapped around his waist. Shaw is among the world's last remaining rickshaw pullers, the human horses of Calcutta both reviled and revered in the 1992 film City of Joy. "It's our fate that we are poor, and it's our fate to pull rickshaws," says Shaw, who believes he is about 70. "I'll get senile soon and have to go back to the village, so I've got to keep earning money now." On a good day, he earns 100 rupees - about $2 - by charging 10 rupees for a 10- to 15-minute ride. Nearly half goes to the owner of his rickshaw and the garage where 250 "rickshaw-wallahs" get two meals a day, repairs for their carts, and a safe place to sleep.
  http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/5906994.htm

EDITORIALS / OP-ED

*

N/A
 
 

BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY

*

Indian workers begin strike to protest privatization
  New Delhi -- Workers from six trade unions that oppose privatization Wednesday launched a nationwide strike that is likely to hurt ports and the banking, insurance, transportation and mining industries. "The strike would be something independent India has not seen for a long time," Gurudas Dasgupta, general-secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, was quoted as saying by The Times of India newspaper. AITUC and other labor groups affiliated with communist parties called on their more than 5 million members to stay home Wednesday to protest the government's plan to raise 132 billion rupees (US$2.75 billion) by selling off state-run companies in the current fiscal year ending in March 2004.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AMay21.html
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_000048,00.html

*

Siemens Mobile: India becoming 2nd biggest Asian market
  Munich -- With the launch of six new mobile phones, Siemens AG (SI) unit Siemens Information and Communication Mobile, or Siemens mobile, intends to expand in the Indian mobile communication market, the company said Wednesday. India will develop into Siemens mobile's second most important market in Asia, after China, within only a few years. For this reason Siemens' wireless communications division will significantly expand its activities in that region. This was announced by Lothar Pauly, Board Member of Siemens mobile, at a press conference in New Delhi. The research and development site in Bangalore was given the global lead for the development of GSM and 3G/UMTS network software. For that reason the number of engineers employed there will be increased from 400 to 500.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_001391-search,00.html
  http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/newsurl.asp?doc_id=NR_f0f100218724b2f5

*

IBM chip design center in India
  Bangalore, India -- IBM Corp. (IBM) has set up a chip design center in India's high-tech city Bangalore, catering to customers across Asia, company officials said. "The India center will enable IBM to leverage a vast Indian IT talent pool ... to create innovative solutions for our customers," Uday Shukla, director of IBM's Technology Group Lab said in a statement late Tuesday. IBM has similar centers designing semiconductors in the United States, Germany and Japan. The company didn't give details of the investment in the Bangalore center. IBM India , a unit of IBM Corp., currently employs about 900 people. The new center will design chips for use in communication equipment such as modems and circuits.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AMay21.html
  http://boston.com/dailynews/141/economy/IBM__chip_design_center_i:.shtml
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_001758-search,00.html
  http://forbes.com/newswire/2003/05/21/rtr977163.html
  http://www.silive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?o0051_BC_NY--India-IBMCenter

*

SABMiller forms new joint venture in India
  SABMiller Plc, the world's second largest brewer, announced on Wednesday a new joint venture in India, spending $132.8 million for a 50 percent share in the venture to take advantage of India's growing beer market. SABMiller says its Indian subsidiary, Mysore Breweries Ltd, has formed a 50-50 venture with India's second largest brewing group Shaw Wallace to be called Shaw Wallace Breweries Ltd which will hold the combined brewing interests and licences of the two businesses. "Mysore is now in a position to take advantage of the 11 percent per annum growth in the Indian beer market through the joint venture's leading positions in the key beer consuming states of India," said SABMiller's Chief Executive Graham Mackay in a statement.
  http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/05/21/rtr977171.html

*

Pirated movies, software swamp Pakistan markets
  May 20, Karachi, Pakistan -- A shabbily dressed hawker squabbles with a teenager over the price of a latest Microsoft Windows programme in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi. The deal is closed at 40 rupees -- about $0.70. Saad Hasan has just bought a pirated copy of Windows XP, which is more readily available in Pakistan than the licensed product which retails at 5,800 rupees ($100). "Who can afford the original?" he said as he ran his fingers over row after row of CDs piled on the rickety push cart. "It would have cost me thousands of rupees. I can't afford that." Another cart is stacked with Hollywood blockbusters and Indian "Bollywood" movies, all selling at less than a dollar.
  http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2003/05/20/rtr976989.html

OTHER STORIES

*

Sherpas called unsung heroes of Everest
  New Delhi -- It was, recalled Sir Edmund Hillary, like riding a runaway elevator down a tube of ice, plunging deep into the crevasse and wondering whether the rope would stop him before he met his death. Fifty years have passed since the New Zealander and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the mountaineer at the other end of the rope, became the first men to scale 29,035-foot Mt. Everest, but the story still enthralled the audience gathered in New Delhi on Tuesday to mark the anniversary. Preparing to scale the peak, Hillary said, he and Norgay had headed up the icefall "just to prove how fit we were," and were heading back from 21,000 feet, trying to reach camp before dark.
  http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-8/.xml?starledger?ntop
  http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/world/story/893727p-6225893c.html
  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Everest-50th-Anniversary.html
  http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/4/.html
  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134781201_everest21.html
  http://www.forbes.com/fdc/contact.shtml
  http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3893364.html
  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/05/20/sports1928EDT0359.DTL
  http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-everest-50th-anniversary,0,1497468.story

