Over the years, the concept of free and fair elections has come under strain because the ruling party has shown a tendency to misuse the official machinery for partisan ends. Ideally, the Model Code of Conduct should come into effect from the date of the dissolution of the Lok Sabha or the State Assembly as the case may be and not from the date of the announcement of elections, which has been the practice so far. An amendment to the Representation of the People Act in this regard has become imperative as this will act as a deterrent against any misuse of office by the party in power.

If things begin to get nasty in the general stands, the Indian fans should remind themselves that discretion is the better part of valour. They have to defend a glorious legacy of having given the Pakistan players a standing ovation when they won a Test match by 12 runs in Chennai in 1998-99. Of course, arrangements have been made by the security agencies to prevent any untoward incident that might turn a sporting contest into an ugly fracas. As far as the players are concerned, both teams have been adequately briefed and it is unlikely that anyone would be so daft as to overdo the aggression act for unsettling rival players.

The militants might have noticed chinks in the security arrangement in the area and hence their unholy attempt. This calls for a thorough and quick enquiry to prevent any further incident of this kind. The journalists and the government officials posted there must be able to function without being sitting ducks for terrorists. In other words, they should be assured of a foolproof security system.

New Delhi has responded to the challenges posed by the dispersal of global terrorism imaginatively. Friendly ties have been established with the Karzai government in Afghanistan. An effective programme of economic assistance has been initiated. A strategic partnership has been developed with Iran to ensure that landlocked Afghanistan is freed from Pakistani blackmail, by getting access to the sea through Iran. While there has been much hype about a “breakthrough” in our relations with Pakistan, following the Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting in Islamabad in January, time alone will tell whether Pakistan will irrevocably end the use of terrorism as an instrument of State policy. The last five years have been a roller-coaster ride on relations with Pakistan, with overblown rhetoric and unrealistic expectations often getting the better of mature judgment. We also have to acknowledge that precious little was done in the last five years, to give meaningful and substantive content to our relations with the Arab Gulf countries, where millions of Indians reside.

South Block wasted the first three years of the Vajpayee government by pretending that it could play Curzonian “Great Games” in its neighbourhood, instead of focusing on building strong ties of regional and bilateral economic cooperation in South and South-East Asia. With Mr Jaswant Singh at the helm of the Ministry of External Affairs, there was little recognition of the fact that economic integration is the most crucial element in the conduct of foreign policy in today’s world. Many of our smaller neighbours felt that we were being overbearing and supercilious in our conduct towards them. It was only during the Kathmandu SAARC Summit that New Delhi belatedly got its neighbours to endorse a time- bound plan to establish a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA). We are now moving towards establishing a South Asian Economic Union. The signing of a framework agreement for establishing SAFTA is an achievement that New Delhi can be proud of. But when one goes through the fine print of SAFTA, there is cause for concern. We have provided an unprecedented, open-ended commitment to compensate Bangladesh for revenue losses in import duties. New Delhi evidently failed to realise, even during the Kathmandu Summit, that such an open-ended provision is unprecedented and, in the long-term, unworkable.

New Delhi’s mistake in agreeing to the Bangladesh demand for compensation soon became evident when ASEAN countries like Myanmar and Thailand flatly turned down a Bangladesh proposal for such compensation when negotiations were held recently in Thailand to conclude a free trade agreement between Bhutan, Nepal and the members of the BIMSTEC grouping — Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh may well find itself excluded from this free trade agreement if it persists with its demand. The most notable achievement of the Vajpayee government on regional cooperation is, however, the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation signed with 10 members of ASEAN in Bali on October 8, 2003. This agreement opens the way for free flow of goods, services and investment between India and the dynamic economies of ASEAN. New Delhi would now have to move ahead purposefully in implementing this agreement. We would be in a good position to derive maximum benefit from it by meaningful economic reforms within India, like the removal of barriers on inter-state commerce and the early introduction of a comprehensive value added tax.

If the free trade and comprehensive cooperation agreements that we have signed in the past few months are properly implemented, we could look forward to a giant free trade area extending from Peshawar to our west to the Philippines to our east, within the next 12 years. One sincerely hopes that the vision of an economically integrated and prosperous Asia will persuade the rulers of Pakistan that invocations of jihad against India are not the best way to progress and prosperity. What is, however, most heartening is that our initial apprehensions about the opening of our market to China have been proved to be baseless. With our bilateral trade with China reaching around $ 7.6 billion last year, we are one of the few countries that actually have a surplus balance of trade with China. And Chinese manufactures have not unduly disrupted the industry in India.

One day I noticed a change in his strategy. Apart from the virtues of his powder, he also claimed to perform an on-the-spot and painless tooth extraction. For a while there were no takers. Then a middle-aged man in the back row sought his help. His face was creased in agony caused by his troubling tooth. He had kept his palm on the cheek as if to soothe his pain. A prominent ‘S’ scar above his right eye was contorted by the facial exertions caused due to distress.

The young powder seller calmly walked up to his “patient”, wrapped the end of the latter’s turban around his fingers, inserted his thumb and forefinger in the mouth and with one expert jerk brought the ailing tooth out and handed it over to its owner. The man’s face at once eased into relief as he blessed the young man and addressed him as a “doctor sahib”. What followed was a brisk sale of his tooth powder. I was very impressed to see the bloodless operation.

