February 18, 1994

Two years of Government reform have brought economic growth that has mostly benefited the 120 million people of India's educated middle class. But despite widespread economic and political change, more than 70 percent of the country's people continue to live in villages where sharp divisions in caste and economic status have persisted for centuries.

In a move prompted as much by pressure politics as by practical concerns, a British clinic will begin offering the abortion pill RU-486 to American women -- but only if they are willing to journey to England and pay $500 to terminate their pregnancy. Helen Axby, the director of the Marie Stopes Health Clinic in London, said yesterday that she had reached an agreement with a representative of the British Government's Department of Health allowing the clinic to offer RU-486 to American women and other nonresidents who prefer to use the drug instead of undergoing a standard abortion. Until now, British health authorities have forbidden the drug to be dispensed to nonresidents.

Once again, Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse magazine, was shocking someone with his idea of what constitutes art. It happened the other day in a ground-floor gallery of the Nassau County Museum of Art, where Lila Walter of Woodbury gazed at a painting, on loan from Mr. Guccione's private collection, of a young woman drying herself after bathing.

As defense lawyers continued their summations in the World Trade Center trial yesterday, differences in their tactics emerged when the lawyer for one of the four defendants asked for a mistrial, saying that counsel for a different defendant had done more harm to his client than the prosecution had. Meeting in chambers before the open court session began, the lawyer, Austin Campriello, asked Judge Kevin T. Duffy to declare a mistrial in the case of Ahmad M. Ajaj, a 27-year-old Palestinian refugee accused of bringing bombing manuals and expertise on explosives into the United States with the intention of using them to further the trade center conspiracy.

Rock Idols Sue Over Benefits A group of aging rock legends is accusing record companies of depriving thousands of artists of hundreds of millions of dollars in health and pension benefits. Law, page B9. Randy Shilts Dies Randy Shilts, the journalist and author who was one of the first people to write about the AIDS epidemic, died of AIDS at the age of 42. Page D17. U.S. Case on Diamond Prices G.E., De Beers and two businessmen were accused of trying to fix prices of industrial diamonds. Page D1. A Role Reversal Glenn Close, instead of Patti Lupone, is to star in the Broadway production of "Sunset Boulevard." Page C3.