What was going on when I was born?

Thai tribe being priced out of its own religion A2 Twice in six years, a Nkomo sup- porter flees A3 Indian plant producing weapons- grade plutonium A4 Around the World A5 Libya's parliament calls for formation of suicide squads A6 Ex-Irgun commander is named Ambassador to Britain A8 Tribal groups make up 10 percent of Assam's population A10 Washington Talk Congress: The trend toward packaging legislation B6 Link seen between good eco- nomic news and news confer- ences B6 The Calendar B6 Required Reading B6 Briefing B6 SportsMonday Auto Racing: Yarborough, driv- ing backup car, wins Daytona 500 C7 Baseball: An unusual rookie tries for spot on Mets C2 Baseball owners' arbitration victory is costly C2 Basketball: St. John's defeats DePaul, 64-52 C1 Virginia beats Missouri, 68-53 C1 Bowie of Kentucky ready to test injured leg C1 Knicks beaten by 76ers, 104-89 C6 Nets lose to Bucks, 109-108 C6 Columns: Dave Anderson on the college road to Albuquerque C4 George Vecsey on prime time for a walk C3 Features: Sports World Specials Question Box C7 Football: U.S.F.L. says it would not honor a Walker pact C1 Golf: Hallberg wins by a stroke at San Diego C5 Hockey: Loss illustrates Ranger goalies' erractic play Devils obtain Low as goalie backup for Resch C3 Horse Racing: Experimental List offers clues to Derby hope- fuls C8 Arts/Entertainment Paris still buzzing over Mitter- and's cultural conference C9 To publish ''Franglais'' in France is against the law C9 ''Robert Browning: A Life Within Life'' reviewed C14 Cheryl Ladd stars in ''Grace Kelly,'' TV movie C16 Government/Politics U.S. Appeals Court in New York restricts written rulings B1 Cuomo plans to strengthen the minority hiring program B2 General Around the Nation A12 Waukegan, Ill., seeks end to seven-year pollution dispute A14 For speed skaters, it's more than just competing B1 New York Health Dept. struggles with backlog of complaints B1 Style Relationships C18 Women balance police work and home C18 Parents learn to discipline chil- dren C18 Six-month wait for betrothed Catholics in Providence C18 Obituaries Dr. Julian H. Gibbs, president of Amherst College B8 Features/Notes New York Day by Day B2 Going Out Guide C12 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A16 Turn the illegal tide Down to the sea in cartels A law to cure blindness Topics: Animal, vegetable Letters A16 William Safire: Mideast cam- paign oratory A17 Melvyn B. Krauss: Brandt II - as poor as Brandt I A17 Sergei Batovrin: Calling for peace in Soviet A17 Edwin Meese 3d: Seabed? No, bed of nails A17 Clifton E. Curtis: Sign the sea- law treaty A17 WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY Washington's Birthday (actually Feb. 22) is observed as a holiday today.

Governor Cuomo announced tonight the appointment of three black and five Hispanic officials and a three-part program to strengthen the state's minority hiring. Among the nominees are former State Senator H. Carl McCall as Commissioner of the Division of Human Rights, and Julio A. Martinez for reappointment as head of the Commission of Substance Abuse Prevention and Education. Only Mr. McCall and Mr. Martinez must be confirmed by the State Senate. Mr. McCall lost the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor last September to Alfred B. DelBello, who became Mr. Cuomo's running mate. Mr. Cuomo made the announcements in a speech at the 12th annual meeting of the State Legislature's Black and Puerto Rican Caucus. The caucus met at the Convention Center of the Empire State Plaza.

The Federal Court of Appeals in New York, complaining of a heavy workload, has been restricting the use of its written decisions over the last decade by lawyers who want to cite them in arguing related cases. The judges say they cannot draft a well-reasoned opinion in every case, so they save time in writing opinions that are not intended for publication in law books and journals. ''If we had to write a polished opinion for every case, we would have to spend much more time on the orders,'' said Wilfred Feinberg, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. ''Not only for the prose, but for the implications of future cases.'' The practice of the court, which is second in influence only to the United States Supreme Court, has aroused controversy in the legal community, because lawyers say it hampers their ability to know what the current law is and to argue effectively for their clients.

An article on the Style page Friday incorrectly gave the West Coast ar- rival date for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Their visit begins next Saturday.

The Israeli Cabinet voted today to retain former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon on two important Government bodies, the steering committee for the negotiations with Lebanon and the larger of two ministerial panels on defense. Officials said the decision, made at Prime Minister Menachem Begin's request, appeared to mean that Mr. Sharon would continue to have a major role in shaping Israeli positions in the talks with Lebanon. Some officials here and in Washington had expected this to be the one area in which Mr. Sharon's resignation would bring a new spirit of Israeli flexibility and compromise. His position on the defense committee is regarded as less significant, however, because it is a fairly extensive body of about a dozen ministers, created largely to satisfy the demands of coalition factions for a visible role in policy deliberations.

