One year later...

India is in the spotlight again - As the country (and the rest of the world) remembers the devastating terrorist attacks in Mumbai a year ago, while some read about chef Marcus Samuelsson's green curry shrimp at the recent State Dinner, graced by Indian PM Manmohan Singh.

One year later, are we safer? 

Earlier this year, in June, I went to Bombay for work. When I frequented the Oberoi coffee shop for breakfast meetings, I noticed the increase in hotel security, as well as the eerily quiet halls and closed chops on some floors. I found Marine Drive full of determined walkers and joggers at 5 am, and then the romantics came out at night. Bombay seemed like a cheated housewife - last year she had been let down by her protectors but still maintained a brave face. Today she has moved on. Cafe Leopold is abuzz, Colaba welcomes the tourists who had postponed their trips the year before. Her spirit shines and is growing stronger.

But again - are we truly safe?

Here is a Wall Street Journal article by Linda Blake featuring the city's Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria. It may not provide an answer but sheds some light into the matter. What do you think?

Terrorists Increasingly Targeting Hotels

From Gary Thomas of VOA:

A new study by a private intelligence firm says terrorist attacks on hotels have risen dramatically in recent years. The group says tighter security at embassies and consulates has caused al-Qaida and allied groups to shift their attention to easier targets.

An armored vehicle stands posted outside the re-opened Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, 30 Jul 2009

Before September 11, 2001, al-Qaida made a name for itself by attacks on Western military and diplomatic targets, such as the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

But the private intelligence firm STRATFOR says tough security measures implemented since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington have forced al-Qaida and its allies to strike soft targets like hotels.

"The militants are shifting away from harder targets. As security measures are put in place at airports, we've seen a shift kind of away from aircraft to embassies. And then as embassy security was ratcheted up, we saw another shift over towards hotels. And so really there's kind of a line as security that is tightened at certain targets; it makes other targets more vulnerable to militants," said

Scott Stewart, STRATFOR's Vice President for Tactical Intelligence:

Stewart adds that the fact that hotels are now targeted says something about how al-Qaida has changed. "We really saw al-Qaida going from being 'al-Qaida the core group,' where they had a small group of highly trained professional terrorist operatives, into more of what we call 'al-Qaida the movement,' where we have these regional franchises or going towards the grassroots guys - the kind of do-it-yourself militant operative. And those people don't have the same skill level as the professional al-Qaida operatives. And so they also tend to gravitate more towards the easier targets to strike," he said.

Click here to keep reading.

Who will be the prosecutor?

An interesting piece from the Strategy Page:

Things That Cannot Be Said

June 30, 2009: India and Pakistan are still at odds over who will prosecute the terrorists responsible for the November 28, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Pakistan insists on trying them, but Pakistan has a track record of going through the motions, and cutting terrorists free after things quiet down. Pakistani support for Islamic terrorism, and refusal to admit it (even though Pakistan is openly at war with Islamic terror groups) continues to be the biggest unresolved dispute between the two nations.

In the Pakistani tribal territories, the Taliban have increased their attacks on girls schools. Because so many civilians fled the fighting, many of these schools are empty and unguarded. The Taliban come in and burn them down or blow them up. This angers most of the people in the area, but the Taliban pay more attention to how much media coverage they get, than to popularity polls. While most of the Taliban have been driven out of the Swat valley, there are still some left. Hiding in the hills, they mostly operate at night against civilian targets.

Click here to keep reading.

Deadly Blast At Luxury Hotel in Pakistan

Breaking news from the NYT!

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Officials says a huge bomb has exploded at a luxury hotel in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least five people and wounding 25 others.

Police official Liaqat Ali says gunmen stormed into the Pearl Continental Hotel in the northwestern city on Tuesday night just before ''a big bomb went off.''

Sahibzada Anis, a top government official in Peshawar, says at least five people were killed and 25 wounded.

Click here to continue reading.

Is there a calm after the storm...?

There is very little being said about the cyclone that hit India and Bangladesh recently. The death toll was probably not high enough...but then again, even Cyclone Nargis which hit Myanmar in May 2008 (and killed around 100,000 people, while displacing 250,0000) was soon out of mind.

