(First Edition) BRASILIA (Reuter) - Brazil's free-market champion, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, hid from public view yesterday as election vote counting began and newspapers hailed him as the new president. Exit polls from Monday's presidential election showed Mr Cardoso, an advocate of social reforms and opening up the rule-bound economy, sweeping to victory by nearly 6 million votes more than all other candidates combined.That meant Mr Cardoso, candidate of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, would avoid a run-off with his nearest rival, the left-wing candidate, Luiz Inacio 'Lula' da Silva.'FHC Is President,' the Folha de Sao Paulo daily said in a banner headline, and the capital's Correio Brasiliense reported: 'Social Democracy Takes Power.' O Estado de Sao Paulo hailed Mr Cardoso as 'The Mulatto Prince', and columnist Jose Castello wrote: 'With his virtual ascension to the presidency, he sets a standard for the country - the intellectual that puts reality above ideas. that means good times for us.'As Brazil began the slow process of counting paper ballots cast by nearly 95 million voters, the first trickle of results from the Superior Electoral Court indicated Mr Cardoso far ahead.The court showed Mr Cardoso, a former economy minister, with 31,381 votes, or 52.9 per cent, against 12,923 or 21.8 per cent, for Mr da Silva. The other six candidates had 14,969 votes combined, or 25.3 per cent, with the remaining ballots disqualified or blank. the Election Court president, Sepulveda Pertence, said final results were not likely for 15 days.. IT WAS the first time the Red Fort had been stormed since the 1857 Mutiny, when British forces knocked the last Mogul emperor off his throne: on Sunday, a band of Himalayan mountain men, many of them ex-soldiers, braved a barrage of more than 1,500 tear-gas grenades and scaled the walls of Delhi's famous monument. The siege was a symbolic protest, but it served as a warning to the Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, that the bloody troubles of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state have spilled into the Indian capital. These modern day raiders are secessionists demanding that a new hill state be carved out of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with 115 million people. On the surface, demands for Uttarkhand, as activists are calling the envisioned state, seem to be a feud between the hill people - tough soldiers, shepherds and farmers who inhabit the foothills of the high Himalayan ranges - and the plains people living along the Ganges river, who control the state's political might.

But the unrest, according to Murli Manohar Joshi, a right-wing Hindu politician, 'is pushing the state into the worst kind of caste war'.The agitation flared in this forested north-west corner of Uttar Pradesh in August, when the state's chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, declared that in the hill districts many government jobs and top school places would be reserved for lower castes. This enraged the hill people, since the upper castes, mainly of priestly Brahmins, warriors and merchants, make up 70 per cent of the population. Mr Yadav owes his seat in Lucknow, the state capital, to the lower-caste Hindus and the Muslims in the flatlands.'You should be prepared to come out on to the street and fight for your rights,' Mr Yadav told his supporters in a rallying cry against the secessionists But most of the fighting has been led by Mr Yadav's police. His foes accuse him of turning the police into a brutal, personal instrument of revenge.At the weekend, when thousands of hill people began heading for Delhi to hold a non-violent rally on the 125th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth, the police barricaded roads and opened fire indiscriminately on the activists At least 16 people were killed and 50 seriously wounded. Near the crossroads of Muzaffarnagar, according to eyewitnesses, police also rounded up scores of women protesters off coaches, and dragged them into sugarcane fields where they were gang-raped.As reports of the Muzaffarnagar rapes and shootings reached into the hills, enraged activists set fire to police stations and government vehicles. A curfew was imposed yesterday at nine hill stations, while it was feared the death toll could be far higher.

One activist, Chander Singh Negi, said, 'Nearly 200 people are missing. We're afraid that they have been killed.'Until yesterday, the Prime Minister's ruling Congress Party had buoyed up Mr Yadav's government in Lucknow. But under pressure from Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders, Mr Rao may be forced to withdraw support for Mr Yadav's left-wing alliance of Muslims and lower-caste Hindus It is a dilemma for Mr Rao. If he is to remain Prime Minister, his Congress party must do well in southern Indian state elections next month and must persuade lower-caste voters that Congress is willing to protect their interests.Mr Yadav, despite his mischief- making, is viewed by many among India's under-privileged millions as one of their few champions. So if Mr Rao topples the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, he may eventually come crashing down, too.(Map omitted).