WORLD IN BRIEF : INDIA : 20 Reported Killed in Separatist Strife

At least 20 people were reported killed in separatist violence on the eve of India’s annual Republic Day as the president lamented strife in the nation. Indian news agencies reported that a bomb blast killed two people in Assam, that 17 people had died since Thursday night in Sikh separatist violence in Punjab and that at least one policeman was killed by militants in Kashmir. President Ramaswamy Venkataraman, in a televised message to the nation, urged Indians to reject sectarian conflict, which claimed nearly 900 lives in Hindu-Muslim riots in the last four months of 1990.