July 14, 1981, Forty Years Ago: Talks break down

Assam agitation leaders once again broke off discussions with the official committee on the foreigners’ issue after failing to reach an agreement on the basic principles for the detection of foreigners. “Our meeting point is zero”, a spokesman of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) said. “The government is driving us to resume satyagrahi and picketing. We will fight till the drop of blood,” he said. The situation on Monday was similar to that of July 1 when the leaders broke off talks and threatened to resume the agitation. But they returned to the negotiation table after being persuaded by Home Minister Zail Singh.

Poonch firing

The Indian Ambassador to Pakistan Natwar Singh told the Pakistan foreign office that India wanted to build a tension-free relationship with Pakistan. This had been recently reiterated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at a news conference, he told the Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, S Shahnawaz who had asked to see him. The Indian envoy is reported to have drawn the attention of Shahnawaz to an incident of firing which took place in the Poonch sector and in which an Indian army officer lost his life. This was a matter of deep concern and sorrow, Singh said and asked the circumstances in which this incident had occurred.

UK riots spread

UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, arrived on Monday on an unannounced visit to Liverpool, torn by fierce rioting over the past 10 days. Overnight in London and in six provincial cities, mobs of young blacks and whites took to the streets and for the first time in the current wave of urban violence, the rioting spread to Scotland. The police at Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland, reported two flare-ups late Monday in low-income districts of the city, which — unlike most of the trouble-torn English centres — has virtually no non-white immigrant population.