Eyewitness: Afghan bombing

Correspondents and eyewitnesses have spoken of the aftermath of a deadly explosion at India's embassy in Kabul, which has killed dozens of people and left many more seriously injured. Witnesses told of body parts hanging from trees and of feverish efforts to help badly injured victims at a key hospital in the Afghan capital. The BBC's Martin Patience, reporting from the scene of the attack, said Afghan and international forces had "swarmed" around the blast site in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Blue and white tickertape and armed security personnel were keeping curious onlookers about 200 metres away from the Indian embassy, our correspondent reported. Workers wearing orange boiler suits swept rubble off the road, while others picked through the wreckage of a collapsed wall, he added. Cranes also lifted the remains of cars onto trucks to be taken away. 'Burnt bodies' At Kabul's hospitals, reports of a major explosion prompted a feverish effort to cope with the influx of dead and injured, with support and administrative staff helping doctors and nurses deal with the casualties. At Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, IT manager Shaker Hamdad left his desk to help carry in the wounded, while nurses carried away those for whom help came too late. "Today I saw four bodies come in, completely burnt," Mr Hamdad told the BBC. "They were completely black, like tar, and the nurses took them straight to the morgue. Four others I saw had very serious injuries and were being treated. "Today was a really difficult day, one of the most shocking days we have had here. "I can't help medically but when these things happen we all try to help in some way - we get people into the emergency room, we rush to find doctors, anything really. Everybody gets involved, we have to. "I took a job as an interpreter, then became IT manager. But if you see people lying on the ground in pain it's hard not to help." 'Quite normal' One Afghan woman who works with an international organisation in Kabul said she could not understand why the bombers had targeted crowds outside the Indian embassy. Many Afghans queue there for visas to take sick relatives and friends for medical treatment in India, Heela Barakzai told the BBC. "It's really sad. I can't really find the words to explain it, because the number [of dead] is rising time by time and it's all those innocent people who were there to get visas, to get out of the country - to take their patients for treatment, or for business work," she said. "I don't know why they were targeted, and for what. They are not linked to international troops, so I really don't know why they targeted them." Saska Galic, a Croatian who has lived and worked in Kabul for five years, saw the explosion from his house just a few hundred metres away. "This is quite normal in Kabul now," he told the BBC. "You never know who is walking in front of you in the street, or who is behind you. It's very dangerous."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7493392.stm

40 Dead in Indian Embassy Blast in Afghan Capital

40 killed in suicide car bombing outside Indian Embassy in Afghan capital

By AMIR SHAH

The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan

A car bomb ripped through the front wall of the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing 40 people in the deadliest attack in Afghanistan's capital since the fall of the Taliban, officials said.

The massive explosion detonated by a suicide bomber damaged two embassy vehicles entering the compound, near where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing and said it was carried out by militants trying to rupture the friendship between Afghanistan and India.

The Afghan Interior Ministry hinted that the attack was carried out with help from Pakistan's intelligence service, saying that "terrorists have carried out this attack in coordination and consultation with some of the active intelligence circles in the region." The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said Pakistan condemned the attack and terrorism in all forms.

The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in the city center that is protected on both ends by police checkpoints. Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smoldering ruins covered the street. The explosion rattled much of the Afghan capital.

Shortly after the attack, a woman ran out of a Kabul hospital screaming, crying and hitting her face with both of her hands. Her two children, a girl named Lima and a boy named Mirwais, had been killed.

"Oh my God!" the woman screamed. "They are both dead."

Najib Nikzad, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the blast killed 40 people. Earlier, Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the explosion killed at least 28 people and wounded 141, but an update of the number of injured was not immediately available. The Interior Ministry said six police officers and three embassy guards were among those killed.

In Delhi, India's foreign minister said four Indians, including the military attache and a diplomat, were killed in the attack. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India will send a high-level delegation to Kabul in coming days.

