Tensions escalate between India and Pakistan

TENSIONS ESCALATE BETWEEN INDIA & PAKISTAN

2nd December

A blast has been reported in Assam, in the Lumbing-Tinsukhia passenger train. As of now, 3 have died and 30, injured.

Update: After the pivotal CWC meeting, Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh has agreed to step down after overwhelming doubts pertaining to the recent 26/11 Mumbai blasts. The front runner for the post is now Ashok Chavan, the Revenue Minister and son of veteran Congressman S.B. Chavan. This comes after the Cabinet Minister of Power, Sushil Kumar Shinde, fell out of the contest.

Also, the Shiv Sena has begun to demand the President’s rule in Maharashtra.

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WHAT ELSE DO PEOPLE SAY? LET’S SEE.

1. Fox News (Richard Miller)
   
2. New York Times (Suketu Mehta) – a personal and inspiring read.
   
3. Reuters (Bryson Hull)
   

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30th November

Reports have come out that the captured terrorist has begun to leak the details of the 26/11 Mumbai attack plans. For more information, visit: IBN Breaking News – Video. Moving on, at the recent Congress Workers’ Committee (CWC) meet earlier today, Home Minister Shivraj Patil faced all the heat as the party’s slumber ended with Sonia Gandhi saying “We will not tolerate terrorism anymore”. Consequently, Patil has stepped down claiming “moral obligations” for the crisis. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has now been offered the additional charge of the Home Ministry. It is believed that even Manmohan Singh was not satisfied with Patil’s work in the cabinet.

Also facing the heat was Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who claimed that their Police were stretched for strength and resources. The most glaring lapse now happens to be that the Mumbai Police and, even more specifically, the Taj administration, had been informed of the attacks two days prior to its occurrence by dead ATS Chief Hemant Karkare. The meeting concluded with the PM stressing the need for the modernisation of India’s police forces, tougher laws and greater cooperation.

An all-party meeting has been called for in the coming week. Terrorism stands to be the prominent issue again; however, the BJP and the Shiv Sena have issued statements saying they will not attend the meeting.

My opinion? The BJP, in their stead, will also call for everyone to stand together in the face of a crisis such as this, but how can they hope to make any difference when they don’t come together for an all-party meet? The Congress must not be bothered about the opposition’s ideas and whatever they decision they make, it must be an independent, conclusive and responsible one.

Update: CM Vilasrao Deshmukh may be asked to quit.

Update: Pakistan has also, for the first time, called for an all-party meeting to fight terror. The Pak government is now irked because of the possibility of another war-like situation between the two nations, whose relationship already stands stressed because of the recent happenings. The many internal strifes and the insurgency from Afghanistan are the principal occupations of the Pakistani Army, but a government official, who selectively briefed the Pak media ealrier today evening, has said that 1,00,000 troops are being moved east to the Indo-Pak border from the Pak-Afghan border.

29th November

The 60 hour terror rampage in Mumbai has just been ended, leaving 217 dead and more than 500 injured. The Maharashtra government has announced that 9 terrorists were killed, with 1 captured alive. The terrorists apparently wanted to go down in history as the perpetrators of India’s ‘9/11’.

Update: The arrested terrorist has been remanded to police custody till December 11.

Earlier, after the NSG and the ATS announced that the landmark Taj hotel, next to the Gateway of India, had been cleared of all miscreants and sanitised, it was found that 3 terrorists were still lurking inside. A bystander was also hit when they began firing and lobbing grenades from the windows. A resweep of the location was conducted earlier today and the three remnants were killed. However, the events at Nariman House were a bleak affair when the 2 terrorists inside killed their 5 hostages, including a Rabbi and his wife, before they were slain by the NSG. One commando, Gajraj Singh, lost his life in this operation.

