Washington, June 20
The Washington-based International Crisis Group (ICG) feels that a full and final solution to the decades-long dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan is a long way off, but suggests that small progress has been made with the introduction of several confidence-building measures.

According to a report that Samina Ahmed, a representative of the ICG’s Islamabad office, filed, the problem confronting both India and Pakistan is how these CBMs will be implemented in the long term and whether both governments have the broad political will to go ahead with them.

“It is unrealistic to expect radical change. While the risk of war has been reduced, is there a solution around the corner? We conclude in this report that it isn’t and it isn’t feasible or even practical to think in terms of a solution overnight of a very very complex situation, given the fact that there are so many issues to be resolved between the two states,” Ahmed told ANI here after travelling from Islamabad to Washington to discuss the group’s work at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The ICG feels that the composite dialogue is not a peace process yet. It’s really a process of bringing about normalisation of relations that should and must lead to a peace process. It also notes that the two sides have been inching forward, but true progress has not been achieved.

“Because the contentious issues between the two states, there hasn’t been any huge progress in resolving them. Not on issues such as Siachen, not on issues such as Sir Creek, and why is that so? I think that in India and Pakistan, there is a realisation that they do stand to gain politically and economically from peace and that level of realisation exists at the level of civil society more than it does necessarily at the level of policy makers,” Ahmed said.

The ICG highlighted the dispute over the Siachen Glacier as prime example of how progress could be achieved with little cost. The report notes that the region is of little strategic value, yet with high costs in materials and personnel. It says that a deal cannot be inked due to the basic lack of political will and trust.

“It’s this lack of political trust and the political will to go ahead with the solution that’s stopped those agreements from being operationalised. And what we do see with the tenth round of defence-level talks on May 24, 2006, is that there’s a statement again on Siachen,” said Ahmed.

Along with Washington’s critical influence, Ahmed argues, the world as a whole wants to see the composite dialogue continue because of the underlying threat of nuclear war in South Asia.

“The United States is playing a role of engaging with both sides and actually making sure that they understand the importance of remaining engaged themselves. And it’s this concern that conventional war could lead to a possible nuclear exchange that has made Kashmir, really, it’s no longer considered a regional issue, its an issue of international concern,” Ahmed said.

Commenting on the repeated calls to demilitarise Jammu and Kashmir, Ahmed said: “This call for demilitarisation has found a domestic audience in Kashmir. Even mainstream Kashmiri parties and ruling parties have supported demilitarisation for a simple reason. The Kashmiris have suffered during this conflict which has gone on for a very long time.”

According to Ahmed, Kashmiris have told the ICG that the reason why young Kashmiris continue to join the insurgency is due to how they are treated. While the ICG sympathises about issues of repression, it points out that Pakistan is playing a very dangerous double game in refusing to shut out the jihadis completely.

“CBMs have helped stabilise the relationship somewhat, but its still a very fragile relationship. The external factor is going to be an important one and there I think we have said this in our report that its absolutely important that there should be more pressure put on Pakistan to end all support for the jihadi organisations and the militants operating in Kashmir. It’s not in Pakistan’s interests either. These jihadi organizations have been fighting a jihad within Pakistan as well against the Pakistani people and the Pakistani state,” claimed Ahmed.

The ICG is convinced that the way forward is to bring democracy to the region. It is convinced, the only solution that will work in the end is one that the Kashmiris themselves buy into.

“Give the Kashmiris a voice in resolving their own future. And this is the issue of political participation which will be the most complex on both sides of the border, the Pakistani side of Kashmir and the Indian side of Kashmir. There is a dialogue process started by New Delhi and the moderate faction of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference. The Pakistani government is also talking to the moderate faction of the APHC, which is interesting because in the past, they only supported the hardline factions,” says Ahmed.

Ahmed also warned and accepted that India’s civilian nuclear deal with the United States could create obstacles in the way of a final solution to Kashmir.

“Engaging the Indians is going to be a far more complex problem because what  other issues the United States needs to be looking at. In some ways, and I will say this though it's not in the report, one of the issues that is going to complicate the relationship between India and Pakistan is the US-India civilian nuclear deal, which has caused a great deal of grief in Pakistan, huge suspicions on what the US intends to do in the relationship between the two countries,” Ahmed said.

