KARACHI: His Excellency the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten ... arrived in Karachi from New Delhi at noon today [May 18]. They were received at the Mauripur Aerodrome by Sir Francis Mudie, Governor of Sind. After an hour`s stay for refueling purposes the plane took off for Cairo on its way to London. The Viceroy is understood to be carrying with him the greatest common measure of agreement of both the major political parties to the plan he had already submitted to H.M.G.

. .[T]his measure of agreement was ... due to H.M.G`s determination to go through with their scheduled programme for the relinquishment of their authority by June next year... . [W]hile officially as yet no inkling is available of the `plan`, it is generally assumed that measures for the partition of the provinces and the division of the country will begin almost straightaway in the first week of June. One main question which has not yet been agreed to by the parties, it is learned, is on the possession of the city of Calcutta. `Pakistan` claims it and the Congress had demanded it on the ground that in Calcutta the percentage of Muslim population is about 23.6 percent. Dawn Delhi