The blast also killed five Afghan security guards at the nearby Indonesian Embassy, where windows were shattered and doors and gates broken. Two diplomats were slightly wounded, Indonesia's foreign ministry said.

In Washington, Gordon Johndroe, a White House national security spokesman, offered condolences to the victims.

"Extremists continue to show their disregard for all human life and their willingness to kill fellow Muslims as well as others," he said. "The United States stands with the people of Afghanistan and India as we face this common enemy."

Afghanistan has seen a sharp rise in violence from Taliban militants in recent months. Insurgents are packing bombs with more explosives than ever, one reason why more U.S. and NATO troops were killed in June than any month since the 2001 invasion.

Still, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the militants were behind the bombing. The Taliban tend to claim responsibility for attacks that inflict heavy tolls on international or Afghan troops, and deny responsibility for attacks that primarily kill Afghan civilians.

"Whenever we do a suicide attack, we confirm it," Mujahid said. "The Taliban did not do this one."

The 8:30 a.m. explosion was the deadliest attack in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and the deadliest in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber killed more than 100 people at a dog fighting competition in Kandahar province in February.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In Delhi, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the attack would not deter the mission from "fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan."

Afghanistan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the embassy shortly after the attack, ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmed Baheen said.

"India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations," Spanta told the embassy staff, according to Baheen.

The Indian ambassador and his deputy were not inside the embassy at the time of the blast, Baheen said.

Militants have frequently attacked Indian offices and projects around Afghanistan since launching an insurgency after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of the 2001. Many Taliban militants have roots in Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with India.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the Islamic militia was supported by Pakistan, India's arch-rival. Pakistan today remains wary of strengthening ties between Afghanistan and India.

The United Nations' envoy to Afghanistan said that "in no culture, no country, and no religion is there any excuse or justification for such acts."

"The total disregard for innocent lives is staggering and those behind this must be held responsible," the envoy, Kai Eide, said.

The U.N. sent an e-mail to its staff advising them to stay off Kabul's roads because of reports that a second suicide car bomber was in the city.

The embassy attack was the sixth suicide bombing in Kabul this year. Insurgent violence has killed more than 2,200 people — mostly militants — in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count of official figures.

The embassy in the last several days had beefed up security by installing large, dirt-filled blast walls often used by military forces.

While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared the random bomb attacks that Taliban militants use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.

In September 2006, a suicide bomber near the gates of the Interior Ministry killed 12 people and wounded 42 others. After that blast, additional guards and barriers were posted on the street.

In two separate bombings Monday against police convoys in the country's south, seven officers were killed and 10 others were wounded, officials said.

In Uruzgan province, a roadside bomb killed four police on patrol and wounded seven others, said provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat.

In the Zhari district of Kandahar, another roadside blast killed three officers and wounded three others, said district chief Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, said one of its soldiers died in an attack in the south on Sunday.

———

Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=5319606

The bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gates of the Indian embassy, where people were queuing for visas at the time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7492691.stm

NUKEWARS

India govt still undecided on US nuclear pact: officials

by Staff Writers

New Delhi (AFP) June 26, 2008

India's ruling Congress party has not decided if it will pursue an atomic energy deal with the United States and alienate leftist allies that prop up the government, an official said Thursday.

The governing party failed Wednesday to persuade its partners to support the pact, leaving it with the choice of going it alone and risking early elections or ditching the landmark deal altogether.

The pact, concluded in 2006, aims to bring India into the loop of global atomic commerce. But the deal is bitterly opposed by communists, who say it will draw New Delhi too close to Washington.

"No decision has been taken as yet," a senior official from the prime minister's office told AFP on condition he not be named. "Whenever the decision is taken, it will be communicated."

The communists have vowed to force early elections if the government forges ahead with implementing the deal, which would mean going to the polls by the end of this year.

It is unclear if Congress is ready to face the electorate at a time of rising inflation -- notably of fuel and food prices -- or if it would rather finish its full term and wait for scheduled polls in May 2009.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has appeared willing to risk his government to push through the deal, which he says is crucial for India's energy security.

