DATE=9/15/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDIA - VAJPAYEE REACT (L-ONLY)CQ
NUMBER=2-266549
BYLINE=JIM TEEPLE
DATELINE=NEW DELHI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
//Editors - Because of line problems, Jim Teeple in
New Delhi was unable to voice this CR or send the
actualities. He will try again on Saturday, 9/16, to
voice and send acts.//
INTRO: The visit of India's Prime Minister to
the United States is being well received back
home. India's newspapers, its state-run radio
network and its several new 24-hour cable TV news
channels have all devoted considerable space and
time to the visit. V-O-A's Jim Teeple
spent part of Friday on a busy corner in downtown
New Delhi speaking to Delhites about what they
think of their Prime Minister's trip to the
United States.
TEXT: // ACTUALITY OF TRAFFIC...EST.AND FADE
UNDER TEXT //
TEXT: There is no busier place in New Delhi
than Connaught Place - where Delhites have come
to shop and be entertained for 75-years. It is
a good place to take the pulse of this city of
more than 13-million because everyone comes to
Connaught Place - rich and poor alike.
Taking a break from his job in one of the shops
that line the circle is Sanjay Mehra who says he
has been paying close attention to Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Washington trip.
Mr. Mehra says he especially enjoyed watching Mr.
Vajpayee's address to a joint session of
the U-S Congress. He says he liked what he heard
when Mr. Vajpayee - without mentioning Pakistan
by name -- said foreign-sponsored terrorists
want to destroy India's territorial integrity.
// MEHRA ACTUALITY //
I think it is good to go after terrorism
globally. They have to control
terrorism which is covering the whole world. So
it was good that Prime Minister Vajpayee said
something about terrorism and it is good to have
a friendship with the U-S.
// END ACTUALITY //
// OPT // Shopping at Connaught Place Friday
afternoon - Vinuta Murthy says Indians know more
about America than Americans do about India. She
says she hopes Mr. Vajpayee's trip will help
change that.
// OPTIONAL MURTHY ACTUALITY //
I think it is a good idea and I think he is doing
a good job of it and I am glad that the United
States and India are friends because I enjoy
going to the States, I have a lot of friends and
relatives there and I think it is nice that we
are looked at as a country that is coming up.
// END OPTIONAL ACTUALITY //
// END OPT // Just a short distance from
Connaught Place is New Delhi's Institute for
Defense Studies and Analysis - a leading capital
think tank. Commodore Uday Bhaskar is the
Deputy Director of the Institute. He says Mr.
Vajpayee's visit is being closely followed by
India's well-educated middle classes.
// BHASKAR ACTUALITY //
There are many issues there - political, military
and social that are of great relevance to India.
Perhaps if you talk about one-billion Indians
maybe half of them are not aware of the visit but
I think for the discerning lot that do track such
issues, the Vajpayee visit to the
United States is an important visit because it
will help sensitize global opinion to many of the
issues that India is now dealing with -
starting with globalization to terrorism. It is
really a case of India having to deal with the
two IT's - information technology on the one
hand and international terrorism on the other.
// END BHASKAR ACTUALITY //
Not everyone in New Delhi is a fan of Mr.
Vajpayee's trip. Taking a cigarette break from
his office at India Today, a leading Indian news
weekly headquartered on Connaught Place,
cartoonist Ajit Ninan Matthew says he considers
the Prime Minister's trip a waste of time.
// NINAN MATTHEW ACTUALITY //
He is going at the wrong time, there is an
election campaign going on there, and for
Americans it is once in four years - so the whole
media is watching the Gore and Bush campaign.
Also nothing got resolved from the Strobe Talbot
talks, nothing got resolved from the Clinton
visit here - Clinton did not give us any gifts,
and neither is he going to now, because he is a
lame duck president. So it is one of those
send-offs or see you - goodbye type of trips -
nothing more than that.
// END ACTUALITY //
Indian newspapers are giving extensive coverage
to Mr. Vajpayee's trip but there was far more
coverage of Thursday's whirlwind visit to New
Delhi by Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft,
who announced an alliance with India's Infosys
Technologies Corporation - one of the new
Information Technology companies operating out of
the southern city of Bangalore. For young
Indians like Sanjay -- who asked that his last
name not be used --- because he was sitting
outside the Connaught Place headquarters of his
American company -- Bill Gates visiting India is
more interesting than Atal Behari Vajpayee
visiting the United States.
// SANJAY ACTUALITY ///
I think things are happening with Bill Gates and
India - you know there is the alliance between
Infosys and Microsoft -- which is I think is a
big step for India's information technology which
has been driving our economy for the last year
and a half or so. So that is pretty big news
and it is certainly relevant as far as India is
concerned.
// END ACTUALITY //
While he says he is not paying much attention to
Mr. Vajpayee's visit, Sanjay says he welcomes the
trip. Like many other educated middle class
Indians, Sanjay says he knows far more about the
United States than someone his age in the United
States knows about India. He says if Mr.
Vajpayee's trip raises more awareness in the
United States about India the trip will have been
well worth it. (Signed)
neb/jlt/plm
15-Sep-2000 10:30 AM EDT (15-Sep-2000 1430 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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