World Notes INDIA

With India's voters set to go to the polls next week, the country's attention was focused less on politics than on a religious dispute over the future of a 16th century mosque in the North Indian town of Ayodhya. Militant Hindu groups claim that India's Mogul conquerors built the mosque after destroying a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama. The militants demand that a temple to Rama be built on the spot. India's Muslim minority fiercely objects to the plan. As tension has mounted in recent weeks, at least 400 people, most of them Muslims, have been killed in communal rioting.

With Hindus accounting for 83% of India's 833 million people, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi permitted the militants to lay the foundation stone for the new temple last week. The Hindu extremists are the vanguard of a growing movement led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Its aim: to establish a Hindu Rashtra -- Hindu Nation.