As the Taj awaits a lot of impending renovation, the picture is beginning to get enlarged after it was revealed that the port which the terrorists used to set sail from Pakistan was controlled by Dawood Ibrahim, who is now hiding there. Furthermore, the boats seized off Juhu Chowpatti bore a Karachi registration. The ISI Chief, General Pasha, has been invited to India; Pakistan did consent to this requested, but has now denied it. The Indian External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, has already issued a statement to his Pakistani counterpart that the “peace process will be affected”.

’11/26′ or ’26/11′, whatsoever it may be referred to hence forth, is but the Black Wednesday India will now have to bear on the pages of her history. The Deccan Mujahideen, a previously unknown outfit, had claimed responsibility for the attacks via emails sent to the various newspapers. Now, however, instead of seeming like an act of a separate terrorist outfit, the rampage in Mumbai appears to be part of a greater conspiracy. Even the USA has purportedly sent FBI investigators to resolve this issue.

Update: The Pakistani Foreign Minister has issued a statement saying “Pakistan not involved in Mumbai attacks“.

Narendra Modi, in a separate interview, has claimed that he had been breaching the topic of Gujarati fishermen being caught off the coast of Pakistan by their Coast Guard, but it was never taken as seriously as it should have been. The boats, he claims, were retained by the authorities there and can now be seen ferrying terrorists to India.

The Taj

(Photo courtesy: Arun Shanbhag. For more pictures, visit: Arun Shanbhag on WordPress.)

Salaam Bombay!

SALAAM BOMBAY! I have never been to Mumbai. I don’t know the language they speak. And I know of only a handful of people from there. But the ongoing terror strike gripping the city has brought me from indifference towards an unexplored city to a firm believer in the spirit of the people who inhabit it. Even though the terrorists have taken into consideration that Mumbai is the financial capital of India, an important port and dock location, and the capital of a very politically prominent state, I have come to realise that it is the people who make it all of this, and these are the people who are now in grave danger of losing their lives at the hands of hubristic individuals who think they are causing damage. I can agree that buildings worth crores and crores of rupees are being brought down, along with them their value and history, and I can agree that tourists are being unfairly targeted in a country which is not their home, but I will also contend that we Indians will stand and fight as though those buildings were our homes, those people were our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. The spirit to stand and fight is, here, not restricted to patriotism, but towards a greater order of peace that we believe in. There is a Sanskrit sloka that goes like this:

Loka samastha sukhino bavanthu

It is a prayer chant that means “may there be peace in this world”. Loka is Sanskrit for world as well as universe, because ‘loka’ is our home in the living. It is a line that does not invoke religion or any a God, but invokes only peace.

Pakistani insurgents are not strangers to us, and we have steadfastly borne the brunt of the anger of those seek to part us from our people and our lands. The ‘Deccan Mujahideen’ may have claimed responsibility for the attacks, but we care not for who they are or where they are from. Our concern is not terrorism. Our concern is not death. Our concern is well-being. Death is not our business, life is. In the footsteps of our fallen brother, we will have many more tomorrow who will hate you not for who you are, but for what you have done. Trespassing patriotism is the betrayal that comes with disloyalty towards those whose salt you have consumed, but going the other way, we believe that an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind (quote by Mahatma). What is the purpose of the guns you fire? What is the purpose of the grenades into our homes? What is the purpose of the sirens you set off in the peaceful nights? Do you believe in a conspiracy theory? Do you believe in our division? Do you believe in the death of our spirit?! If you do, then you think wrong. In the all-pervading prevalence of truth and justice, how long can you hope to live as such?

My salutations are to the people of Mumbai, their spirit, their will, and their strength in being able to bear attack after meaningless attack and still be able to wake up the next morning, wash the blood off the streets, say their prayers and walk out the door. It is the belief we have in our neighbours and in our friends and family that keeps us going. And when the day comes that all the bullets are exhausted, when all the guns are starved, when all the militants are strangled and when terrorism is but a word that will hang limply in the air, we are the people you will be in the midst of.

Nostradamus and Mumbai: What's the connect?

