Sep

6

New format starting this week

September 6, 2009 posted by indiatime | 26 Comments

I’ve been posting a new article every day for last 3 years or so. Time has to come to try a new format and this week onwards, I will be posting between 2 to 3 articles per week. There’s a flip side to a lesser number of weekly posts. The readers will be able to enjoy articles that are better-researched, and with a lot more content than merely raves and rants.

Please feel free to suggest topics that are close to your hearts and minds. Rather than harping over the current news cycles and getting stuck with stale news, we may be able to create some timelessness in our discussions here.

See you all this coming week.

Sep

3

YSR Reddy, Andhra CM, dies in helicopter crash

September 3, 2009 posted by indiatime | 8 Comments

“…Lord! It’s a miracle! Man up and vanished like a fart in the wind!
It’s a conspiracy! That’s what this is! It’s one big damn conspiracy! And everyone’s in on it! Including her!…”
- Samuel Norton (warden) - The Shawshank Redemption (by Stephen King)

The chief executive officer of one of the largest states in the nation has now gone missing for well over 24 hours. And so far, the police, the army, the airforce, the border security force, the greyhound commandos, unmanned drones, private search missions, satellites, bhuvan, have all been unsuccessful at finding YSR Reddy, the missing chief minister. The search that had originally focused on a a few thousand square kilometer area, has now been narrowed down to about 60-70 square kilometers.

What is astounding is that there hasn’t been any communication with the missing group. It’s obvious that the radio signals from the helicopter is the best pointer to the last known location, and the cellphones carried by the missing could only help in pinpointing the last location where the phones were still able to communicate with the nearby towers.

But an altogether lack of any type of communication raises some serious concerns and potentially very ominous possibilities:

1. the missing party of people might have met with a serious accident, their helicopter going down into a thick wooded area, with some fatalities or serious casualties whereby the members of the party are either unconscious if at all still living or are all dead.

2. The missing helicopter might have crashed into a lake or a water reservoir, drowning the occupants. Such a scenario has already been speculated on account of some eyewitness accounts from near the Shri Shailam project. It is considered less likelier than a crash landing or an emergency landing into the woods.

3. The missing helicopter might have crashed or force-landed into a forest, but the survivors may be in danger of attack by tigers from around the area. The area is host to the famous ‘operation tiger’ sanctuary.

4. the missing helicopter might have gone down into a wooded area, but the survivors might have been captured by local Maoist/naxalite terrorists and may have been whisked away outside the search perimeter and taken to an unknown location. Such a scenario can play out and evolve into a ransom situation where release of some prisoners would be bargained for, or the captured party may be exchanged with another group of captors - perhaps a more radical group like lashkar-e-toiba. This scenario, if true, will not play out soon, because the kidnappers will need some time to get the captured to a secret location.

Who might the terrorists ask in return for safely exchanging a missing chief minister and his officers? Well, there is no shortage of high-value exchange prisoners with Mohammad Ajmal Kasab (26/11 Mumbai attacks surviving gunman), Afzal Guru (convicted parliament terror attack mastermind), Safdar Nagori (imprisoned chief of SIMI - Students Islamic Movement of India), etc.

4. the missing party may all be okay, just minimally injured but unconscious and unable to move because of minor injuries and fractures, etc.

The picture will be a lot clearer as will be the weather by the end of today. Until then, YSR’s supporters, opponents, fans, and his bosses in Delhi will all be praying for his safety.

9 am India time update:
The helicopter wreckage has been found near Rollapenta, about 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool. Two helicopters of the Indian military are said to be hovering over the scene.

11am India time update:
Five bodies have been found at the wreckage site and YSR Reddy, the popular chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, has been confirmed killed in the crash.

Aug

30

Little kids next door

August 30, 2009 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

A week ago, Urvashi Dhanorkar, a TV actress in Mumbai was arrested (and later released on bail) for branding Rameshwari Jadhav, their family’s 10-year maid with hot kitchen utensils and punching the little girl on the eyes. The 10-year old’s ‘crime’ was that she had opened the refrigerator and eaten a delicacy out of it without asking for permission. The abuse came to light when the neighbors saw the little girl with bloodshot eyes and burn marks on her arms. The actress tried to pass off the eye injuries as a bee-sting and the arm injuries as shower burns, and got the judge to release her on bail, at least for now.