If Herschel Walker, the all-America running back and Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Georgia, had signed a contract with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League, it would not have been approved by the league, according to a U.S.F.L. official. ''It would have been a difficult decision for us,'' the official, a member of the commissioner's staff, said yesterday. ''But the commissioner would have disapproved the contract, even with the threat of a lawsuit hanging over us.'' Disapproval would have come because Walker still has a season of college eligibility, and therefore is ineligible to play for a league team.

For decades, the sprawling Homestead Works in Pittsburgh was the quintessence of the United States Steel Corporation and, perhaps, of the steel industry itself. Thousands of workers streamed through its gates each shift to pour and shape rivers of steel; trains and trucks rumbled in and out of the complex around the clock, and smoke from the towering furnace stacks smothered nearby buildings in layers of reddish-brown soot. Today, Homestead is eerily placid. Much of the plant has been mothballed for months, and the company formally wrote off most of the production facilities last year. Many of the mill's 7,000 workers, two-thirds of whom are laid off, believe the plant will soon close.

International Hindu tribesmen killed 600 people in an eight-hour attack on Moslem settlements in a rural area of Assam, a state in northeastern India, according to a senior state official. Witnesses said that the Moslem settlements were attacked by thousands of tribal people armed with homemade guns, machetes and spears. The figures, if confirmed, would bring the number of dead in three weeks of sectarian and ethnic violence in the state to about 1,000. (Page A1, Column 6.) Ariel Sharon will remain on two important Government bodies, the steering committee for the negotiations with Lebanon and the larger of the two ministerial panels on defense. The decision by the Israeli Cabinet, made at Prime Minister Menachem Begin's request, appeared to mean that Mr. Sharon, the former Defense Minister, would continue to have a major role in shaping Israel's positions in the talks with Lebanon, officials said. (A1:4.)

LEXINGTON, Ky. A CUMBERSOME plaster of Paris cast has become a part of Sam Bowie's uniform the last two years. There have been times when it felt so normal to be wearing it that Bowie might have been persuaded to paint the cast in Kentucky blue, inscribe his number 31 and resume his playing career. His thin legs always gave the impression that he was walking on stilts, so a cast would only help make him look more formidable. It is when one watches Bowie walk in a stiff-legged manner, though, that it becomes apparent he is physically handicapped by the cast. There are no other signs. His outlook is not what might be expected of a former high school and college all-American whose basketball future has been put on hold for two years after suffering a stress fracture of the left tibia, the stubborn fracture that still has not healed. Bowie has had to face the possibility that he will never play again; he has had to face the more likely prospect that he may never regain his previous form. He understands that National Basketball Association teams will consider him a risk and be wary of signing him to a longterm contract.

A search by one of Cuba's great cigar-making clans for a place with the characteristics suitable for re-creating their aromatic old Havanas has led to this small farming community in the backlands of Brazil's state of Bahia. Twenty-two years after being obliged to leave revolutionary Cuba, members of the Menendez family say that their odyssey, which included stops in Miami, the Canary Islands and Spain, has reached a successful end here. ''We've offered American and European buyers samples of our cigars and Montecristos with the labels taken off, and they often couldn't guess which was which,'' said Benjamin F. Menendez, 46 years old, the production director of Menendez Amerino S.A. With him in Brazil are two brothers, Alonso, 48, the sales director, and Felix, 38, the production manager. Growers Since 1860's Tobacco growers since the 1860's, the Menendezes used to make Montecristos in Cuba as co-partners in the Menendez Garcia company that occupied the same square as Havana's Capitol building and produced 26 million cigars a year. They also made H. Upmanns, another of the prestige Cuban brands.

''It was every person for himself, and our women, the old men and the children could not run fast enough,'' - Abdul Matalib, a survivor of a massacre in Assam, India. (A11:4.)

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that what the Reagan Administration believed last week was a military threat by Libya against the Sudan had now ''receded.'' Mr. Shultz said Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, ''is back in his box where he belongs'' because President Reagan acted ''quickly and decisively.'' Awacs to Be Withdrawn Another State Department official said that unless there was a sudden outbreak of violence in the region - a possibility that he said now appeared unlikely - four Air Force Airborne Warning and Control System planes sent to Egypt last week would be withdrawn Tuesday. The Awacs were flown to the Cairo West airfield when intelligence reports aroused concern here, in Cairo and in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, that Libya was planning to try to overthrow President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan.