An old line from a Javed Jaffery song… Mum-bhai!

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The showdown with the terrorists is over. The people who lost their loved ones are still grieving. The investigation has begun.    News channels have slowly begun showing a little bit of other news as wellBlame has already  been assigned to elements in Pakistan. Pak government vehemently denies any involvement of its official ranks. News channels have slowly starting to show a little bit of other news. Experts are being lined up at the talk shows analyzing what went wrong and what could be the implications. Now, let us examine what we could do in the future, to prevent such an attack or to reduce the damage in the event of the next attack.

1. Sharing of Intelligence between the agencies

Indian intelligence agencies, both at the state and national levels are widely considered as very competent. However, there is a fatal lack of a system to enable these individual agencies to share the intelligence and this fragmented system proves time and again to be very inefficient. We need to have a system put in place as soon as possible as a part of a single national security policy.

2. Formation of more efficient Emergency Management Agencies

The current system that manages crises like happen is voefully ill-equipped to handle these scenarios. There need to be a SWAT style commando system at each metro – big or small- to be able to handle everything from a small gang war situation to a major terrorist operation. In this incident, the first response squad that reached the TAJ hotel and other premises were really not ready to face such adversaries. This led to the death of Hemant Karkare, the head of the ATS, who rushed to the scene but was gunned down. We can learn from the operations in Israel or other western countries and come up with a better plan to do these. We have the elite men that can get the job done. What we lack is a good plan. And quick response by effective force is really vital.

3. Better management of the situation

The first thing that any operation like this should do is to cordon off a few blocks of the location and keep everyone, whether they are journalists or general public, off the scene. This helps the troops better handle the situation and also make sure that the commando operations cannot be leaked to the terrorists themselves through media. I’m sure this has been discussed already at this site. The live news is not really as important as the lives of the hostages.

After all, it is true that prevention is better than cure. However, once a malady occurs, we have to make sure that the cure is also quick, effective and responsible. Regardless of what we tell Pakistan to do, the terrorists will try to do what they want to do. What we have to do is to be ready.Similar Posts:

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A documentary on Citizen Journalism in the recent Mumbai Terrorist Attacks/Mumbai war. Analyses how the social media, like Twitter and blogs, did a fantastic job with the Mumbai Terrorist Attack/War on Mumbai. Care has been taken to have the correct chronology of events.

The name “Hash Mumbai” is inspired from the hashtag : “#mumbai”
“A 90-seconds-long video that too 14400 seconds in the making, which covers 201600 seconds of ACTION”

Video By Aravind JoseSimilar Posts:

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I was flipping through news channels today morning to get as many angles into the terrorist story as possible…..

And, I came across a rather interesting remark on the channel Times Now..

The anchor was saying : ” Here at Times Now, we make sure that we do not compromise the safety of the commandos who are carrying out the operation, or the people they are trying to rescue. Unlike other news channels, we do not believe in giving the terrorists a forum to air their views, and hence, have not tried to establish contact with them.. etc etc.. “

Thing is, the guy had a very valid point…

I remember seeing the footage on lots of the news channels, and wondering how compromised the security forces would be if the terrorists had managed to get a feed…

Make no mistake though, the Times Now people are not the angels of the media sector or anything..

They were just taking a stand and saying ” Hey, look, our product is different !! Screw HT and CNN IBN !! ”

I recall vaguely, a time when there was Doordarshan, and Doordarshan.. Nothing else..

How dramatically has our country’s media sector changed.. Though, by some counts, this is hardly a positive aspect..

Cut throat competition has lead to a dramatic decrease in work ethics….

A friend once told me that if something wasn’t different, it wasn’t marketable.. Though, when it comes to issues such as these, one has to draw a line and decide how far they are willing to go to be different…..

Channels like, Headlines Today for example, have become the national Malayala Manoramas… Unnecessary dramatisation is their forte….

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Just wondering where the fuck Raj Thakrey is.. Where is his MNS.. Wondering if they have balls to fight those holed up assholes

@shivsena and @mns where are you wetcats hiding. get out you representatives of mumbai – you chicken shit

Raj Thackeray and his MNS comandos want to take over the operation in Mumbai, since the Army, Navy,Air and the NGS are not Marathis.

What else can MNS n Sena do. . u need balls to go out there and do something!..

My wife suggests to send MNS for the terrorist operation. She doesnt realise that they only attack poor taxi drivers.

The PM, Sonia, Advani and the works are travellin together,hehe..so there combined standard security is there..MNS kindly control outsiders!

when ATS chief lost life, rest of them out their saving our asses MNS calling for Strike against ATS

Where is the caretaker of Mumbai ,Raj thackerey today? Does he and his men act only when people speak hindi in Mumbai?Similar Posts:

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The latest reports suggest that all the terrorists that the security forces managed to capture at various locations were Pakistanis. They were speaking in Punjabi which is spoken widely in the Punjab region in Pakistan. The officials now claim that they operated out of a ship which is now captured by the Navy and came to the shore in three speed boats. 

We should not waste a single moment in forcing Pakistan to take its actions where its mouth is. We do not have to tolerate waves after waves of attacks on civilians from outfits that are thriving within Pakistani soil. So far, India has been complacent in pursuing the militants within Pakistani borders. Now that many American and British citizens are also affected, there should not be any dearth of support from the West in forcing Pakistan to hunt down the extremists that are within their border.

