The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
FORTY YEARS AGO
INDO-PAK RELATIONS
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN India and Pakistan were restored amidst warm hopes for future friendship. President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed expressed great satisfaction that the government of Pakistan, “like the government of India desires that relations between nations, particularly neighbours, should be based on the five principles of peaceful coexistence”. Ahmed was speaking at the presentation of credentials by the Pakistan ambassador, Fida Hassan, simultaneously with the ceremony, the embassy of Pakistan started functioning here. In Islamabad, India’s new ambassador to Pakistan, K.S. Bajpai, said the restoration of diplomatic relations could usher in a new era of harmony between the two neighbouring countries. Bajpai was presenting his credentials to Pakistan’s president, Fazal Ejahi Chaudhry.
SANJAY ’ S AGENDA
CONGRESS PRESIDENT D.K. Barooah committed the ruling party to the expansion of the 20-point programme by including Sanjay Gandhi’s four points. He sent a circular to chief ministers and PCC chiefs that they should work for the implementation of all 24 points of the expanded programme. The 20-point programme is more than a year old. The four-point programme given by Sanjay Gandhi is: Family planning, tree planting, eradication of illiteracy, and abolition of the dowry system.
NARAYANAN IN PEKING
INDIAN AMBASSADOR TO China, K.R. Narayanan, presented his credentials to Wu Teh, vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress in Peking. Narayanan arrived in Peking early July. He would normally have presented his credentials to Chu Teh, who was chairman of the NPC. But Chu died. The Chinese ambassador-designate, Chen Chao Yuan, is expected in New Delhi shortly.
JAKARTA COMMUNIQUE
FOREIGN MINISTERS OF India and Indonesia expressed concern over the “lack of progress towards the realisation of the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace”. A joint communique released at the end of Foreign Minister Y.B. Chavan’s visit to Jakarta, called upon the big powers “to act with due restraint”.