NOSTRADAMUS & MUMBAI?!

Mabus plus tost alors mourra, viendra,
De gens & bestes vn horrible defaite:
Puis tout à coup la vengeance on verra,
Cent, main, faim quand courra la comete.

(Mabus then will soon die, there will come
A horrible undoing of people and animals:
At once vengeance one will see vengeance,
One hundred hands, thirst, famine, when the comet will run.)

Nostradamus’s controversial and hugely popular ‘Centuries’, containing his prophecies of the world events, has predicted the happening of a World War 3 from 2009 – 2012. The above lines are from ‘Centuries’, and the name ‘Mabus’, restricted to a single mention in C2-Q62, is the name of the Third Anti-Christ who is poised to rise in the near future. However, the the prophesy indicates that the advent of doomsday will come after the fall of ‘Mabus’.

‘Mabus’ is an anagram as well as a portmanteau of the names of many world leaders and important figures who have played significant roles in shaping the world to what it is today. Some of them include Al Musab Al Zarqawi, a terrorist of the Al Qaeda clan who was killed by a US laser guided bomb, Saddam Hussein, George Bush (father or son?), and most importantly, Barrack Hussein Obama himself.

Check this one out (obviously the invention of a fanatical conspiracy theorist!): Barrack + obaMA + US. Moving on, Obama’s right hand man happens to be one Raymond Edwin Mabus, a US political leader and businessman.

So what lies in the future for us?

If you’re a conspiracy theorist too, you might want to check this one out: john-cox.

LOTR: Watch It Or Else!

LOTR: WATCH IT OR ELSE! Let me give you one good reason why you must watch ‘Lord of the Rings’ while you may want to continue living. Even if you’re on top of Violet Hill or Silent Hill or whatsoever it may be, just waiting to jump and end life as you know it, watch it. It will change your life, it will deliver a newer perspective of living, and it will keep you going even if you are inside Pandora’s box. The following story is about Devank, a boy who refused to watch it and met with Armageddon Itself. Let me tell you my friends: while you wait around for Antichrist and a Friday that boasts of a ’13’ as its date, the people who do NOT watch LOTR will bring upon themselves God’s wrath. For if you are inhabiting a world that believes in an Almighty Who will protect us all, the only act that has a greater chance of invoking divine retribution is not watching ‘Lord of the Rings’. If you sit down for a moment and relax, and develop the ability to think objectively and with sufficient reasoning, I am just asking you to spend 10 hours of your life watching a world brought magically to life with an immeasurably large amount of talent and money. And don’t you think it has shown? 18 Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’. Can you tell me of one other trilogy that has spun tales beginning with peace, leading you onto greater and greater tragedy, intertwined with bravery and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal, birth and rebirth, and most of all, love lost and found? You can’t! The one reason above all that I am willing to state unto any non-fan of the movie is that, “You must watch the movie because it is there for you to! You must watch it because it exists!”. I will not say this of anything else (read: ANYTHING ELSE!).

Now, coming back to Devank. Yes, he IS alive. But barely so. He has been damaged and dented, emotionally, anatomically, visibly astronomically so. Me, Nair, Bala and Devank (a.k.a. G**W***) were in Nair’s room yesterday night, talking of nothing more than room fresheners and, of course, this ‘Lord of the Rings Symphony’ that was going to be performed in early 2009 at the Abu Dhabi National Theatre. For most of us here, that is something of a religious ritual in the giving. However, Devank begged to differ. Apart from denying that he had ever watched the movie, he also refused to promise that he might give thought to watching it in the future. While I began doing what I did best (blog it!), Bala and Nair were upon him. In a flash, astoundingly, Bala was pinned. But more was to come. While Nair left to take a leak, Bala had punched Devank on his nose more than once, banged his fingers on the bed, given him an almost-clot on his upper left palm, plucked off a knot of hair from his shins, made him cry like a baby, thrash like a snake, cascade bonelessly off the bed, and much, much more. Not only that, but this cycle went on for five glorious rounds, all five of which had Devank in some awkward position or the other. We even had him pleading for a disease he had never had! After this, I can only tell you a little more. He repeatedly boasted a face of defiance, after which now he is in a mental asylum.

