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From: kammula@plato.engr.umbc.edu (Chandra Sekhar Kammula)
Newsgroups: misc.news.southasia
Subject: India:   POLITICAL VIOLENCE CLAIMS 11 MORE LIVES IN INDIA
Message-ID: <Jun.15.13.27.09.1991.6967@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 91 15:31:58 GMT
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 Subj:   POLITICAL VIOLENCE CLAIMS 11 MORE LIVES IN INDIA
 Chandra Sekhar Kammula <kammula@plato.engr.umbc.edu
 =========================================================
 
 NEW DELHI (JUNE 13) - Sikh separatists stormed into the house of an election
 candidate in Punjab while he was having dinner, and opened fire, wounding him
 seriously and killing five other people, the Press Trust of India (PTI)
 reported Thursday. 
 
 A Sikh militant was among six others shot dead elsewhere in the northern state
 overnight Wednesday in violence linked to the Sikh separatist campaign. 
 
 The wounded candidate, Kirpal Singh, is a nominee of the Sikh Akali Dal party
 for the June 22 election to the Punjab legislature. 
 
 Sikh separatists have shot dead 21 candidates and scores of their supporters.
 The attacks prompted Indian communists to pull out of the Punjab polls on
 Tuesday. 
 
 In other incidents, security forces shot dead a Sikh militant in a gunbattle 
 in Amritsar, while Sikh rebels gunned down five civilians in separate attacks. 
 
 At least 2,140 people have died this year in the separatist campaign. 
 
 
 
 Subj:   FALL IN INDIAN FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES CHECKED, LATEST
         ESTIMATES SHOW 
 
 
 NEW DELHI (JUNE 13) - The decline of India's foreign exchange reserves has
 been halted and they have now stabilised at an improved level, latest 
 estimates available from the Indian Reserve Bank here show. 
 
 The reserves, excluding gold and special drawing rights (SDR), stood at 1,320
 million dollars as of May 24. 
 
 They had dropped to 1,253.5 million dollars in the first week of May from 
 2,050 million dollars a month ago. 
 
 Officials attribute the sharp drop to repayment of foreign loans made in two 
 parts in May, and say the goal is to keep the reserves higher than 1,250 
 million dollars. 
 
 The latest release of the bank estimates was preceded by official confirmation
 last week of press reports of India having sold 20 tonnes of gold to tackle a
 worsening exchange crunch. 
 
 In addition, Indian authorities may have sent another 10 tonnes of gold to 
 Zurich since then, at least one local newspaper, Business and Political 
 Observer, has reported. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Subj:   GUNMEN TRY TO ASSASSINATE THE HEAD OF INDIA'S STATE-RUN
         TELEVISION
 
 
 NEW DELHI (JUNE 13) - Gunmen shot and seriously wounded the chief of India's
 state-run television here Thursday and killed his driver. 
 
 As a manhunt got underway for the assailants, police suspected that Sikh 
 militants were behind the daylight ambush. 
 
 The incident came as India was winding up its national parliamentary elections
 postponed last month after the assassination of Congress (I) party leader
 Rajiv Gandhi. 
 
 Two of the attackers, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, fired bursts at the car
 of Doordarshan director general Shiv Sharma as he was going to his office 
 wounding him badly, Police Commissioner Arun Bhagat said. 
 
 One of Mr. Sharma's bodyguards, a police commando, fired back at the attackers
 as they fled in the direction of southern New Delhi, Mr. Bhagat said. It was
 not know if any of the four assailants were hit. 
 
 Mr. Sharma, two guards with him in the car and his official driver were taken
 to hospital after the attack. The doctors declared the chauffeur dead on 
 arrival. 
 
 The fleeing attackers also fired at a policeman directing rush hour traffic, 
 but the officer ducked and escaped injury. Police were hunting a white van used
 by the attackers. 
 
 The police commissioner blamed the attack on Sikh militants campaigning for a
 homeland in the northern Punjab state. 
 
 He said the separatists had issued a general warning some time ago that they 
 would attack personnel of both Doordarshan and All India Radio. 
 
 The New Delhi police department sealed the capital's borders with neighbouring
 states as it began hunting for the attackers, all of whom were thought to be
 clean shaven and without the turbans which are the traditional headgear of the
 Sikhs. 
 
 Mr. Sharma became head of Doordarshan television a few months ago. The station
 is viewed by an estimated 100 million people nationwide. 
 