As a sorverign nation, India has all the authority to protect its citizens and also foreign nationals that are within our country. If Pakistan is unwilling or unable to wipe out these terrorist outfits, India should take strong action and take the issue to our own hands. This time, the PM should mean it when he said : ”We will take up strongly with our neighbors that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them.” Let that not remain just a soundbite. 

Also, I should mention that everyone, politicians included should understand that this is an attack on the whole of India and this is not the time for a blame game or to create hate against any community. This is a time for national unity when the whole country comes together against the enemey.Similar Posts:

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I once read somewhere that one man’s terrorist is another man’s national hero…

Like the entire Indian nation, I was watching the coverage of the Mumbai attacks, and couldn’t help feeling horrified and enraged at the carnage…

Found myself wondering who would refer to these men as heroes??

What do they believe in? Why are they doing this? What do they expect to achieve?

And as any good netizen, I asked my good friend Wik I Pedia..

And this is something I came across…

“Within Islamic jurisprudence jihad is the only form of warfare permissible under Islamic law, and may be declared against apostates, rebels, highway robbers, violent groups, non-Islamic leaders or non-Muslim combatants, but there are other ways to perform jihad as well, including civil disobedience. The primary aim of jihad as warfare is not the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam by force, but rather the expansion and defense of the Islamic state”

This is what drove these men… This is what they believed they achieved everytime they hurled a grenade or emptied a clip into innocent by standers…

Now, I’m not blaming the Qur’an, or the Bible; or the Gita…

I’m blaming the people who endorsed all these stupid rituals through all these years..

Basically, that would mean, YOU and ME !!

Every time we say, “I’m not this, because I’m that”, we’re inviting a conflict.. Substantiating it.. Endorsing hate..

This, ladies and gentlemen, is humanity’s biggest problem…

And everyday we fail to address this problem, is another failure; its yet another innocent life lost; its more added guilt on our shoulders…

Take the Crusades, or the Inquisitions, or the World Wars.. Or jihad..

See the pattern yet??

How much more can we endure??

And, to my not so good friends, the terrorists, let me say… You failed.. You failed big time…

You hoped to upset this nation and it’s people and make them bow down to you….

What did you achieve though??

This nation and it’s people are as resilient as ever.. And you have disgraced your own chosen religion, or sect or whatever, in hope of changing tomorrow.. You will go down in history as cowards, who did’nt speak like men, but hid like cowards… Who killed those who didn’t have the means to defend themselves.. Like cowards..

And also, to another one of my not so good friends, Mr. Thackeray, let me say..

See? This is the kind of hate that people like you breed….

For you, yesterday, there were three, four kinds of Indians.. What about now??

“The oldest of foes, unite against a common enemy.” I have heard.. So Mr. Thackeray, maybe it’s high time you realised that there is only one kind of Indian.. And that is the PROUD Indian.. It’s probably high time you joined the bandwagon…

The offensive is still going on.. Wonder how many more will lose their lives in this meaningless massacre…

But, no matter what happens, tomorrow, nothing will have changed.. We will be the same hateful people we were before this all started.. But, we do have a CHOICE… We ALWAYS have a choice…

They say that it’s not how hard you fall that matters, but how quickly you get up, that matters.. I think, it’s not how quick that matters, but how efficiently…

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As we have always been targeted by the terrorists since Independence, here is another tragic incident of horrible, horrible slaying of scores of innocent men and women. The final numbers are yet to be known, but there is no explanation or rationalization that can justify the carnage.

We also do not know who is behind this even though a phony group named Deccan Mujahidin has taken responsibility- or claimed credit, I should say. By the sophistication of the coordination, it is clear that whoever has done it had plenty of help from established terrorist organizations. One main purveyor of these activities that comes to mind is Lushker-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Muhammed who could well be behind this massacre.

There has been massive planning going on for this. The angle of their attack has been unique. They have targeted Victoria Terminal so as to make the number of causalities high and make it a big incident. They have also made sure to attack Taj and Oberoi hotels and primarily targeted the American and British citizens. This made sure that this attack was carried and discussed far and wide. I should say they were successful in that. All the main news channels in the US has been continuously covering only the Mumbai terror attack story from the moment it happened. This kind of coverage is unprecedented.

One thing that the government cannot afford to do is not to take any quick and effective action. If LeT or JeM which operates from Pakistan is proved to be behind this, the government should not waste any time to finally put a stop to their operation. There are two ways this can be done. I am not advocating for military action as the first course of action. However, the government should use all the diplomatic pressure and even use the US to force Pakistani government to take out the terrorist camps within Pakistani border.

Also, Terrorism is growing at a rapid pace and is even spreading to areas that were not usually prone to Jihadi influence. Organizations like SIMI had always worked with Lashkar and Jaish in the past and there should not be any hesitation to round up any suspect who could well be planning the next attack. We have seen a few people from Kerala who were part of Terrorism. Even the state government has the duty to explore and investigate organizations like NDF and make them either purge unwanted elements from their ranks and come clean or be ready to face banning.

There is not much time we can waste.

Further Reading

1. Some photos that came out within minutes.

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