By India Correspondent, Smita Prakash

The year 2002 was a tough one for India.

It was a year marked with inter-religious tensions and the threat of war with neighbour Pakistan.

The one silver lining in the dark cloud was the successful culmination of elections in trouble torn state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Let us take a trip down the year 2002, what it gave India and its impact on the year ahead.

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Indian troops faced Pakistani troops all along the 2,912-km India-Pakistan border in January this year.

Operation Parakram which had begun a few months earlier was now complete.

It was costing the Indian exchequer about one billion rupees a month but the
Indian Prime Minister had said that the clandestine war launched by Pakistan in
Kashmir would now end one way or the other.

Over a million men along the highly volatile border, and war never seemed as imminent as in January 2002.

Mines were laid along the border and villagers fled this region.

India vowed revenge over the December 13 2001 attack by terrorists on the Indian Parliament.

One suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his waist and four armed men stormed into the courtyard of the Parliament building while Parliamentarians were locked in by security personnel.

The terrorists who had aimed to wipe out the entire political leadership of the
country were gunned down.

On May 14 in Jammu and Kashmir over 50 people were killed or wounded including family members of army personnel in an armed attack on an army camp.

India again blamed Pakistan for the incident.

War clouds loomed large over the Indian subcontinent.

And it took a massive international diplomatic exercise to prevent the two south
Asian nuclear neighbours from going to war.

US Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld came in June to ensure that India and
Pakistan do not go to war and thereby jeopardize the American war on terror in
which both Pakistan and India are allies of the US.

American Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in July to increase the pressure on India.

The Indian interior minister LK Advani made it clear the Indian patience was running low and the country had its own security concerns.

America applied further pressure on General Musharraf and assured India that
militant training camps would be closed down in Pakistan.

By October, India admitted that infiltration had reduced from its western borders.

From August 2002 India put its entire effort to see the successful culmination
of elections in the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir but it was mired in violence.

A moderate leader Abdul Gani Lone was shot dead in an attack meant to undermine the peace efforts in Kashmir.

Lone was vocal against the religious colour given to Kashmiri politics.

The forces of extremism saw Lone as a stumbling block in their struggle to separate Kashmir from India.

In the three months of electioneering in Kashmir over 600 people lost their
lives.

But political parties were determined to campaign and get people to vote.

The election machinery was equally determined that unlike in past elections,
this one would be free and fair. And over 50% off the electorate came to cast
their votes.

The sitting Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah seen here casting his vote was ousted from power.

His ouster was largely due to a sweeping anti-incumbency wave in the state.

The beneficiary was a lesser-known Mufti Mohammad Sayeed supported by the center leftist Congress party.

For over a decade and a half militancy has overshadowed politics in Kashmir

It wasn't just Kashmir that was the focus of attention in the country, the state of Gujarat in Western India was rocked by communal violence.

Last year, a massive earthquake had led to the death of 11,000 people and destruction worth millions of dollars.

Rehabilitation work got a setback due to the Hindu-Muslim riots that led to the death of about 1,000 people and rendered over 100,000 people homeless.

Muslims torched 58 Hindu pilgrims to death in a railway compartment on
February 27.

The pilgrims were returning from the North Indian city of Ayodhya where a 17th century mosque had been razed 10 years ago to build a temple, but has not yet been constructed.

And then some pseudo religious paramilitary groups decided to teach the 150
million Muslims of India a lesson.

Gujerat burned while the rest of the nation watched in horror as Muslim-owned shops were burned with their occupants in it, leaving 800 dead and thousands to live in make shift refugee camps protected by the army.

For months these Guejratis were too scared to return to their homes, .or what
was left of it.

As is India had not had enough with Kashmir and Gujerat violence, the summer was cruel.

Monsoon rains did not make their appearance in large parts of the country.

India was hit by one of the worst droughts of the century with a rainfall deficiency of about 49 percent this summer.

The farm sector is crucial to the Indian economy as it employs 70 percent of the country's billion plus population.

An estimated 300 million people have been directly hit by the drought, faced
with a destroyed crop.

The summer crop production was less by 10 million tones.

The government has provided over US$500 million of relief aid besides millions of tones in food grain aid to the worst affected regions.

A number of schemes were announced by the government to battle the drought including the waiving of loans taken by farmers.

The next budget was supposed to get rid of farm subsidies but it is unlikely to happen considering the plight of farmers in the country due to the prevailing drought conditions.

Among the events of the year was that India got a new president in APJ Abdul Kalam, the architect of India's present day nuclear research program.

It was under his stewardship that India exploded its nuclear devices in 1998.

In science and technology, India made rapid strides with the successful launch
of satellite for meteorological information on South Asia.

With this satellite, the India met department will be able to predict weather patterns more accurately.

Also in the news towards the end of the year was the targeting of temples by
terrorists.

A suicide squad attacked the Akshardham temple in Gujrat in almost a similar manner to the Parliament strike.

Barely a month later, two temples in Jammu in north India were targeted, yet
again by suicide bombers.

In both incidents the terrorists were killed in the incidents.

In Sports, India came 8th in the medal tally at the Busan Asian games.

The athletes, high on the 32 medals won earlier in the year at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, are slowly improving India's image in athletics.

Cricket of course is still the country's national obsession.

As a precursor to the World Cup to be held early next year in South Africa, the Champion's trophy was organized in Sri Lanka.

It was won jointly by India and Sri Lanka.

The Indian team is currently touring New Zealand.

India had some high profile visits including Russian president Vladimir Putin
and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

A US$100 million grant was made by Gates to India to tackle the Aids problem.

Sri-Lanka seems to be edging closer to a settlement to its 20- year-old ethnic
war.

Four previous peace attempts have failed but this time the Sri Lankan Tiger
rebels have toned down their demand for a separate state of the minority Tamils in a country where nearly 70 percent of the population are ethnic Sinhalese.

Sri Lanka wants Indian assistance to resolve the issue but India wants to stay
clear of it.

In the entertainment sector, films remain the only source of entertainment in the country.

But this year has been another dismal year at the box office.

Film after film is flopping and directors are hard pressed to figure out just what it is that people want to see.

Super hero Salman Khan was arrested for driving his SUV over sleeping slum
dwellers which led to the death of one and injury to two others.

Salman is out on bail but his volatile relationship with actress and former Miss
World Aishwarya Rai continued to make news.

Almost as much news as Indian-made English film Monsoon Wedding, a low budget film which captured the imagination of the western world, suddenly exposed to the glitter and noise of Indian weddings

Lagaan the Hindi film set in pre-independence India got nominated for the Oscars in the foreign film category.

It did not win the Oscar but for a depressed film industry the nomination was a much needed morale booster.

India's entry for the Oscars of 2003 is going to be the costume drama Devdas, again set in pre-independence India it is a story of a failed love between the protagonist Devdas and his childhood sweetheart Aishawarya and the
prostitute with the golden heart who pines for Devdas.

Despite international pressure on India and Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister has ruled out any rapproachment with Pakistan.

India has also blamed Bangladesh for providing hospitality to Islamic terrorist outfits.

Sri Lanka is attempting to end the bloody ethnic conflict that has racked the island nation for over 20 years.

Nepal's experiments with democracy continue.

Pakistan meanwhile has a new prime minister and cabinet which is vitriolic towards the United States.

The year ahead looks like a tough on for South Asia.