 
 
 
 Subj:   EXIT POLLS PREDICT INDIA WILL HAVE HUNG PARLIAMENT
 
 
 NEW DELHI, INDIA (JUNE 14) UPI -  Indians prepared for the final round of 
 national elections Friday amid predictions of a hung Parliament in which none
 of the three major political parties has a commanding majority. 
 
 The last day of voting comes Saturday following a three-week delay caused by
 the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the leader of the
 Congress (I) Party. Gandhi was killed May 21, one day after the first round of
 balloting. 
 
 Voters will fill 186 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of
 Parliament, during the final day of the elections.retaker Prime Minister
 Chandra Shekhar and L.K. Advani, a leader of the right- wing Bharatiya Janata
 Party, are among the candidates. 
 
 Also in the fray during Saturday's voting is Maneka Gandhi, who left the
 Congress (I) Party after a falling-out with her mother-in-law, former Prime
 Minister Indira Gandhi, and brother-in-law, Rajiv Gandhi. She joined Shekhar's
 small Samajwadi Janata Party and has been serving as minister of state for the
 environment. 
 
 Candidates in the final round of voting wrapped up their campaigns at 5 p.m.
 Thursday. Under Indian law, campaigning comes to a close about 36 hours before
 the polling booths open. 
                                                            
 Preparations for the final round of voting came amid predictions that the
 elections would result in a hung Parliament, with none of the three major
 political groups winning a commanding majority in the Lok Sabha. 
 
 Exit polls conducted by India Today during the first two rounds of voting
 showed the Congress (I) Party winning 111 of the he polls showed the Bharatiya Janata Party winning 96 seats and the National
 Front 93. 
 
 Pollster Prannoy Roy told The Hindu newspaper that if a similar trend held up
 during the final round of voting, the Congress (I) Party would barely win 200
 seats, far short of the 273 needed to win an absolute majority. 
 
 If the trend continues through the final round of voting, the right- wing
 Bharatiya Janata Party would win about 160 seats and the National Front
 coalition, led by the Janata Dal Party, would capture about 120 seats, the
 pollster said. 
 
 The pollster cautioned, however, it was difficult to predict what would happen
 on the final day of balloting because of the mood of the electorate in the
 wake of Gandhi's assassination. 
 
 Gandhi and 17 other people, including the assassin, was killed by a bomb
 explosion before he was to address a crowd of about 10,000 people near the
 southeastern city of Madras in Tamil Nadu state. 
 
 The Congress (I) Party, which did poorly in the opening round of the elections
  was banking on a wave of sympathy votes in reaction to the Gandhi killing.
 Much of its campaign in the three weeks after the assassination was aimed at
 encouraging sympathy votes. 
 
 The wave was expected more in the north, where voting takes place Saturday,
 than in the south, where voting occurred Wednesday. Exit polls from
 Wednesday's voting showed the Congress retaining its base of support but
 gaining little sympathy. 
 
 A failure to improve significantly on the 195 seats it won during the 1989
 elections would be a major setback for the Congress. While it had the largest
 number of seats in Parliament in 1989, the Congress preferred to sit in
 opposition rather than form the government. 
 
 That decision led to the formation and quick collapse of two minority 
 governments in 18 months, one led by Janata Dal Party chief V.P. Singh and the
 other by Chandra Shekhar, who split the Janata Dal and formed his own party. 
 
 The Congress (I) Party, pointing to the turmoil of the previous two 
 governments, made stability a key campaign issue, saying only Congress had
 been able to serve out a full five-year term. 
 
 The failure of any single party to win an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha
 is likely to create further instability and could lead to new elections in a
 few months. 
 
 
 
 Subj:   CROWDED MINIBUS SKIDS, PLUNGES OFF BRIDGE INTO RIVER IN INDIA,
         KILLS 17 
 
 
 NEW DELHI, INDIA (JUNE 14) UPI - A crowded minibus skidded and plunged off a 
 bridge into a river Friday in central India, killing 17 people and injuring
 seven others, the Press Trust of India reported. 
 
 It said a tire on the bus burst as it crossed the bridge on the River Umri
 near Jabalpur city, about 400 miles south of New Delhi, causing the driver to
 lose control of the vehicle. 
 
 The minibus, which carried 24 people, skidded off the bridge and into the
 water, the agency said. It said 14 people were killed instantly and three of
 the 10 injured were dead on arrival at a hospital. 

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