Syndicated columnist Neerja Chowdhury told AFP that "who represents India at the G-8 meeting in Japan next month will indicate whether the government will go forward with the pact."

Singh has indicated he will not attend the meeting of the eight major industrial powers if the government decides to shelve the pact, since he is due to meet US President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the conference.

The two leaders struck the deal amid much fanfare in New Delhi in 2006.

According to a source in India's foreign ministry, "arrangements are being made for both eventualities, we will know for sure in the next few days."

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/India_govt_still_undecided_on_US_nuclear_pact_officials_999.html

Books of note: God of Small Things

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The God Of Small Things

Written by Arundhati Roy

Category: Fiction
Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 978-0-679-30941-3 (0-679-30941-1)

Pub Date: June 1, 1998
Price: $22.00

Buy from Local Store or Online Store.

About this Book

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The international publishing sensation of 1997 -- translated into 18 languages -- a magical, sophisticated tour de force.

The God of Small Things heralds a voice so powerful and original that it burns itself into the reader's memory. Set mainly in Kerala, India, in 1969, it is the story of Rahel and her twin brother Estha, who learn that their whole world can change in a single day, that love and life can be lost in a moment. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they seek to craft a childhood for themselves amid the wreckage that constitutes their family. Sweet and heartbreaking, ribald and profound, this is a novel to set beside those of Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

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Awards

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WINNER 1997 - Man Booker Prize

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Review Quotes

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"A work of highly conscious art—A Tiger Woodsian début — the author hits the long, socio-cosmic ball but is also exquisite in her short game. Like a devotionally built temple, The God of Small Things builds a massive interlocking structure of fine, intensely felt details."—John Updike, The New Yorker

"A gorgeous and seductive fever dream of a novel, and a truly spectacular début."—Kirkus Reviews

"With sensuous prose, a dreamlike style infused with breathtakingly beautiful images and keen insights into human nature, Roy's début novel charts fresh territory in the genre of magical, prismatic literature—Roy's clarity of vision is remarkable, her voice original, her story beautifully constructed and masterfully told."—Publishers Weekly (*starred review)

"A work that is complex in structure, sophisticated in its handling of time, and bold in its themes. But perhaps what is most remarkable is Roy's deft use of language."—Maclean's

"A compelling tale of forbidden love and its catastrophic consequences, wonderfully vivid—Arundhati Roy's novel has a magic and mystery all its own."—The Toronto Star

"Roy weaves her bold and startling narrative in sequences of luminously rendered scenes—remarkable."—The Globe and Mail

"Drenched with poetic image and saturated with wisdom, the book's rich tapestry is a tour de force in good storytelling, a book to savour and remember."—The London Free Press

"A first novel of remarkable resonance and originality—like Rushdie she is a dazzling stylist, someone who loves the sound and play of words—The God of Small Things is both funny and insightful."—The Edmonton Journal

Biography of Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in Kerala. Her mother, a Kerala native, was Christian; her father was a Hindu from Bengal. The marriage was unsuccessful, and Roy spent her childhood years in Aymanam with her mother. The influence of these early years permeates her writings, both thematically and structurally.

Roy's mother, who herself was a prominent social activist, founded an independent school and taught her daughter informally. This freedom from intellectual constraint allowed Roy to write, as she puts it acccording to Jon Simmons on his "Arundhati Roy Web", "from within"; the ability to follow her inner voice, rather than having a set of restrictive rules ingrained in her, has been an integral part of her accomplishments as an adult writer. She comments that "When I write, I never re-write a sentence because for me my thought and my writing are one thing. It's like breathing, I don't re-breathe a breath... Everything I have - my intellect, my experience, my feelings have been used. If someone doesn't like it, it is like saying they don't like my gall bladder. I can't do anything about it."

