March 15, 1971

preliminary results of elections in 37,713 municipalities; incumbent mayors are said to have won or be leading in most cases; winners include Sen Martin, Premier Chaban-Delmas, Min Debre, F Mitterrand and J Lecanuet; Pres Pompidou seen playing down elections as pol test; various pol groups seen able to maintain local positions because of basically stable voting habits that electorate has shown; run-off elections set; Pompidou illus

Meir moves to head off internal challenge to Govt over question whether leadership has become too conciliatory in efforts towards Middle East peace settlement; 2 hard-line Opposition parties have declared their intention of forcing no-confidence debate in Knesset and small faction of Natl Religious party, governing coalition, is wavering about whether to continue as part of Govt; challenge arose after Times of London int in which Meir apparently conceded eventual troop withdrawal from most of Sinai and west bank; details

CED members, at press conf on rept on urban educ, are obliquely critical of Nixon's gen sharing plan on ground that availability of new Fed funds would remove incentive for tax reform

NY Times survey of NYC munic employe pension system discusses business community's fears that continued liberalizations will have adverse effect on competitive ability of private enterprise

Sheik Mujibur Rahman announces he is taking over adm of E Pakistan to 'emancipate' people of Bengal homeland; issues 35 directives, suspends collection of income taxes by central Govt and bars remittance of customs and excise duties and sales taxes, which are normally sent to central Govt; says he is still willing to meet with Yahya khan; bases take-over directive on Awami League's dominant pol position in E Pakistan, where it won 288 of 310 seats in provincial assembly and 167 seats in 313-member Natl Assembly in Dec; Mujibur demands listed