Only days ago, police in California cracked open an old kidnapping case where a 10-year old girl, kidnapped back in 1991, was found alive, impregnated by her kidnapper and now a mother of two. In that particular case, the ball was dropped at several levels. Three years ago, the neighbors had tried to alert the authorities about something amiss in the next door house. The kidnapper was a known child rapist who was once sentenced to 50 years in prison but had gotten off for ‘good behavior’. He was supposed to be monitored by parole officers who failed to really monitor him, never checked his house, and never followed up on him when an area child was kidnapped and went missing for years.

Back in 1965, a horrific abuse case in the US state of Indiana, claimed the life of a 15-year old girl named Sylvia Lykens. Several literary works (The Girl Next Door, An American Crime) including a few films have now immortalized the story of little Sylvia, who was branded with hot iron pins, punched, pinched, kicked and burnt with cigarette butts by a woman who was supposed to be caring for her.

Sylvia’s case has many similarities to 10-year old Rameshwari Jadhav. Both the girls were apparently being cared for by their host families. The host families in both the cases had promised the girls’ families that they would be put in school and provided for. Even the ages of the perpetrators are quite similar, both about 40. Both the girls were forced to stay in the house and warned not to leave the house. The biggest difference is that Rameshwari was lucky to get out alive because of the alertness of the neighbors, and Sylvia died in the basement of the Mrs. Gertrude Baniszewski.

I’m not speaking about child abuse where a parent or a teacher whacks a kid for being a brat. I’m speaking about real criminal behavior by people where little children are burnt, branded, punished inhumanly and almost killed. Those are things first noticed by people around those families - the neighbors, teachers, friends. Rameshwari Jadhav’s case proves that timely intervention and simple alertness by neighbors can save little lives that would almost have been lost.

Jul

25

Stripped and paraded naked in India - II

July 25, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

Three recent incidents in India where women were asked or made to strip in public:

1. Farmers in the state of Bihar, in a desperate bid for rain, recently asked their unmarried daughters to embarrass the rain gods by plowing the fields naked. The naked girls were accompanied by the elderly women in the villages, who did not have to take their clothes off. The village council members vowed to continue the naked plow until thr weather Gods showered the village with heavy rains.

2. Women participants in the state-sponsored mass wedding that ocurred in the state of Madhya Pradesh, were asked to take their all of clothes off, it has now been confirmed. No, not everyone who showed up at the wedding, but only those who participated to become the brides. The state authorities have claimed that the brides were stripped to ensure that they were all virgins. There was no plowing in the fields and no reports of whether the incident embarrassed any of the Gods to shower the state with monsoon rains.

3. Also in the state of Bihar, a young woman was recently stripped and paraded naked on a busy street which, for some reason, is already known as Exhibition Street. The Nation Commission of Women was so outraged that it requested the state’s chief minister for assurances that such incidents not recur. Nitish Kumar, the state’s chief minister called the incident condemnable (no, not commendable).

If you thought these were merely isolated incidents that deserved mere condemnation, here are the incidents from the past few years where women in India were made to strip in public.

May

27

May 27 - only in India

May 27, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

1. Marriage breaks over priest’s religion
Yesterday in Likhwad, near Vadodara, a groom left without marrying the bride and his folks walked out of the wedding ceremony, when the two sides failed to reach a compromise on the religion of the priest. The groom’s family brought Christian priest while the bride’s family brought a Hindu one. The bride’s family lodged a complaint at the local police station, contending that they were ’shocked and awed’ and that the Christian priest was unacceptable. While at the police station, they also charged the groom of demanding a motorbike as a dowry. Also yesterday, a Muslim woman married her adopted Hindu daughter off in a Hindu wedding ceremony.

2. Massage parlor girls allege deception
Working girls rescued from a Goa massage parlor have alleged that they were lured by cash and promises of promotion. The girls accused the parlor owner of entering into a two-year contract with them with the promise of an eventual promotion. Asked about what they had imagined the promotions in their working line would be, the girls said they thought they would get to work on beauty treatments of the clients.

3. Tigress enters family’s home during the cyclone
A family in Gosaba, West Bengal found an adult tigress taking refuge in their home during the recent cyclone. The adult humans locked the adult tigress into the room and brought in the forest department to escort the animal back into the animal reserve that she had escaped from. The forest officials are said to have rescued the tigress and the family and later released the tigress into the forest and the family into the family home. A few deers were also said to have entered a different family’s home, and were also rescued and released into the same forest (No, the forest officials were not bribed by the tigress).

May

18

On the kutcha road again

May 18, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

On the (kutcha) road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin’ our way
And our way
Is on the (kutcha) road again
Just can’t wait to get on the (kutcha) road again
- remade from Willie Nelson’s classic

Yesterday, three stories from India’s capital city got drowned amidst the election results, reflecting the alternate realities of world’s largest free country. In separate incidents, two children died, falling and drowning in New Delhi Water Board’s open manholes. Their voices drowned out by the roar of the victorious incumbent Sheila Dixit, the wonder lady of New Delhi’s local politics, the three children - Simran Thakur (7), Shahid (9), and Vikas Singh (14) became the newest victims of the insensitive local government.

Thousands of miles away, an American governor mourned the death of Anita Seeratan (13), an Indian-American teenager, who died of swine flu. The New Delhi authorities, in comparison, gave this idiotic response in their own defense of why their city’s little children died falling into open manholes:

…The manhole is not on the road but on a kutcha (dirt) road which is used by trucks and other heavy vehicles. Due to this, the manhole’s lid breaks frequently. Although we replace it periodically, we missed it this time. However, till morning there were no pending complaints about it. We have ordered a departmental inquiry and will appoint a senior official to look into the matter…

“…This wretched manhole has claimed my wonderful daughter…”, cried Simran’s father.

Little Shahid’s family was less luckier as there weren’t even any claims of investigation in his case. The local authorities told the press that they were not responsible for manholes deeper than 4 feet. In all the three cases including Shahid’s and the 14-year old Vikas Singh’s death, the Delhi police have registered cases of negligence, but they have little idea who to investigate.

Children unfailingly falling into manholes or routinely being run over by city’s local buses would normally raise hell in most cities of most countries. But most in India are pretty philosophical about such things. Many won’t even accept it as a sign of insensitivity, but would claim it as a sign of their spiritual maturity. Some would say that India needs to fall into a wormhole and time-travel a bit to make the connection between a democratic electoral process and its potential rewards. Until that happens, India must be said to be on a kutcha (dirt) road to progress.

May

9

Saturday surprizes - May 9, 2009

May 9, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

Here’s news that surprized me this Saturday.

1. IIT student held for online credit card fraud
Like the ‘Catch Me If You Can’ hero that he probably admired and emulated, 18-year old IITian Ashish Ravindranathan took India’s cybercops on a wildgoose chase, embarking on a credit card fraud scheme that netted him a cool sum of money. Posing as a bank exec, he collected credit card numbers from stupid bank customers, using the cards to make online purchases.

2. Goa Health minister charges with criminal intimidation
The Goa police reluctantly filed charges against the state health minister after a high court directive forced the cops to take notice of a complaint against the health minister. Threatening phone calls were said to have been made from the minister’s wife’s cell phone.

3. Asst film director held for chain-snatching
Chennai is reeling from the aftershock of two arrests. An assistance director of a film unit in Chennai and his assistant were nabbed stealing gold chains from a woman returning home from grocery-shopping. The brave woman held on to the accomplice and the film director got away for a while, but was later caught. The chain-snatching duo had supposedly pulled off many such crimes in the city of Chennai.

4. Dell Computers engineer sentenced to sweep hospital floors
Hyderabad’s Dinesh Kumar, a software engineer at Dell, was sentenced to sweep the floors of a local hospital, for pulling at the scarves of two girls. Hearing the sentence, Dinesh Kumar didn’t believe his ears and thought the judge was pulling his leg.

Apr

17

Sex education in India’s schools - 2

April 17, 2009 posted by indiatime | 14 Comments

A few days ago, a parliamentary panel strongly argued against the idea of sex education in India’s schools. “…there should be no sex before marriage which is immoral, unethical and unhealthy…”, said the committee.

No sex before marriage which is immoral, unethical and unhealthy…hmm..that can mean several things.

1. that there can be sex after marriage that is immoral, unethical and unhealthy

2. there can be sex before marriage as long as it is moral, ethical and healthy

3. marriage has nothing to do with sex education

4. sex education should start the night of the marriage

5. sex after marriage is healthy no matter what

6. you can never experience sex if you do not marry

7. not marrying may be unethical, immoral and unhealthy

8. parliamentary panels know best when it comes to morality, ethics and health

9. all parliament members are moral, ethical, and healthy

10. we’d rather let kids learn sex from watching Bollywood movies than from caring and well-trained teachers

11. parents should leave the issue of sex education to the government and let politicians worry about it

12. no sex education is the best sex education

13. no sex is the best sex education

14. parliament wants to tackle the child marriage issue by telling kids not to marry when they are children

The debate about sex education in schools is obviously not a new one, but the government and its panels themselves seem so confused about the issue that they themselves look like the ones in need of those sex education classes in the parliament. Thanks to such parliamentary committees and their impeccable work over last 60 years, India of today is a shining example of ethics, morality and health. Yeah right. Now go do something really unethical and immoral. Vote only for the right candidate in this month’s elections.

Sex education in India’s schools - 1

Feb

1

Slumdog astronaut

February 1, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

Scientists at India’s Space Research Organization are obviously ecstatic about their recent success with India’s first moon mission. But they all need to sit down together with a bunch of other policymakers and decide once for all when India will send an Indian on the moon. Yesterday, a director at ISRO told his audience that India ws planning to send the first Indian to the moon in 2025. Just a few days ago, yet another director at the ISRO told his audience that India was planning to send an Indian on the moon in 2020. And just a few months ago, ISRO’s chief told his audience that India’s first manned moon mission was at least 3 years away.

It seems to me that ISRO scientists are still on a high, the likes of which comes after a hard-earned and a well-deserved success. But the minute they build their machines and stand ready to send an Indian on the moon, these scientists are going to be sorely disappointed in what will become a political circus to choose the first Indian who will do us the honor of unfurling the tiranga on the moon.

Will it be an Indian man or an Indian woman (nobody is yet talking about a womanned mission)? Will that person represent India’s majority or will we choose someone from the minorities? Will the first Indian on the moon be someone whose final nod will come from ISRO or from New Delhi? Will that person be a Punjabi, a Bihari, a Madrasi or a Bengali? Will this Indian say any religious prayers once he or she is up on the moon? What will be the first words this person will say and in what language? Will India choose this person from a reality show? Will this person be a slumdog or a celebrity?

Dec

28

1908-2008: First look

December 28, 2008 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Looking up India’s industrial and scientific progress in ‘08, I stumbled upon two huge ones. One was the world’s largest electricity project. And the other was one of the first versions of an electric car. Turns out I’m a 100 years off, since India it seems, had already made that much progress in 1908. Krishna Vadiyar, the Maharaja of Mysore, had an electrically-actuated car running in his state’s yearly Dussera procession. And even before that, the same state had achieved the distinction of one of the longest (almost 100 miles) power transmission projects in the world.

Sure, a hundred years later, India can brag about a shuttle to the moon. But then again, a hundred years after the 1908 electric car procession in Mysore, the year 2008 has seen problems with the production of the world’s cheapest car, a much-vaunted coup only last year, now having become a nano success. And although India boasted about the largest power plant installations a hundred years ago, year 2008 has seen power problems all over India, including electrical load-shedding shutdowns for hours in major industrial cities. And just as a 1908 yearbook reported India to be ‘loyal to the throne’, India of 2008 too, has shown itself to be loyal to the western thrones, especially with its tepid non-response to the 26/11/2008 terror attacks, a non-gesture intended to appease the western interests in Pakistan.

Just as in 2008, a hundred years ago, Indians favored the sports that are played by only a few countries. And a hundred years before Mumbai’s moviegoers thronged to watched Amir Khan’s recently released Ghajini, Bhatavadekar had filmed and exhibited India’s first thrilling action flick, a wrestling match at Mumbai’s Hanging Gardens. And Delhi, too looked pretty much the same in 2008 as it did in 1908.

delhi1908.jpgdelhi2008.jpg

We really haven’t come that far then. Or have we?

Dec

20

They are rich, educated, well-respected in society, and have no prior criminal record. The Ansal brothers who were directly and indirectly responsible for the cinemahouse fire deaths of 59 victims, have gotten of easy, thanks to a callous and an insensitive ruling by the Delhi high court, that has further reduced the duo’s already light sentence to merely a few months.

The fire at the Uphaar cinema hall in Delhi killed 59 people in 1997. Ten years later, in 2007, the brothers were found guilty of safety code violations amounting to culpable homicide of 59 innocent moviegoers. The safety code violations included illegal constructions and seat additions that had blocked critical exits. When a movie theater owner adds 40 extra seats, that amounts to several hundred rupees per show and thousands per day. Over a month, that can easily add lakhs of rupees of extra income. But when the law says it cannot be done and people still go ahead and do it, that is greed and gross negligence. When such greed claims 59 lives, that is 59 counts of criminally negligent homicides. How much did the guilty party pay for it? About a year in prison. Why? Because, as the court said, these greedy bastards were well-respected in society. And because they were educated.

So let’s see what the court is saying here. Had the theater owners not been educated, they would be serving more because of their criminal negligence. And had they not been so well-respected by the society, they would be paying more for their crimes. Forgive my intrusion in this warm saga of well-respected people and a well-respected court but I am a little appalled. I would have thought being more educated would have meant their owning up more of the responsibility for their actions. As for the respect issue, I am sick and ashamed of the Delhi society that respects rich greedy bastards and spurns innocent poor people. And I really pity this uneducated judge who I’m sure, has not taken the pains to know how educated the 59 victims were or how well-respected those 59 victims were with their friends and families.

Of course there were other guilty parties such as the Delhi electricity board that neglected its duties, its corrupt officers and safety inspectors who probably accepted bribes from such establishments. The police officers who investigated the case, the CBI officials who probably did a half-hearted job. The judges who seemed to make light of 59 lost lives. And last but not the least, the society that bases its norms of respectability on how deep someone’s pockets are rather than how dark their hearts.

Nov

28

Thinking a step ahead

November 28, 2008 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

One of the captured terrorists from the Mumbai attacks is said to have confessed to Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and ex-Indian gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s involvement in those attacks, especially with the logistics of the local operation. Anyone could have speculated this, of course, but now we know this for a fact.

When the local mujahiddeen outfits perfected their techniques to terrorize Indians using serial bomb blasts, India’s intelligence agencies and the law enforcement woke up and devised ways to combat such attacks. After the latest terror attacks; the navy, the coast guards, the National Security Guards, and the Rapid Action Force will begin exercises to combat such hostage scenarios. It is clear that the law enforcement and the agencies that are supposed to guard the nation are a step or two behind the terrorists who are getting sharper and smarter in their planning and execution. So it is vital for India’s agencies to think ahead, think out of the box, and to stretch their brains a litle to imagine what could come next and how.

India must make certain valid assumptions to prepare ourselves for the next round of terror attacks:

1. the next terrorist attacks will be more ferocious, more innovative, and deadlier.

2. the terrorists and their friends inside Pakistan’s ISI want to kill more of us.

3. the weapons will not be simple automatic guns or hand-grenades or rocket launchers.

All those assumptions point to only one thing. The next attacks will be either biological or nuclear, types of attacks capable of wreaking destruction that is several magnitudes larger than a few hundred casualties.

The biological attacks could be of a kind where there is a deliberate spread of biological agents such as anthrax particles or contamination of drinking water sources using chemical agents. That means protecting drinking water reservoirs, rivers and lakes, private wells that provide water for international soft drinks. The kind of protection we provide for such facilities right now, is dismally inadequate. That also means educating people about anthrax powders and bird flus and things like that - definitely a major challenge to our preventive and social medicine departments and overall healthcare infrastructure.