Refusing to watch a movie, which is nothing more (or less, for that matter) a tool to pass time faster. Why would you not watch one? I will need a reason. If you won’t watch ‘Not Another Teen Movie’, I will understand perfectly for the gooey kissing scene right in the middle of the movie. If you don’t want to watch the ‘Harry Potter’ series, I will understand for the inherent kiddishness of it all. But ‘LOTR’?! You should either be Devank, retarded or dead to not watch it. So I’m telling you again. Watch it. I’m only making an offer you can’t refuse. Oh, and Devank, Happy Transgender Remembrance Day!

An Ode To Hard Times

AN ODE TO HARD TIMES A friend is someone whom you can be your worst self to. This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for them. A few in number, but an army in its presence. Life, at this point of time for me, is raising its worst hoods – I have been intimidated by circumstance, abandoned by reason, guided by experience and sequestered by companionship. The reason I can find myself standing again is that I did what was necessary for me to move on, and for ever, it shall remain right in my mind and justified in my discretion that I behaved like that. These are some of the moments I will never come to regret, and the times will constitute an ode to hard times.

When you grow up in the face of many an atrocity inflicted on you – be it tangible or otherwise – you cannot always blame the perpetrators for it. After a certain period, you just come to think you are useless in creation and meaningless in purpose. Rooted it will all be in your deepest beliefs, for as much as you can fathom the reaches of the human mind, you cannot divulge from it its perception of the world. If the things I am doing have kept me going for a long time now, then don’t you agree there is no valid reason that I should stop doing them? Who are you, my friend, to ask me to come out of my shell when I think I am much better off than you are, or would have been in such times? But no. That is wrong. Whatever happens, life has to go on. And lying cowering inside some hollow beliefs is not what fills your life with your actions, your responsibilities, your duties, and your destinies. This blog entry of mine is just a communication that couldn’t have been held inside of me, my mind, because it also seems like a rhetoric that the world must hear. But after all, this is just an ode to hard times.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for troubles, mishaps, downfalls, embarrassments, hubris, misunderstandings, and more, for they have rooted me in the fundamentals beliefs of man, his expectations, and his misgivings more than anything else. It is never a matter to learn of these things as you grow up, but to experience them. And past such an experience, they will have seemed the greatest lessons of your life. Your parents, your loves, even your friends, will then seem overwhelmingly meaningful to you. And now is when you are a man. The doubts you will now begin to have will constitute more than just reason: they will begin to question your beliefs themselves because of the authority that maturity seems to give you. The life you live from this point onwards will be lived in full knowledge of the consequences of your actions, and the life you have lived will seem to constitute mistakes more than experiences. As for me, only time will tell if I am already a man. But since life as I have known it has changed, my past is just an ode to hard times.

And I am thankful for it all, and more than anything else, for the people who made me realise where I really stood in my life! Happy Thanksgiving!

Help Save A Girl's Life (visit link to learn more)

http://thedomesticdiva.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/sew-urgent-help-save-my-daughters-life/

