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Weekly News in a Nutshell - November 8, 2002

The Prime Minister left on Monday for Cambodia and Laos for five days to attend the first-ever India-ASEAN Summit in Cambodia. He is expected to focus on threats posed by terrorism and on greater economic and trade ties with South-East Asia and the Far East.

Controversy brewed over the authenticity of encounter between the two Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists and the Delhi Police when a witness said that the 'terrorists' were killed in cold blood at a South Delhi shopping arcade, Anzal Plaza on Sunday evening. On Wednesday, the NHRC issued a notice to the Delhi police asking for a report on the incident. The doctor who described the 'encounter' went into hiding despite assurances from the police to protect him. The Delhi police had claimed that both the terrorists were sent by Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence(ISI), which funds the Lashkar-e-Toiba. According to Aaj Tak news on Tuesday, the two dead rebels' diaries revealed that they had been told to target Advani.

Reports of the entry of five alleged terrorists into Mumbai have put the Mumbai Police on high alert. The Mumbai Police do not want to take any chances of terrorist attacks after the incident in Anzal Plaza in Delhi.

Twenty days after the killing of five Dalits in Haryana, three dalits were beaten up and then handed over to the police after allegedly skinning a calf on Sunday. The three were released after the local panchayat found them not guilty, as the calf was already dead.

About three hundred Dalits in Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu, have threatened to convert to Islam if they were still denied entry into the local temple.

Several reports of starvation in India came out this week in various papers. In Baran district, Rajastahan, twelve children have died due to starvation or malnutrition. Twenty-two starvation deaths were reported in Madhya Pradesh but the MP government denies that these deaths have anything to do with starvation or malnutrition. According to the official definition of a starvation death, the viscera of a deceased person should show no trace of food particles fifteen hours prior to death. This means that even when if someone eats rats out of hunger, as was the case in parts of Tamil Nadu or mango kernels in Orissa -- it would still show up as food particles and allow the administration to rule out starvation. As the death toll rises, the government continues to deny starvation deaths.

An Indian Air Force Jaguar jet crashed into a residnetial area in Ambala cantonment, Haryana, on Tuesday. The death toll rose to six after two people succumbed to injuries in Chandigarh hospital. The Defence Minister has called for a meeting of Indian Air Force officers on November 8 to review the reasons for these crashes.

The United States committed $120m to fight AIDS/HIV in India. Mr.Blackwill, the United States ambassador to India said that India could surpass South Africa as the country with the largest number of HIV/AIDS sufferers in the world.

Thirty-seven MCC activists surrendered on November 7th in Jharkhand. They vowed to shun violence and join the mainstream.

Mufti Mohammed Sayeed of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) was sworn in as the Chief Minister of J&K on Saturday. He had not contested in the recent elections in Kashmir. He will have to gain a seat in the assembly within six months.

India plans to host the first "Pravasi Bharatiya Divas", a festival for quarter million NRIs across the globe. It is supposed to the largest gathering of NRIs and will be from January 9 to 11. Among the prominent figures expected to attend are Nobel laureates Amartya Sen and V.S. Naipaul, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, Mr Anerood Jagnauth, former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh from Canada, industrialists Bharat Kumar J. Shah from Dubai and L.N.Mittal from the UK, and authors Vikram Seth, Anita Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri.