The Defence and External Affairs Ministers to-day [New Delhi, July 12] spoke reassuringly in Parliament about India’s preparedness on both the western and eastern fronts to meet any Pakistani threat, while deploring strongly the continued supply of U.S. arms to the military rulers of Pakistan. The Defence Minister, Mr. Jagjivan Ram, assured the Lok Sabha, in the course of his reply to the seven-hour debate on the budget demands for the defence forces, that despite Pakistan’s frantic efforts to augment its military strength, India still retained a decisive edge in almost every sphere. In his reply to the calling attention motion of the supply of American arms to Pakistan, the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Swaran Singh, disclosed that in addition to numerous verbal representations made at the highest level, India had also protested in writing on June 27 to the U.S. Government against the dangerous implications of this action. He told the Lok Sabha that the Government of India felt that the “the supply of arms to Pakistan by any country in the present context amounts to condonation of the genocide in Bangla Desh and encouragement to the continuation of the atrocities by the Military rulers of Pakistan.”