BuildBurma's coverage of the days soon after Cyclone Nargis saw that one of the biggest hindrances to recovery was corruption. International aid through food and necessities weren't being passed down the chain to the survivors and instead government officials were stockpiling these supplies. I wonder where all the money for re-building went...

In the same vein, for those who want to help out victims in India and Bangladesh, do some research into local organizations on the ground who understand the people and have a track record for some years. When you're spending your time and your money, you really want it to go all the way down to that father in a fishing village, that child for school...We are looking into organizations we can recommend to IndiaUnite readers, so stay tuned.

We can't afford corruption, it costs lives.

Click here for AlertNet's coverage of this disaster.

It's the terrorism, stupid...

From the Times Of India:

It's the terrorism, stupid; not India: US message to Pakistan.

WASHINGTON: The United States will institute benchmarks that Pakistan will have to meet, including scaling down its confrontational posture  against India, if Islamabad is to earn the massive foreign aid Washington and its partners are lining up, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated on Thursday. (Watch ) 

The benchmarks will include moving troops from its border with India to its insurgency stricken areas to fight its homegrown terrorism problem, Clinton suggested, following up on the broad US prescription and advice to Pakistan that its grave domestic situation, and not India, constituted the biggest danger to its existence. 

Click here to keep reading.

Mumbai Gunman Laughs Off Charges, Reads Gandhi's Autobiography in Prison

I just saw this on The Daily Beast and had to pick my jaw up off the floor:

When the court asked alleged Mumbai gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab whether he understood the charges against him, the so-called "baby face killer" broke into a fit of laughter, the London Times reports. The Pakistani national's charge sheet runs to 11,000 pages and is written in English and Marathi, the local language of Mumbai. Kasab was caught on camera with an AK-47 and a bag full of ammunition and grenades during the coordinated commando-style attacks on Mumbai last November, when he and an accomplice allegedly killed 58 people at Mumbai's main train station. Kasab reportedly smiled throughout the hearing and is reading Gandhi's autobiography in his cell. If convicted of murder and waging war against India, he'll face death by hanging.

This puts a very dark spin on Gandhi's famous words, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Looks like Kasab wants to see relentless death and destruction. Good thing his world is now confined to a 9x9 cell.

READ: Mumbai Gunman Laughs at Terror Charges

Good vs. Bad Taliban

Found this on the Times of India site today:

Suddenly, there is talk of two kinds of Taliban -the "good" Taliban and the "bad" Taliban. The world knows the Taliban is bad. So,
what is "good" Taliban?

According to certain strategists, in Pakistan as well as in the US, the Taliban can be broadly drawn into two categories -one, the socially ultra-conservative Islamists, who demand the rule of sharia in areas where they dominate, and, two, the global jihadis. It's being suggested that the world can do business with the former, if only to isolate and eliminate the latter, the bad ones.

Is this a valid distinction? When General Musharraf suggested that there were "moderate" Talibs, the then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh had called this an "oxymoron" - and most of the world, the West certainly, would have agreed. And yet now, when the Taliban is threatening to overrun Pakistan, there are some who are proffering the "good" Taliban theory as a key foreign policy input for the US.

Click here to keep reading

What's wrong with the Indian Congress?

And why/how do we elect such people to office - who make racist, derogatory remarks?

A quote from Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari via The Hindu:

"If there is something that is happening in Pakistan, it is only Pakistan that is responsible? It has no one else to blame." He added: "It is a very, very grave situation (in Pakistan)."

In that case, the terrorist attacks in India, are India's responsibility?

Click here to read the article

IndiaUnite condemns the attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Sri Lankan cricket team, and the security guards who were wounded and killed in the attacks in Lahore this morning.

Pakistani officials claim that there are similarities to these attacks and those that happened in Mumbai in November 2008.

Quick notes:
- There were 10-12 attackers. None of them have been caught
- The attackers wanted to take the cricketers hostage
- India had decided not to tour Pakistan after the November attacks
- Warnings of attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team were ignored

Click here to read more on the attacks in Pakistan.