During my next visit some weeks later, I again noticed the young man with his box containing the tooth powder bottles. His being much better dressed was a proof of his business having picked up. After the usual rattling off of the numerous benefits of his product the “doctor” announced his prowess in removing aching teeth without pain. After a minute-long pause I heard the voice of a volunteer sitting on the row left of me. The young “doctor” took out a handkerchief from his pocket wrapped it around his fingers and repeated his feat. There was a round of applause and there was a clamour for his product.

According to recently declassified State Department documents, nuclear proliferation in Pakistan featured high on the agenda of a meeting of the U.S. General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament on September 14, 1979.

The committee, created in the 1960s, was a high-level presidentially appointed body of former officials and scientific experts that offered policy advice to the White House, the State Department and the former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA).

Then Assistant Director of the ACDA’s non-proliferation bureau, Charles Van Doren, discussed “apparent Israeli consideration of military action against Pakistan.” He told the committee the Israelis were the “most highly motivated to do something about this.”

The United States itself, Mr Van Doren said, had not discussed “preemption plans” with Israel.

A committee member noted: “I keep wondering, is there a window in time when you can stop something and that window isn’t open very long, and if you don’t do that you’ll never stop them?”

Another member, Paul Doty, replied: “That’s essentially what the Israelis are saying when they speak about Entebbe Two.” In 1976, Israeli commandos carried out a daring rescue of hostages held by hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda.

In October 2001, journalist Seymour Hersch reported in the New Yorker magazine that an elite American military unit was preparing for possible incursion into Pakistan in order to steal its nuclear weapons arsenal.

According to Mr Hersch, the Special Forces unit was training with Israel’s most trusted anti-terrorist unit, and would be called into action in the event that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lost power in Pakistan. There have been at least two reported attempts on Gen. Musharraf’s life since then.

Mr Hersch said that members of Israel’s Unit 262, or Sayeret Matkal, came to America soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks and had been training with Pentagon Special Forces. He quoted a “senior military officer” as confirming that intense planning was going on for the “exfiltration” of warheads.

In New Delhi last month, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom expressed concern over a recent confession by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, that he had proliferated nuclear material to other countries.

“We believe that it is a global threat and all democracies around the world should do everything we can in order to disarm all ... regimes that would like to bring destruction to their enemies or their neighbours and we should do it against states, countries and organisations,” Mr Shalom said.

Asked if this meant that he was advocating an attack on Pakistan, Mr. Shalom said, “We have enough military actions against others, so we are not looking for other countries. We believe that it should be solved.”

Dr Khan and others have described Pakistan’s nuclear bomb as an “Islamic bomb” and rich Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Libya reportedly financed the Pakistani programme while China provided technical aid, nuclear materials and a design for the bomb.

Blueprints stolen by Dr Khan from the Netherlands enabled Pakistan to build centrifuges to refine uranium to bomb-grade.

“The obvious case of greatest concern is Pakistan,” Mr Van Doren told the committee in 1979. “After the Indian explosion of 1974, there were immediate rumblings that Pakistan wanted to get some plutonium; they sought it from several sources and were turned down, fortunately.”

“The Pakistanis obviously claim that the enrichment programme is for peaceful purposes but it has no relevance whatever to their current nuclear programme,” he said. “We are worried about their importation of some unsafeguarded nuclear materials for it.”

At the time, there had been rumours that Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq, faced with elections, would find it “handy… to have some great show of strength.”

“So we are concerned that they may in fact try to pull off an explosion here,” Mr Van Doren said. “We see the makings, but more than the makings, of another Indian disaster coming up.”

“This is a railroad train that is going down the track very fast and I am not sure anything will turn it off,” he said of the situation on the Indian subcontinent.

A June 22, 1983, a secret briefing paper — “The Pakistani Nuclear Programme” — opened with this emphatic language: “There is unambiguous evidence that Pakistan is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme.”

After detailing the elements of the weapons programme, the report expressed confidence that China had played a significant role in Pakistan’s effort to build a bomb. While Pakistan had far to go before it possessed nuclear weapons, China had provided assistance with the production of fissile materials and possibly in “nuclear device design.”

Over the course of three presidential administrations, U.S. governmental officials repeatedly pressed the Chinese government to explain whether it was providing any assistance to Pakistan in the nuclear weapons field, but Chinese officials responded with denials and equivocation.

The recent turnaround in Libya’s nuclear policies and the many disclosures of Pakistan’s role as a super-proliferator of nuclear weapons technology produced another extraordinary revelation: the discovery by U.S. and British intelligence of Chinese language material among the nuclear weapons design documents that Pakistan had supplied the Libyans.

Hyderabad: All the 184 grinding units of wheat flour and 10 roller flour mills of the town were closed on Tuesday as there was no wheat stock left for grinding, according to flour mills’ representatives.

Haji Nawab Khan, President of the Atta Chakki (grinding units) Owners Association (ACOA), appealed at a news conference to Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to take prompt action to save the people from starvation in the absence of flour, and predicted that if the situation continued there would be no flour in Sindh.