Fremont (California), June 12: While Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf’s forthcoming meeting may not yield a “perfect solution”, policy experts, academics, two former US ambassadors to South Asia and a prominent Democrat Congressman agreed that just sitting down together was an essential component in diplomacy between India and Pakistan.”The impulse for peace is very strong,” Washington Democrat Congressman Jim McDermott told an audience at a daylong conference on Kashmir here on Saturday. “There is no perfect solution (to the problem in Kashmir), but if we keep waiting for one and don’t talk, we will never get anywhere,” said Mr. McDermott, a co-chairman of the congressional caucus on India.

In family photos, the young men pose politely in turbans and ties. But in secret snapshots confiscated by police, some of the men reveal a darker side. They stuff assault rifles down their pants, flex their tattooed muscles and flaunt their bare chests. Others point 9mm pistols at each others’ temples and flash gang signs. Police say these 20-somethings belong to three small Indo-American gangs in Alameda and Santa Clara counties the Santa Clara Punjabi Boys, Aim to Kill and the All Indian Mob. Authorities describe their members perhaps as many as 500 mostly Sikh men in Northern California as some of the Bay Area’s most violent offenders. “Their conflicts always result in a stabbing, shooting or beating,” said Dave Lanier, a Fremont police sergeant who also is the region’s foremost expert on Indo-American gangs. Investigators began focusing on the gangs after a series of violent incidents during the past two years

Jeevan Zutshi, a longtime community activist and a transportation Engineer with a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from San Jose State University, California has been appointed to the Departmental Transportation Advisory Committee by Speaker of the California State Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa. Term of this appointment is from January 31, 2000 to January 31, 2004.

WASHINGTON, FEB 25: If posterity captures a defining moment that signaled the political coming of age of Indian Americans in the United States, it could be at noon in the year 2000 on a balmy Thursday in Washington. That’s when a group of 33 well-heeled immigrants trooped into the White House to voice their views on the Presidential trip to South Asia at the invitation of the Clinton administration.

This refers to Iftekhar Hai’s opinion carried in the issue of August 5 on Kashmir in San Francisco chronicle. To understand the problem of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) we have to go back to when India became independent and was partitioned, and Pakistan was created in August 1947. Then, there were 565 Princely States, which were given the option to join either India or Pakistan.Legally, there were three points to note on J&K:

A PERSISTENT THREAT of war continues to flare up between two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. The problem is control of Kashmir, and it could be eased simply by letting the people of that disputed territory make a trip to the ballot box. The majority of the American people do not understand why India and Pakistan are at warin Kashmir. The problem dates back to the end of the British empire. A PERSISTENT THREAT of war continues to flare up between two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. The problem is control of Kashmir, and it could be eased simply by letting the people of that disputed territory make a trip to the ballot box. The majority of the American people do not understand why India and Pakistan are at war in Kashmir. The problem dates back to the end of the British empire.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer is scheduled to attend. So is state Sen. Liz Figueroa, and Assemblyman John Dutra, and Milpitas Mayor Henry Manayan. The high-powered guest list for a dinner Friday in the Fremont hills is an obvious sign that the Indo-American Community Federation is an organization with clout, even though most local residents have never heard of the non-profit group.

Reflecting the growing recognition in Washington of the plight of Kashmiris Pandits influential democrat from Ohio and members of the India Caucus Sherrod Brown urged Home Minister L.K.Advani to consult the Kashmir Task Force (KTF) while resolving the “unfortunate situation”.In a letter to Advani last week, Brown noted the deteriorating condition of the Pandits, their forced exodus by terrorists trained outside India’s borders and decried the harsh living conditions in the make-shift camps set up for them.