LONDON: The Indian Army’s close proximity to East Pakistan’s borders with West Bengal and to camps of infiltrators trained and armed by the Indian Army has been described … as a breach of the treaty which has been in force since Partition and under which both countries agreed to keep their forces five miles back from the border.

… [A]rmed infiltrators are hidden in tented camps along East Pakistan’s western border with India. Some Indian Army units have moved in besides “infiltrators in the Bongoan area”. “The public relations value” of armed infiltrators operating under the aegis and besides the Indian Army … “Must far outweigh the military value” … “[T]his may be the strangest guerrilla army in Asia.

Economy rides out the storm

[Meanwhile, as reported by a staff correspondent in Rawalpindi,] The national economy was subjected to extraordinary strains during 1970-1971: but, despite adverse developments, there were significant elements of strength in the country’s economy, according to the “Pakistan Economic Survey, 1970-71”....

Presenting a forthright picture of the present state of economy before the nation, it showed that the actual implementation of the Annual Development Programme for 1970-71, which had originally envisaged an expenditure of Rs 770 crores in the public sector, would now be around Rs 560 crores showing a shortfall of Rs 210 crores.

...It said that the budgetary trends of the Central Government for the first nine months of the current financial year showed that the targets for internal resources mobilisation were unlikely to be met, with a corresponding rise in deficit financing.

UAR forces getting ready for war

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies in Cairo,] The year 1971 will be a decisive year for the Middle East conflict, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt said yesterday [June 22].

“We cannot wait for ever, we must always be prepared,” he said … “We have lost a battle,” the President said in reference to the 1967 six-day war, but we will not accept defeat or surrender, whatever the sacrifice.” … President Sadat warned that the coming battles against Israel will be much fiercer than all previous ones and will entail heavy losses. The President called on Egyptian forces to be ready for a resumption of hostilities against Israel and warned that it will entail heavy losses.

Three US papers barred

[Agencies add from New York,] Three fresh [publications] have been ... under temporary Court orders not to publish further disclosures of a secret Pentagon study on United States involvement in the Viet-Nam war. Bans first imposed last week on the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post” were yesterday [June 22] extended by separate Appeals Court panels in New York and Washington, pending decisions on whether they should be permanently restrained from publishing the study.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2021