The Mumbai Attacks on Wikipedia

Let's see how much this information changes/is adjusted.

Click here to read

Secure or not?

I was in Bombay some time ago and when I landed there I had mentally prepared myself to be stuck at customs for a couple of hours. But to my "disappointment" I wasn't. On the contrary. The only reason why it took me 45 minutes to get out of the airport was because my luggage took a while to come out. I stood in the green channel line to get my bags checked, but I was told to just go ahead and leave. I didn't have to go through scanning of the bags or any other security check. Me including 50 other people in front of me were told to cut the line and leave. 

I was honestly pretty infuriated. It was not too long after the terrorist attacks and the security was so weak anyone could have walked out of the airport with anything packed in their bags. And apparently I was not the only one noticing a lapse in security at the airports.

But, in the city center and all around Bombay I could not have felt more safe. Even though there was "Naka Bandi" - Road checks almost every 1000 meters on some days it made me feel safe. Knowing there could be terrorists still floating amongst us, so the fact that were so many cops in every corner of the city made me secure. It was an odd sight to see barricades at each an every hotel. Not too long ago we could just give our cars in valet right at the doorstep of the Taj, the Oberoi or any other hotel, now we have to leave them outside have the K9 sniff them, get frisked every time we enter any of these hotels and all other security measures. 

Bombay is home and this last time I visited it was hard to see the city that is full of energy, excitement and optimism be this glum. 

BOMBAY COMMUNITY PUBLIC TRUST UPDATE

From the BCPT, a non-profit that IndiaUnite supports through donations. Please stay tuned for details on our upcoming fundraiser.

Dear Friends,

As our supporter for this cause, we would like you to know how far we have progressed in our work with the affected families. A brief review of the work done so far by BCPT in this regard is given below.

Overview:
On behalf of the citizens of Mumbai, BCPT endeavored to reach out to all affected families – deceased and injured, rich and poor, Mumbaikars and those residing in other parts of the country. Since the Taj Group of Hotels, the Oberoi Group of Hotels, the Police and the NSG immediately announced to take care of their own personnel, and since other NGOs had announced their intention of supporting the victims admitted to JJ and GT hospitals, BCPT therefore concentrated on contacting 72 families of deceased victims and 80 victims who were injured as they did not fall in any of the above categories. Additionally, referrals of 11 cases given to BCPT with a request to extend support were also included in the list.

We focused on 72 families of deceased victims. Of these, we contacted 66 families but were not able to locate 6 families since some addresses were incomplete, homes were locked and phone numbers were wrong.

Of the 66 families, the families of 20 deceased victims require help. The remaining 46 families have stated that they do not require help or are receiving required support from other sources. The 20 victims have left behind

28 minor children
6 retired, dependent parents
11 widows and
1 family has lost both parents.

The families contacted by us all require support. They are going through a very difficult time and have yet to come to term with their loss. The widows are traumatized as they all have young children and now have to work out ways of caring for the family single-handedly. Most of them are housewives, so they also have to prepare themselves to step out of their houses and earn a livelihood.

A few of the deceased victims were unmarried, yet were the main bread winners of their family. In these families the dependents include old parents and siblings – small children and/or young adults.

Some of the families were living in small rented houses in low income neighborhoods. With no steady income now, they are faced with the situation of having to move out of these houses and either move in with relatives or go back to their hometowns.

One of the deceased was a taxi driver who drove a rented taxi to earn money. He is survived by his wife and two young children aged 5 and 3. They are currently in Mumbai but will go back to their village, where they do farming. He was the only earning member of the family. His father has cancer. He used to send money home to his village every month for the treatment of his father. One of his brothers is also a taxi driver in Mumbai. He has another brother who is going to come to Mumbai now to earn.

A young woman who lost her life used to work as a domestic help to support her family. She lost her life in the bomb blast at Wadi Bunder. She is survived by her husband and two young sons. Her husband sells fish from door to door for a living and does not have a fixed income. It was his wife whose monthly income was used to support their family. Her husband and children currently stay in a rented house. However, since her husband does not have a fixed income, paying rent and school fees has become difficult for him.

