Date:25/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/25/stories/2004122504671200.htm

International - India & World

`Subcontinent has lost a statesman'

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, DEC. 24. In the demise of the former Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, the subcontinent has lost a statesman, according to Pakistani peace activist, Mubashar Hasan. Dr. Hasan, who had known Rao for several years, said it was Rao who took the bold decision in February 1995 to grant visas to 120 Pakistanis to attend the first-ever joint people-to-people convention in New Delhi arranged by the Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy.

"Nobody here or in Delhi believed that our request for visas would be granted but come they did. It was a historical moment, the first small opening of what was to become in a decade a massive exchange of visits between the peoples of the two nations."