The nuclear attacks of course could be coming from any place in Pakistan. Such an attack will come in the form of short or long range missiles, at the hands of rogue elements in the Pakistani army, coordinated by ISI agents who are doing double duty as terrorist masterminds. Such attacks, however unlikely they seem now, are not only possible but practically easier to execute from a place where the normal checks and balances structure has collapsed.

So as we prepare ourselves for the next attacks, the most important thing to remember is not to underestimate the enemy. We aren’t dealing with human beings who usually have developed concepts of conscience and kindness and humanity. The terrorist species is a uniquely rabid animal species that makes even the most vicious animal species look like domesticated pets. There is no neutering them. There is no domesticating such bastards. There is no predicting what they will do next.

Oct

13

Saint Alphonsa, God’s own child

October 13, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

“….St. Alphonsa’s heroic virtues of patience, fortitude and perseverance in the midst of suffering remind us that God always provides the strength we need to overcome every trial….
…By accepting the invitation to the wedding feast, and by adorning herself with the garment of God’s grace through prayer and penance, she conformed her life to Christ’s and now delights in the “rich fare and choice wines” of the heavenly kingdom….. ”
- Pope Benedict XVI (Canonization of St Alphonsa)

st alphonsaBorn as Annakkutty (little Anna) in Kudamaloor, Kerala, a place where Christianity had established itself almost a thousand years ago, Sister Alphonsa Muttathupadathu is now Saint Alphonsa, confirmed so in a ceremony at Vatican’s St. Peter’s square yesterday.

Saint Alphonsa lived a short life of 35 years (1910-1946), a journey full of suffering and pain due to illnesses and burns, but she celebrated the suffering into an offering to God, saying, “…Grains of wheat, when ground in the mill, turn into flour. With this flour we make the wafer of the holy Eucharist. Grapes, when crushed in the wine press, yield their juice. This juice turns into wine. Similarly, suffering so crushes us that we turn into better human beings….”!

Not surprisingly, St Alphonsa’s feelings resonate with many other saints from India, who transformed lifetimes of sufferings into spiritual journeys of devotion towards the divine. Hinduism, too, recognizes the path of utter unconditional devotion as one of the four paths to a union with God. Funny, how at some point, all the religions seem to be saying pretty much the same thing, speaking about pretty much the same paths to uniting with the Supreme.

St. Alphonsa’s well-deserved recognition couldn’t have come at a better time for Christians in India who have lately had some cause for concern and worries about communal violence. It goes without saying that majority of India’s public finds such acts of violence absolutely deplorable. It also goes without saying that it is politics, not religion, that is behind such acts of violence.

It is a moment of pride for India as one of its own gets a rare honor reserved for those who make more than an outstanding difference to humanity. Must mean something that one such person lived amongst us.

Sep

28

As the police in Vijaywada stopped the traffic to allow the chief minister’s entourage to pass, a seriously ill 6-year old boy lay unconscious inside the ambulance, his father begging the police officers to allow that one ambulance to pass. After a long time, the Andhra chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s convoy did finally pass. The police made hand signals to allow everyone to pass. But after having waited for almost an hour, the ambulance was in no hurry to pass. It had no reason to. Giri Lakshmi Narayana, the seriously ill 6-year old had died, thanks to the state government, the state law enforcement and the local police whose sense of civic responsibility or the lack of it rather.

To add insult to the boy’s death, the local police refused to register a complaint by the boy’s father. “….the boy died of a medical problem…”, contended the police.

Would be easy to dismiss this as just another tragic incident that was beyond anyone’s control. But I wonder where the law stands on this one. So who is responsible for a death caused by or attributable to a situation where a political dignitary is being escorted at jet speeds? Assuming the chief minister’s car wouldn;t have pased for another 10 minutes, would it have been okay for the police officers to have allowed the ambulance to go through? It would have been justifiable insubordination at the least.

If nobody can be held liable for the boy’s death, what allows the government any right to tell the rest of the boy’s classmates that the law of the land, the law that cared zilch for their friend, should be respected? Who is to blame if any of those classmates then grows up to be a separatist or a terrorist or a naxalite? And who is to blame if that grown-up terrorist is then coddled by and is offered legal support by the same government machinery when his case comes up for trial?