In addition to the style of her writing, its subject matter also reflects the cultural texture of her childhood. Of Kerala she says that "it was the only place in the world where religions coincide, there's Christianity, Hinduism, Marxism and Islam and they all live together and rub each other down...I was aware of the different cultures when I was growing up and I'm still aware of them now. When you see all the competing beliefs against the same background you realise how they all wear each other down." The deep-seated nature of Roy's activism may also be traced back to her early years, and the rural beauty of the landscape in which she spent them: "I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives in you. I don't think it's true of people who've grown up in cities so much, you may love building but I don't think you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth, it's a different kind of love. I'm not a very well read person but I don't imagine that that kind of gut love for the earth can be replaced by the open landscape. It's a much cleverer person who grows up in the city, savvy and much smarter in many ways. If you spent your very early childhood catching fish and just learning to be quiet, the landscape just seeps into you. Even now I go back to Kerala and it makes me want to cry if something happens to that place."

At age sixteen Roy left home, and eventually enrolled at the Delhi School of Architecture. This training, like her elementary education, proved instrumental in shaping her as a writer. In The Salon Interview, she likens the creation of a piece of literature to that of plans for a building: "In buildings, there are design motifs that occur again and again, that repeat -- patterns, curves. These motifs help us feel comfortable in a physical space. And the same works in writing, I've found. For me, the way words, punctuation and paragraphs fall on the page is important as well -- the graphic design of the language." But despite her affinity for the trade, Simmons reports, she left it after a few years to work on projects for the screen, writing first a television serial, which failed due to lack of funding, and then two screenplays, neither of which brought her great success or fulfillment. She then published a criticism of the acclaimed film "Bandit Queen"; the controversy that followed resulted in a lawsuit against her.

In the aftermath, she vacated the public sphere, focusing her energies on The God of Small Things, which was published in April 1997. About six months later it was awarded the Booker Prize; Roy is the first Indian woman ever to achieve this honor. The book has been a stunning success both in India, and internationally. Roy says that her use of the English language was not so much a conscious decision for her, as a choice imposed on her because "There are more people in India that speak English than there are in England. And the only common language that we have throughout India is English. And it's odd that English is a language that, for somebody like me, is a choice that is made for me before I'm old enough to choose. It is the only language that you can speak if you want to get a good job or you want to go to a university. All the big newspapers are in English. And then every one of us will speak at least two or three - I speak three - languages. And when we communicate - let's say I'm with a group of friends - our conversation is completely anarchic because it's in any language that you choose."

The acclaim that Roy garnered made her an instant celebrity, but the traditional trappings of literary fame were accompanied by a certain amount of notoriety due to the book's controversial treatment of delicate subject matter. Charges of anti-Communism were leveled against Roy because of her portrayal of the Communist characters; the Chief Minister of Kerala claimed that this, and not the book's literary merit, was the reason for its popularity in the West. In addition, Roy faced charges of obscenity and demands that the final chapter of the book be removed because of its sexual content. Roy attributed these hostile reactions not to the "eroticism (which is mild) but rather to the book's explicit treatment of the role of the untouchables in India... The abhorrence was thus as much political as it was moral, and proves that fifty years after Gandhi coined the term Harijan ('children of God') the Hindu caste system is still an important issue."

In the years following the publication of The God of Small Things, Roy has put her talents and status to use as an activist for several of the important issues facing India today. In September 1998 her article "The End of Imagination" appeared in The Nation as a response to the testing of nuclear weapons in India a few months earlier. The article demonstrates both a fervent appreciation for the natural beauty of her country, and a respect for the fragility of life in a world containing bombs that could destroy everything in a matter of seconds. Roy calls for those who agree with her about the evils of nuclear warfare to join her in public denunciation of it.

She has also returned to some of the political territory of The God of Small Things, speaking out against the oppression of the Dalits and appearing at a reception in Kerala to publicly declare herself an advocate of their cause. She also contributed materially, by donating the royalties from the Malayalam translation of The God of Small Things to advance Dalit literary efforts and "help Dalit writers to tell their stories to the world."