Inhibiting Infinity

Mankind. Mortality. Birth. Death. Living. Power. Freedom. Individuality. Identity. These nine elements characterize the aspects of living of every man and woman on this earth. Mankind as such guides us through life, imbuing in us the values and morals in order to make those decisions that require it. Mortality is a confine within we are destined to remain, and our rise or fall happens within its four walls. Birth and death are significant philosophical and religious aspects that govern our way of thinking and in the formation of a philosophy for the living. Power happens to be man’s ultimate desire: going beyond the need for human companionship, the skill to command it at will draws us more. Freedom is the necessity to force such megalomaniac individuals to relinquish control, and only with freedom can one’s individuality be explored and one’s identity realised. Everything that happens around us, whether as a consequence of our actions or as a subsequence that impacts us through the actions of others, can be attributed to many of these elements. Even the concept of God, and godliness, finds its roots in them. By trying to reach for the absolute, in whatsoever form it is in, we have have begun our journey in realising who we are and what our purpose is. But by believing a God to be existent, we have established the limits of our own capabilities. Man cannot be God. If man is God, then man is not man anymore. And when you put this reasoning into action, you give up on something which may have truly deserved, in favour of the temporary contentment you come to have with what is already in your grasp. When someone says “too much of power or too much of success is not good”, I am prompted to think why not. God exists only in our beliefs, and beyond that superset, nothing can be proved right or wrong because of what we perceive. Even though one might argue that God is a conception of what is beyond our sensibility, God then invariably constructs the limited universe for us. Mankind, in trying to define infinity, has committed a folly in trying to quantify it as well. Infinity, if left to itself, does not seek to limit our reaches, but in placing an almighty entity as the being that quantifies the unquantifiable, we have locked ourselves into finite realms. Why shouldn’t too much of success be good for anyone? Is it that, then, he or she denies a God His stance? Or is it that he or she will then try to breach our limitations as we know them? The traits to misuse it are, however, imbued in our blood. When you don’t want to deny a lion its meat even when in a zoo, you must also know that man is an animal and deserves to be a non-vegetarian just because he exists! It is as nature intended it. By denying ourselves the opportunity to indulge in our exploits, we are inhibiting evolution as it should be. To cut a long story short: God inspires nihilism.

Writing Big And Writing Proud

are the same. I like to write things big, I like to blow things up, and if you gave me the chance, I’d like to put the ideas in your head! I happened across this 100-word blog a few days back. The ‘About’ section revealed that rather than to waste time on writing 1000+ words of text and thought, one might as well shrink everything down to a maximum of 100 words: that way, it claims, you can get the viewers as well as some fun; while I think I’m left to assume that the blog also stays in the Top 5 bookmarks of the viewer. Let me ask you something. How would you describe the need to write? If you’ve established a relationship with something or someone, and if you find it meaningful enough to get back to this relationship from time to time, you give the object/person a name, and thereby, your association a meaning. Similarly, when I write, I have something that I would like to tell you. If I find it important that you know this information, I will publicise it, and if you think it’s gonna help with your everyday life, you’re gonna want to keep coming back to it. And I will let you know everything that I have to say, and I will tell you that with my bag of prejudices, my can of flavours, and my unashamed display of misinformedness. But if I did want to go through a 100-word blog, and if I did, this is how I would feel: I would feel the writer’s condescension in trying to establish a different level of writing. I would feel an unwholesomeness to the text. Because writing is writing when you express yourself. If I were to write a 100-word blog, I wouldn’t call it a blog. I will call it an online news portal. A blog is about self-expression. Just as a photographer will find pleasure in pain when he snaps a picture of the morning mists swirling around the pillars under the Golden Gate bridge, a writer will find pleasure in pain when he makes the reader feel cold when he writes of a winter night.

I’m not here asking down the person to take his blog down. But the thing is, I find no expressionism in such an endeavour. It’s just a way to get yourself known in blogging circles, and probably attract some attention and garner some viewership. Because of your want to communicate with your fellow men and women, and because of the chronic finiteness of the spoken word, writing has developed into more than just a tool to enable repetition of text and recollection of ideas. To the writer, the written word will be the trophy for all his efforts. It will be more than a chest of gold and diamonds: it will be a jewel he will savour for ever. It will tell the world that it came into being in the mind of one man, who thought it important enough to put it down and to let those in the dark know about it. The written word is the writer’s swordsman as well as the swordsman’s sword. A blog of 100 words can, utmost, be used to get across information without interpreting it for yourself. It’s a form of communication wherein you are involved as not more than a messenger. But if you can, in those 100 words, express yourself and deliver a judgment, then hats off to you!