Jul

26

High time for decisive military action

July 26, 2008 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

Within less than 24 hours of the Bangalore bomb blasts, another Indian city, Ahmedabad, was today the scene of about 17 bomb blasts. The latest reports mentioned more than a dozen dead and a several dozens injured. The blasts took place at around 6 pm in residential and shopping areas, including areas that comprised of Gujarat state chief minister Narendra Modi’s constituency.

Although the condemnations reactions are swift and coming from all the quarters, India’s home minister seemed a little fazed and under pressure speaking to the press. He seemed surprized and angry at the suddenness of the attacks, now 2 serial bomb blast episodes in two of India’s biggest metros.

Every other metro will be on high alert now and there is a probablility that nothing may happen innear future. Then, within a few weeks, we will be hearing of another such episode, dozens more innocent lives lost, dozens more maimed for life. The question on everyone’s minds is how long do we take this cowardly shit from the bastards who call themselves Allah’s soldiers, in turn giving a bad name to their own religion as well.

Why did the terrorists strike this week? There’s a reason for that. The terror network was counting on the ruling coalition losing the confidence vote in Delhi, hoping that the destabilized nation will be further destabilized with a lame duck coalition at the center. Although the ruling coalition won the vote, it seems that the go-ahead signal had already been given to the sleeper cells to initiate the attacks. That means two things. That they are active sleeper cells in every Indian metro, ready to strike the local populations within a few hours of a go-ahead signal. And that there is a go-ahead signal coming from a central place, probably outside the country, somewhere in Pakistan.

Although the investigative agencies will figure out the faces and identities of those who perpetrated the bomb blasts of today and yesterday, the masterminds will still be out of our reach, toasting their new horrific deeds, and shaming their own God.

It is time India stand up to this cowardice by Pakistan and invite our smaller and weaker neighbor for a head-to-head confrontation on the borders near India’s northwest. The only way Pakistan can ever learn a lesson in humility is if India’s mighty military strikes a decisive and a definitive blow in the heart of the terrorist demons, driving the stake through and through. This has gone on for too long and we’ve suffered too much. No more. Time has come for India’s sleeping lion to awake and roar at its full strength.

Thousands of years ago, on the fields of Kurukshetra, warrior Arjuna told Lord Krishna why he was confused and in a dilemma about fighting the cousins and brothers he so wanted to live peacefully with. In what is undoubtedly the oldest known of words of military wisdom that any supreme deity ever spoke about, Krishna asked Arjuna to destroy the demons and fulfill his calling, that of the greatest warrior of his era.

India needs a decisive step to step into the big league as a leader of nations, and that step is not an industrial one, not an educational one, not a cultural one. For India, that Superpowerdom will not come from winning Olympic medals or winning Cricket matches or making Bollywood movies. It will not come from postmartems of past terrorist activities. It will not come from erecting Gandhi’s statues and it definitely will not come from having hundreds of serial soaps on TV.

India’s superpowerdom will come when it forever silences the ugly demon that keeps raising its head and stabbing India’s back ever and ever again. Every little kid knows that the support and finances for terrorist activites in India come directly from Pakistan. It is time to go in and take control and stop this nonsense once for all. Our children and grandchildren and the rest of the world including the suffering souls of September 11 will thank us if if we did this tomorrow.

India can do in 7 days what the US has not been able to in last 7 years. We know who the culprits are, we know where they live, and we’ve known their ways for centuries. But to achieve that goal, India must summon the courage to open the trump card it has fought so hard to hide. It is time to invite our bravest and the best to enter Pakistan and finish this cat and mouse game with a lion’s fist. A sleeping lion gets his name not because he sleeps but because he acts like a lion when he wakes up.

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Lesser Known Indians
The Most ‘Nobel’ Teacher of Them All
The third Indian revered in China
A little Poland in India
The vanishing of Indian languages
The looting of Chandigarh’s treasures
Bharat, Pakistan and Hindustan, Indiana
Welcome to India, Steve!
Top 5 explanations for the president’s gesture
An IIT on every street, an IIM on every block
Pakistan, Jinnah, Wadias and the American anthem
An IAS officer’s nightmare of lustful, lascivious stares comes true