Most recently, Roy has been involved in protesting against the Narmada Dam Project. Her article "The Greater Common Good" in Frontline disparages a project that could force millions to abandon their homes in order to provide limited benefits to a limited number of people. She has demonstrated against construction of the dam both in the Narmada Valley, and globally in an effort to heighten awareness and obtain support for the cause. In January 2000 she was arrested during a protest in the Valley, and released two days later.

Roy's concern for the environment and for the people inhabiting it permeates her life; the social conscience that she exhibits may be read into the literature that she produces as a concrete embodiment of this concern.

Sources:

Click here to read Roy, Arundhati. "The End of Imagination."

Click here to read Roy, Arundhati. "The Greater Common Good."

Click here to read The Salon Interview.

Click here to access Simmons, Jon. The Arundhati Roy Web.

GOD OF SMALL THINGS

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All Things Considered, June 16, 1997 · Linda talks to Arundhati Roy, author of the novel, "The God of Small Things." It's the story of fraternal twins who grow up in Kerala, India. Roy's language and structure for the book are unusual. She says that the structure ambushes the story; the plot is revealed at the beginning of the book and then the narrative goes back to reexamine events in greater detail. (STATIONS: "The God of Small Things" is published by Random House.)

A cultural identity narrative that explores the individual's struggle in India to defy the constraints of the caste system. With excerpts from Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize Winner "The God of Small Things" and clips from "Swades."

Category: Film & Animation

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caste system india development arundhati roy the god of small things swades

Banking dossier: Citigroup's 2008 losses equal that of all Indian banks

MUMBAI/NEW YORK: It's probably the price of being the largest that in the ongoing slump across global bourses, the market value lost by the world's biggest bank Citigroup, run by India-born Vikram Pandit, so far in 2008 is equal to the loss suffered by all the Indian banks together.

But, despite this huge loss of close to 43 billion dollars, the US banking behemoth is still valued more than all the Indian banks taken together.

The market capitalisation of Citigroup has dropped by 26.63 per cent since the beginning of the current calendar year, making it the worst performer among the top 30 blue-chips in the US that constitute the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index in the American equity market.

The percentage loss in Citigroup's market cap is lower than that of Bombay Stock Exchange's banking sector index Bankex as well as a number of Indian banks in the same period. However, owing to the larger market value of the US banking giant, the absolute loss is equivalent to the collective loss sufferred by all the 18 banks present on the BSE Bankex index.

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Citigroup, which has been among the worst affected from the US subprime crisis, has seen its market value getting eroded by close to 43 billion dollars since the beginning of the current year. A similar loss has been recorded by the 18 Indian banks during the same period.

While Citigroup's market value has dropped from about 161 billion dollars at the end of 2007 to 118 billion dollars at present, that of the 18 Bankex companies has dropped from about Rs 5,35,960 crore (136 billion dollars) to close to Rs 3,64,522 crore.

On "Islamofascism" - the victims speak up!!

Linda's note - NOTE: In this political climate, I think this is an important topic considering the fact that like it or not, religion has been pulled into US Politics, sadly. This administration has been using Islam as it's focus of "evil" for some time now, and if McCain has his way, that trend will no doubt continue.

ISLAM, unlike other religions, strictly adheres to prayers being offered in a totally peaceful atmosphere and in complete silence signifying voluntary surrender to Almighty and it cannot be a religion that would promote violence and terrorism, as propagated by the West. Rather Islam preaches and follows a peaceful propagation of the tents of the religion and peaceful co-existence right from the days of the Prophet Mohammad (SAS).

