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.