*

In rebuilding, India's needy become savvy aid consumers
  Rapar, India -- Two years ago, an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 7.9 ripped through the state of Gujarat, leveling nearly every building in this village and forcing people into makeshift bamboo huts. So when Jayendra Rathore told village elders here that his organization would rebuild shattered homes, he expected an enthusiastic response. But it took a full year of negotiations to convince Rapar's leaders to say yes. Since the earthquake, more than 200 groups and millions of dollars have poured into the region, transforming desperate aid recipients into savvy customers of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). "A lot of resources have come in, and people can see that, so they want ... to find the best deal," says Mr. Rathore, a manager of CARE, an international relief agency that runs a rehabilitation project in Bhuj, western Gujarat. The project has built 5,000 houses and more than 60 community centers.
  http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0521/p07s01-wosc.html

*

Challenge cup
  Tea may be a bit too subtle for a palate used to stronger stuff. But even a jaded wine lover can see the obvious parallels between two of the world's favorite beverages. A recent "cupping," or tasting, of Indian tea at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park provided a perfect comparative opportunity. There, Bill and Nancy Todd of River Forest's Todd & Holland Tea Merchants, together with a tea importer and a representative of the India Tea Co. staged the cupping.
  http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-may21,1,7765211.story

*

Kashmiri leader calls for religious divide
  Muzaffarabad, Pakistan -- The prime minister of Pakistani Kashmir called Tuesday for the partition of the disputed Kashmir region on religious lines as a way to resolve the long-running bloody dispute with India over the territory. Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan said Kashmir's Muslim-majority areas should go to Pakistan and Hindu areas accede to India. "This solution is the closest to the 1947 partition plan under which India and Pakistan came into being," Khan told Reuters in a telephone interview.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AMay20.html
  http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-pakistan-kashmir.html

*

$5 million bail for man accused of killing wife
  Kewal Aujla, 29, of the 400 block of Meadowhill Lane, was charged with first-degree murder late Monday after leading Round Lake Beach police to Narinder Sangha's body, said Matthew Chancey, of the Lake County state's attorney's office. Sangha's family reported her missing April 9. Sangha, 30, met Aujla during a trip with her family to India, and they got married about three years ago, said Sangha's sister, Sonia Sangha, earlier this month.
  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/north/chi-may21,1,5596854.story
  http://www.dailyherald.com/news_story.asp?intid=37762361

*

One hot curry, from one cool summer fruit
  Last year I made a drop-dead Indian dinner: a lamb curry that took four hours to cook, a majestic pilaf full of toasted whole spices, a rich Moghul coconut-lime soup and a raft of fresh chutneys and side dishes. Everybody was very impressed, and afterward all the guests were begging me for a recipe. A recipe. They all wanted the same one. And after all my work, it was the very simplest dish I'd made. It takes less than 10 minutes to cook.
  http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-curried21may21231417,1,6605346.story

*

Mystery Disease Stalking Vultures in Asia
  A mysterious disease wiping out white-backed vultures in India is now decimating populations in neighboring Pakistan. Recent studies of the migration routes of Eurasian vultures, which winter in India, raise fears that these far ranging birds may spread the disease further to related species in Africa and Europe with devastating consequences.
  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

*

New Visa Tracking System Unveiled
  Foreign visitors arriving with visas at U.S. airports or seaports next year will have their travel documents scanned, their fingerprints and photos taken and their identification checked against terrorist watch lists. Such a tracking system could have stopped two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Homeland Security Department undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said Monday as he gave details of the department's new U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology, or U.S. VISIT. The system, which goes into effect Jan. 1, will check the comings and goings of foreign travelers who arrive carrying visas. Travelers with visas made up about 60 percent, or 23 million, of foreign visitors to the United States last year. Hutchinson said such a system could have caught hijackers Mohammed Atta, who had overstayed his visa on a previous occasion, and Hani Hanjour, when he failed to show up at school as required by his student visa.
  http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-usvisa213294842may21,0,6756066.story?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dprint

*

India's Sinha: Last chance for peace over Kashmir
  Singapore -- India's Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha has indicated that the current "thaw" in relations with Pakistan is the last chance for a peaceful solution over Kashmir between the two nuclear nations, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported on its Web site Tuesday. Speaking to the BBC ahead of Tuesday's meeting of the eight countries of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group in London, Sinha said: "Hopes have been raised in Pakistan that maybe this time we'll have better luck."
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030521_000125,00.html

*

Former government minister stabbed to death in Southern India
  May 20, Madras, India -- A former government minister in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu was stabbed to death Tuesday by unidentified assailants while on his morning walk, police said. T. Kiruttinan, a senior leader of the state's opposition Dravida Munnethra Kazhagham, was found with several stab and head injuries in his hometown of Madurai, nearly 500 kilometers south of Madras, the state capital. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead. "According to initial reports from Madurai, there were stab injuries in the body as well as head injuries," said I. Govind, the state's police chief.
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030520_002249,00.html

              --- South Asian News, May 21, 2003 ---

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