But the world powers pursuing an invert anti-Islamic agenda have conspired to provoke Muslims to violently react to terrorist actions of the powers that be. Islam had faced constant attacks since it was created "but in recent years the phenomenon has assumed alarming proportions and has become a major cause of concern for the Muslim world." The anti-Islamic forces, cutting across their religious contours and variations join together to use the occasion to denounce Islam and insult Muslims and try to finish off Islam by engineering conversions to other religions, have been at work for ages. But the Sept 11 event in the USA has been used by all these anti-Islamic forces to slam Islam and torture and kill Muslims, all over the world. The civilized world, the West, has been in the forefront in this evil practice, known as Islamophobia, encouraging anti-Islamic nations like India also to do their part of evil in a sustained manner.

Last week, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on Europe and America to take stronger measures against 'Islamophobia' in a report prepared for a summit of the group's 57 members in Dakar and warned that an "alarming" rise in anti-Islamic insults and attacks in the West has become a threat to international security. This monitoring group has requested Europe and North America to do more, through laws and social action, to protect Muslims from threats and discrimination and prevent insults against Islam's religious symbols. When the West behaves well, the rest of the world would follow suit. They acknowledge that many Muslim countries are themselves victims of terror and active partners of the international community in combating terror and extremism.

The report the OIC has prepared has added that Muslims in many parts of the world, in the West in particular, are being stereotyped, profiled and subjected to various forms of discriminatory treatment. It called on OIC member states to "step up their counter-measures by keeping the pressure on the international community at multilateral and bilateral forums." The OIC said the Muslim world must launch a campaign to show that it is a "moderate, peaceful and tolerant" religion, closely monitor and the raise the alert over anti-Islamic incidents and organize more inter-faith initiatives. Victims of Islamophobia must be encouraged and given necessary help to file complaints.

They, however, once again failed to make parallels between state-sponsored terrorist activities in the West and those in East, for example in Indian occupied Kashmir, where the Indian terrorist forces kill and torture Kashmiris and also branded them as “terrorists” because they violently have reacted to the systematic Indian terror attacks. I would be in the interests of Islam and Muslims globally, even for peaceful co-existence between different religions, if the Islamic nations take a common stand on an-Islamic terrorism across the globe and take corrective measures to make those who pursue anti-Islamic agenda as a primary domestic and foreign policy agenda. There is no point in beating about the bushes by taking only select problems being faced by Muslims in part of the world. Kashmir was an independent country before Indian tactfully annexed it in 1947, immediately after Indian got its independence from UK.

In a recent State report, the US has slammed India for human rights record, saying it faces evasion of basic human rights, numerous serious problems including extra-judicial killings, disappearances, and torture and rape by security forces. The report said in India 'serious internal conflicts affected the state of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as several states in the north and east. There were several instances in which some elements of the security forces acted independently of government authority, it said. Attacks against religious minorities and the promulgation of anti-religious conversion laws were concerns. Social acceptance of caste-based discrimination often validated human rights violations. OIC should consider the morale of the report quite seriously.

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal is an analyst, researcher, commentator and columnist based in Delhi

Pakistan update!! from Pakistan Daily Times

EDITORIAL: What might happen tomorrow

Shadows keep falling on the elections even in the last hours before the polling begins. The attorney general is allegedly caught on tape telling someone that the government is going to rig the elections. Ten terrorists linked to the Taliban are caught in Karachi ready to blow up several polling stations with massive amounts of explosive material. A thousand people, all Afghans, are arrested in Peshawar and accused of “trouble-making”. Eighty thousand troops are deployed to protect the polling stations, one-third of which have been declared dangerous.

This is going to be a very different election from past ones. It is happening mostly on TV. It is mired in rumours of dhaandli or rigging whose evidence keeps popping up here and there. The political parties, scared of being short-changed, are threatening rejection of polls and violent agitation, but with a clear subtext that it might hurt their interests. Every party is claiming exaggerated gains at the polls since any modest assessment might make the voters turn away. The incumbent PMLQ began by harclaiming 150 seats in the National Assembly together with its allies, to come down to 110 on the eve of polls, till some unnamed PMLQ leaders are being quoted in the press as ready to accept the PPP and the PMLN government after the polls. The real threat to the 2008 elections remains a low voters’ turnout.