Into The Sunset

It’s a small enough room with a big enough bed
Where on a hard day’s night, I lie down dead
It’s a wardrobe full of clothes
A shelf full of books I’ve never read
But full of tales
From a far away place
With a damsel in distress

The winter’s always been cold around here
With all the clouds, the sun’s never been clear
The sands are always silent
And the songs of life are not for you to hear
But I wouldn’t hesitate
Once in a while, to stay up late
And wash my hands off money and a li’l fate

Come, take me home!
Come, don’t leave me alone!
Come, let’s have it blown!
Come, show me what it means to be!

I’d like to have the road laid open before me
I’d like it there under the sun for me to see
For life’s just a journey
A road like this for a guy like me to be!
Into the sunset
Oh, let me go, let’s
Ride into the sun and ride it free!

But I’m stuck within these four walls
While it’s just a sound while the wildlife calls
Just a lonely guy in my room
Just waiting for the day the wall falls!
Come crumbling down!
Come, break your crown!
Come, let’s ride outta town!

Come, break me free!
Come, let us see!
Come, ride with me!
Come, ride into the sunset with me!

A077513

While on one of my ritualistic excursions through the net, I came across this article on Wiki about the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, listed as America’s deadliest high school tragedy. I went through the whole thing, starting from the strategy of the two kids, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their blood stained tour through the school, before they killed themselves. With a whole lot of debates raging from Cassie Bernall’s questioning and Rachel Scott’s Christian martyrdom, psychiatrists blame the megalomaniac nature of the two students for the whole incident. I also went around looking for Harris’ blog page, which seems to have been removed, where he documented all the hatred he bore towards the society in general, the making of the pipe bombs and the propane explosives, and the death threats he issued to his neighbours and family friends. This might all seem like me digging up an issue so known and old to the readers out there, but to me this is something new. I come from a very secular and conservative society, and all children are taught patience as a virtue even before they begin schooling. The need of tolerance is very high in a country in India, and though it seems to restrict our personality developments in the earlier stages of our lives, we come to understand it later on and also appreciate it. But what’s interesting to me here is not the mental structure of Harris or Klebold, but the social phenomena that may have provoked them to commit this crime. I for one believe that not everyone is a fool, and even though foolish decisions exist, there must have been some reason or the other that provoked them to commit this misinformed and misguided act. Looking beyond the role of one’s parents to take responsibility for their child, the role of the society also plays a very important role in one’s upbringing. The friends you make, the relationships you hold on to, the people you turn to in times of crisis, and the people whom look up to or look down on.

The impressions you have in the minds of the people around depends on many social factors. At the same time, one other factor that inhibits a complete assumption and ‘display’ of one’s own personality is bullying. While bullies seek to overshadow some other moment(s) of failure in their lives by picking on younger kids, the effect they have can even be devastating. Bullying exists in the childhood of every child, either as the bully or as the victim. If you had been the bully, you’d have experienced some sort of overwhelming sensation that makes you think that you’re in power at that moment – a compensation for your megalomania. But the victim feels helpless in a world that is supposed to have helped. It blunts the display of your character and makes the issue seem rudimentary and inconsequential in your eyes, further deepening its nails. This will lead to a suppression of emotion on a temporary basis but as the child matures, it will all pour out in one form or the other. The need for a friend and a friendly touch is always necessary for an adolescent youth, and this need is projected in our conformity to a given set of rules and regulations in order to find acceptance and a sense of belonging and, most importantly, identity. A loss of identity is equivalent to having home no go back to at the end of the day, an absence of an ideal reference point for all your decisions. As for the blames on the violent video games and all that, I think those wouldn’t have mattered much as long as the child had in mind the fact that it was a just game, a portrayal of some event as it would have been if it ever happened.