Of the 80 injured victims to be contacted, 7 could not be contacted because of inadequate addresses. Thus 73 victims were contacted. Of these, 62 victims do not need help or are receiving the required support from other sources. Thus presently 11 cases are under consideration. One of them is severely injured and requires educational support for his child as well as some support for his wife to compensate for loss of income to the family. The remaining victims are at present using the compensation provided by the government and/or the railways. A few of them expect that once that is exhausted they may still need support for an additional period of 2 to 4 months.

A man injured during the shooting at CST was admitted to hospital, and has not yet been discharged. Due to the nature of his injuries, he will be bed-ridden for at least six months in the hospital and a year at home. He has a wife and a four year old son. His wife used to do embroidery work at home through which she earned about Rs.4,000 a month. However, due to her husband’s injury and hospitalization, she cannot continue with the work, leading to the loss of her income. Having no income and no other relatives in Mumbai for support, she has been forced to send her son back to their village.

Commitment for support:
Keeping in view the funds received so far as donations, the details for extending support to the families of the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks has been slightly reworked as under:
· For the 29 children (28 of deceased victims and 1 of an injured victim) we commit to provide a sponsorship of Rs. 2500 per month for their education and maintenance needs for a minimum period of two years. Funds available, this commitment will be extended by one or more years. Total amount committed: Rs. 17.40 lakh. This support will be extended to a maximum of three children in a family.
· Considering the fact that six dependent old parents will need funds on a regular basis for their health and maintenance needs, it has been decided to provide them with a monthly annuity of Rs. 5000 each for a minimum period of two years. Thus we commit a sum of Rs. 7.20 lakh for a period of two years. Funds permitting, this will be extended by one or more years.
· In view of the fact that the 11 widows will all be getting support through the sponsorship of their children (either two or three), direct support for their maintenance will now be considered at a later date, funds permitting.
· For those injured victims who might require long term medical/rehabilitation support, we propose to set aside Rs. 3.00 lakh.
· In addition to general donations received, the Trust has also received amounts to be directed to a specific individual/s or group of victims e.g. Oberoi employees and the police. The Trust will honor the requests and disburse the funds as per the wishes of the donors.

Disbursements:
The process of disbursement has begun and cheques to 20 children and 3 parents (senior citizens) have been issued.

Thanks and regards,
Harsha Parekh
(Executive Trustee)

Pakistan tells investigators to wrap up Mumbai attacks investigation in 10 days

By Asif Shahzad of the Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Investigators have 10 days to complete their inquiries into the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan's top Interior Ministry official said Saturday.

Rehman Malik told reporters that investigators were looking at information handed over by India and leads gathered independently. Provincial and central government-level investigations were ongoing, he said.

Islamabad is under pressure to clamp down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistan-based militant group that India blames for the November siege that killed 164 people in its commercial capital.

On Thursday, Pakistan's Interior Ministry said it had arrested 71 people linked to the group and that another 124 were under surveillance and had to register their every move with police.

Click here to continue reading

WHAT IF

India and Pakistan on the verge of a war. Thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza. Kashmir. Somalia. Zimbabwe. People are dying everywhere, it is the same story. Will there every be an end to it? What will bring peace to the world or is peace an unattainable illusion? Who is to be blamed and if so why blame them? These questions haunt me all the time.

Last night, I was wondering what if India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were still one? It would have been a different place. Maybe in 100 years, it will become one again. What a notion! India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as one big nation. Hard to imagine, isn't it? We have been fighting for more than 50 years. Can you image how many lives has been lost over 50 years and still counting? The same story is reflected in the Middle East in Palestine. Imagine Palestinians and Israelis living together in peace. Why do we have so much hate for each other? Pick a place on the world map and there is something gruesome going on.

Will we ever see peace in the world? We talk about peace, we march for peace but why is there so much hate toward one another. In my opinion, peace is not attainable until we all reach a higher level of consciousness. Individually and collectively. Only if we rise above Religion, Cast, Social Status, Skin Color, Borders; let go of our identities; and see ourselves as human beings first. Only if we see ourselves as one big global family, one with the human race, and part of this planet and not separated from it. Only if we see the world's problem as our own. Only if, but can we?