The PPP has a sympathy wave welling up for it. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that it will sweep in rural Sindh, thus sharing the province with urban MQM. It is estimated to win 35-40 out of 61 National Assembly seats in Sindh. One analyst says it will also win 40-50 out of the 148 seats in Punjab, 10-15 of NWFP’s 35, 3 of Balochistan’s 19, to make up a total of 100-108. This is possible because the PPP is the only national party with votes in all the four provinces. With this kind of total it will certainly be the front-runner for putting together the government at the centre. Significantly, the party’s mood is suitably conciliatory and it threatens no one, not even President Pervez Musharraf.

The PMLN is the comeback party in Punjab. If the PMLQ suffers it will do so because of the ability of the PMLN to bounce back, although to write off the incumbent PMLQ would be unwise since it is fielding some very strong candidates despite defections and its own policy to undercut some of its candidates — after giving them tickets — through independents. The 53 seats in South Punjab are under threat from the PMLN which is also set to win handsomely in Lahore and Faisalabad, the second and third largest cities in the country. One feels that Mr Nawaz Sharif is reconciled to letting the PPP rule in Islamabad and handle President Musharraf while he gets Punjab on the basis of all the tools he will have handy in the National Assembly to play the kingmaker.

The rise of the ANP in the NWFP is bound to fill the vacuum left behind by a bickering MMA. Out of all the parties, it is the ANP which is campaigning bravely after being fatally targeted twice by the terrorists. If the voters come out the party is sure to increase its presence in the provincial assembly as well as have enough numbers in the National Assembly to form meaningful alliances. The PPP doesn’t have a good past record with the ANP, but the new orientation in both parties is to disembarrass themselves of their old identity markers and seek reconciliation. Just as the PPP began making overtures to the MQM in Sindh right after the arrival of Ms Bhutto from exile, the big party is bound to ride together with the ANP and allow it to form the government in the NWFP.

The PPP was in the process of discussing power-sharing with the PMLN on Friday. Mr Nawaz Sharif has stiffened his rhetoric on the presumed basis of negotiations, but this could be mere electoral pyrotechnics to win votes. He wants President Musharraf ousted and he wants the dismissed judges restored. (His wife has promised a gathering that her party would replace President Musharraf with Dr AQ Khan.) No doubt the parties will have to develop the requisite measure of flexibility after the elections to work in double harness at the centre and in Punjab. There is evidence that they don’t want to revert to the cloak-and-dagger days of the 1988 assemblies when Punjab spies called Midnight Jackals had tried to topple the PPP at the centre.

At no time in the past have local and foreign observers been forced to keep their fingers crossed as now. There are far too many elements for comfort today who would wish to see the elections go wrong. Nor is the world too reassured of Pakistan’s real intentions after it returns to democracy. *

SECOND EDITORIAL:Naval exercises with India

A symposium held by the naval chiefs of Indian Ocean states heard the India naval chief saying his country would welcome naval exercises with the Pakistan navy. There were 27 naval chiefs present at the symposium but the Pakistani chief was not there. Many environmental issues were discussed. A UAE security representative present at the meeting asked for protection of the under-sea communications cables laid on the ocean floor at the cost of billions of dollars.

India has done naval and military exercises with the US and China recently. Pakistan and India too should agree to cooperate at sea where their fishermen tend to violate presumed territorial waters. Agreed that the Sir Creek dispute has complicated the matter of the maritime boundary, but Indo-Pak disputes have tended to be perennial and must be ignored now till they disappear gradually through bilateral normalisation. Not attending the symposium means isolating yourself especially in relation to the Gulf where Pakistan’s security interests are involved. Pakistan’s India policy has become snagged with Islamabad’s obsession with a quid pro quo, whereas national interest should be supreme, especially when it demands pacification of the eastern border to face up to the trouble coming across the Durand Line.