“India and Pakistan, and both sides of the political fence, right and left parties in India and Pakistan recognise the importance of peace. And that is something that we underestimate the importance of their constituencies. After all, its their civilian constituencies that will help to take this process forward,” she concluded. — ANI

Islamabad, June 20
Pakistanis will now get to see Bollywood heartthrobs in local flicks with the government amending an Act facilitating the hiring of Indian movie stars and technicians.

The Ministry of Culture has amended the Film Rules Act which hitherto barred the hiring of Indian actors.

"Basically it stopped us from taking in Indian actors. It was introduced along with the Censorship of Film Rules 1980," Chairman of the Pakistan Film Producers Association Saeed Rizvi was quoted as saying in Daily Times here today.

It will also enable Pakistani film makers to jointly produce films with their Indian counterparts.

The notification amending the Act was issued on June 5.

The restrictive clause was a legislative order, which stopped filmmakers from proceeding towards Indian frontiers with possible ventures for the industry, he said.

The Pakistan film industry has welcomed the change of rule as a silent but a significant gesture to revive the dying Pakistan film industry. — PTI

Toronto, June 20
A judicial commission set up to probe afresh the 1985 bombing of Air India airliner Kanishka killing 331 persons will commence its proceedings tomorrow, nearly two years after a Canadian court acquitted two Sikh separatists of all charges in the case.

Nearly 80 relatives of the victims— whose demand was fulfilled when Canada announced a judicial probe into the Montreal-London flight's crash over Atlantic Ocean— are expected to be present tomorrow in Ottawa on the occasion.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Major, who heads the enquiry, will make a brief statement outlining the terms of reference of the probe before meeting the relatives.

He has already held informal meetings across the country with the families, many of them Indians, who had been campaigning for a public enquiry into the worst ever mass murder in Canada.

The judicial inquiry was announced by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on May 1, after consulting the families, in the wake of the acquittal of two accused — Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri — in March last year of all charges related to the bombings after a 19 months of trial.

In an interview this weekend, Justice Major said the inquiry would have done its job if it makes victims' families — many of whom immigrated from India — feel like real Canadians.

The justice said he was looking forward to help resolve outstanding questions about the unprecedented terrorist attack that was plotted and hatched in British Columbia. — PTI 

Kathmandu, June 20
A murder case has been filed against Nepal Chief of the Army Staff Gen Pyar Jung Thapa and four others, according to media reports.

The case was filed by the wife of a person, who was among 49 persons allegedly arrested for questioning in September 2003 by the Nepali Army's Bhairabnath Battalion at Maharajguni but never returned, the Kathmandu Post reported.

General Thapa was then Commandant of the Bhairabnath Battalion.

Ram Maya Nakarmi, wife of Padam Narayan Nakarmi, has accused the army officials of torturing and killing the detainees, including her husband, the newspaper said.

She has named Lt-Colonel Raju Basnet, Major Bibek Bista, Captain Indibar Rana and chief of the Directorate of Military Intelligence Dilip Rayamajhi, besides General Thapa in her complaint.

In the complaint, Maya Nakarmi has alleged that army personnel took her husband Padam Narayan from their house in Lalitpur sub-metropolis Ward No 3, saying they had to question him, the newspaper said. ''When I asked them who they were they even produced their identity cards,'' she said.

Some detainees had told her that the officials were involved in the torture and killing of detainees, Maya Nakarmi was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

A UN report has confirmed the disappearance of 49 persons from army barracks. 
— UNI 

London, June 20
To motorists, the petrol pump is a means of refuelling their tanks. But for Mr P, the lonely peacock at a service station in South England, it is an object of romance and desire.

The bird has fallen deeply in love with a row of pumps in Brierly, which make clicking noises similar to those of a broody peahen.

It is a love affair destined to end in frustration. Mr P has devoted the past three years of his life to romancing a petrol pump.

Every day the eight-year-old peacock saunters the quarter mile from his roost in a tree to the busy garage forecourt, where he spends the day showing off his flamboyant plumage in front of the pumps, The Times newspaper said.

Ornithologists believe that Mr P is confused by the clicking sounds of the pumps, which resemble the cries of a broody peahen. He is one of three peacocks reared from eggs by Shirley Horsman from Brierley, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.

His two brothers are also showing signs of confusion when it comes to finding a mate. One appears to have a crush on the family cat, and the other has been seen attempting to mate with a garden light.

Owner of the peacock, Horsman, 54, said that the romancing starts at the same time each year. “In spring he gets his tail feathers and he gets frisky. — PTI