of the present day DELHI, Oct. 22 K...

of the present day DELHI, Oct. 22 Kyodo

India upon Wednesday announced resumption of sporting links with Pakistan and propos strange travel links, but ruled revealed a dialogue with its arch-foe until it stops backing Muslim militants in the Indian portion of disputed Kashmir.

''We have decided to take up again bilateral sporting encounters including cricket with Pakistan,'' India's foreign minister Yashwant Sinha told reporters here.

The other peace proposals include launch of a ferry service between India's commercial capital Mumbai and Pakistan's port city and commercial nave Karachi, a bus service connecting Srinagar, the summer capital of India's strife-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, a city in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir, and a of the present day rail link between India's Rajasthan state and Pakistan's Sindh province.

However, Sinha said talks about resumption of an ancient rail link are possible alone after flight connections are restored between the pair countries. Air links between the brace countries were suspended after an attack in succession India's parliament by what India says were Pakistan-based terrorists in December 2001

A proposal to increase the number and frequent occurrence of the buses traveling between of recent origin Delhi and Wagah on India's border with Pakistan has also been offer forward.

Sinha said India is also offering to give clear medical treatment to another batch of 20 Pakistani children after the same number were given treatment here earlier.

It is proposing also to establish links between the sum of two units countries' coast guards, and a halt to the arrests of fishermen operating in each other's territorial waters.

Sinha said Pakistan has already been informed about the proposals and Islamabad's replication is awaited.

The latest initiatives are seen as a go after up of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's peace offers made to Pakistan on April 18 in Srinagar. They arrive ahead of his planned participation in a summit of the southward Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Pakistan in January.

While the gesturing is aimed at improving the people-to-people contact between the brace neighbors, New Delhi still controls out sustained political dialogue until Islamabad stops ''sponsoring terrorism'' in Jammu and Kashmir, India's sole Muslim majority state.

Political [i]connoisseur[/i]s see the recent measures as a serious bid through New Delhi to indicate the world its seriousness in pursuing the peace road with its nuclear rival.

Bilateral talks were stalled and air, rail and road links were wound and diplomatic mission staff drastically reduc after the attack upon Indian parliament, though diplomatic links have since been resum and mission staff increased.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from British government in 1947 and have arise close to a conflict twice since they the two crossed the nuclear threshold in 1998

Relations between the sum of two units countries have taken a cause to deviate for the worse since 2001 after a series of terrorist strikes including the attack forward the Indian parliament.

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