I wonder what a place this world would be if we could.

Eliyas Qureshi is a Actor & Filmmaker based New York, NY.
Eliyas Qureshi
www.Eliyas.com
www.qEntertainment-films.com

Pakistan's Reaction to the Dossier

I just came across this on the Daily Times...but what interests me the most is that Pakistan has supposedly closed various schools and organizations by banned groups.

Pakistan forms committee to analyse Mumbai dossier

* Malik says 5 Dawa camps closed
* Calls for allowing Pakistani sleuths into India
By Tahir Niaz

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has formed a high-level committee to analyse the information about the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks that New Delhi has shared with Islamabad, Interior Adviser Rehman Malik said on Thursday.

Addressing a news conference, he said the findings of the body would be shared with the parliament and the nation.

Sources privy to the measure said FIA Additional Director General Javed Iqbal would head the committee, which would also include Special Investigations Group in-charge Khalid Qureshi and an FIA Director Liaqat Ali Khan.

Malik said Pakistan had closed down 20 offices, two libraries, 87 schools, seven madrassas and five camps run by the banned Jamaatud Dawa, and had arrested 124 people in a crackdown on banned groups in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

In a clarification, Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said 71 people had been arrested.

Publications by the banned group – Al Dawa, Zarab-e-Tayyaba, Voice of Islam, Nannhay Mujahid and Arabic magazine Rabita – and six websites linked to it had also been shut down, Malik said.

The interior adviser asked New Delhi to allow Pakistani investigators to travel to India for investigation, and asked it to cooperate with Pakistan through direct diplomatic links.

Malik asked New Delhi for details of its allegations of infiltration of terrorists from FATA into India.

Daily Times - Mumbai attacks’ witness goes missing

Just saw this on the Daily Times' website 

LAHORE: A woman who identified six gunmen of the Mumbai attacks has disappeared mysteriously, a private TV channel quoted the Indian media as saying on Tuesday. According to the channel, the Mumbai Police said on Tuesday that Anita Uddaiya, the woman who had identified the bodies of six terrorists in JJ Hospital, had been missing since January 11. The police have started searching for the woman at the complaint of her daughter. According to the police, the woman had seen the terrorists as they got out off a boat. The crime branch of the city police, which is the investigating agency in the Mumbai attacks, is also probing the incident.

Which One's the Terrorist?

I've been resisting linking the terror attacks in Mumbai and the war in Gaza (putting all acts of "terrorism" under the same umbrella seems to over-simplify the matter almost as much as declaring a "war on terror" itself), but Reza Aslan's article for the Daily Beast got me thinking about what makes a terrorist.

In "Which One's a Terrorist?" Aslan parses the differences (and, it turns out, there are shockingly few) between acts of war and acts of terror, in terms of motive, intent and collateral damage. The obvious argument is intent. Terrorists intend to kill civilians. Soldiers do not.

So, what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Cities that were leveled in mere seconds by bombs stamped USA, killing over 200,000 civilians instantly?

The US, apparently, claims the difference between soldiers and terrorists lies in matching uniforms. And : remorse. Ergo, if the "collateral damage" caused by state-sponsored acts of violence yield civilian deaths, so long as the perpetrators are wearing camouflage and offer somber apologies after the fact, they are righteous and justified in their actions.

The men who killed hundreds of civilians in Mumbai on 11/26 are terrorists. There is no justification for their brutal acts. But in this shape-shifting war on terror, maybe we can learn something by applying Aslan's arguments and trying to define clearly and unconditionally why they should be labeled terrorists as opposed to guerilla fighters or non-uniformed soldiers.

Thoughts?

READ: Reza Aslan, Which One's the Terrorist?

What should Pakistan do now?

I just read an article of Voice of America about the Pakistani militant who claims responsibility for the Mumbai attacks. What 'stern action' do you think Zardari/Pakistan should take now?