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. 

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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.

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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.