INDIA- THE WORLD’S TERROR CAPITAL?

INDIA- THE WORLD’S TERROR CAPITAL?
The series of explosions that rocked Ahmadabad & Bangalore, Barely two months after the bomb attacks that left many people dead and wounded in Jaipur, India's IT capital of Bangalore has been left reeling from several bomb blasts across the city yesterday afternoon. Following this, another bomb was placed near a Bangalore shopping mall this morning but was defused before it could explode. Even more alarmingly, late this evening nearly 30 people were killed and over 100 injured by 17 bomb blasts in Ahmadabad, the capital of Gujarat.
The bomb blasts in Bangalore killed one person, and it seems that the bombs were made to alarm and scare people, rather than cause severe damage. Bangalore is believed to have been chosen as the location for the bombings because of its flourishing IT sector, relatively lax security owing to the fact that it had never experienced a major terrorist attack before, and the growing network of militant Islamist groups in the city.
According to an email sent minutes before the first blast in Ahmadabad, the Bombay Stock Exchange is to be targeted next. Where will this all end?
Security is on extremely high alert at all major cities across India, and travellers can expect tightened frisking at railway stations and airports.
I am saddened by these blasts and have been thinking about solutions and avoiding knee jerk reactions. Our emotional response would be to blast them terrorists and any one that resembles them, but then we would be hurting the innocents on the way, just like those terrorists. We do not want to give reason to the innocents to get into the battlefield of revenge, as the revenge cycle takes a long time to stop. That should not be our goal; we need to confine this problem to individuals concerned.Reactions may bring temporary band aid results, we need to go to the root cause of the problem and work on it for the long term security. The network of terrorists is spreading and we have to check them.
The US and UK may like to believe that they are leading the war on terror globally, but the country that has had to face the worst of terrorist attacks on its own soil, barring war-torn Iraq, is India. In fact, India has since 2004 lost more lives to terrorist incidents than all of North America, South America, Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together. All of these vast swathes of the globe lost a total of 3,280 lives in terrorist incidents between January 2004 and March this year. India alone lost 3,674 lives over the same period of three years and three months
One way of handling this is to treat them as criminals and punish them accordingly. Even though the group is claiming an Islamic sounding label, we should not fall for their trap and call them Islamic terrorists, as they are attempting to implicate others who had nothing to do with their criminal act. There is a view in the western world that “All Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims!” Instead, we need to isolate them and simply treat them as criminals who violated peace and punish them and not bring the name of religion at all.These are bad signs for our country and we need to move with caution and find the base for these activities. Any reactionary measure would hurt us. India has come a long way and we need to protect and preserve the growth.
Surely, the principle motive of the terrorists i.e., to provoke communal riots & cause civil disorder, has not been materialised. Thanks to the stunning resilience shown by the residents of Bangalore & Ahmadabad. Another theoretically successful, yet practically failed mission executed by the terrorists.
Terrorism in India has often been alleged to be sponsored by Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistan claims that repeated acts of terrorism on Pakistani soil are sponsored by India's RAW (Research & Analysis Wing) intelligence service. After most acts of terrorism in India, many journalists and politicians accuse Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) of playing a prominent role. These claims and counter claims are something that we have all got used to!

THE FINAL SOLUTION:
Following the September 11 attacks, the US President, George W. Bush formulated a new so-called solution called “The war on Terror.” This solution advocated the use of “Hard military force” on international terrorist groups & State sponsors of terror. Everything from Afghanistan to Iraq was a result of this ‘solution.’ Which only resulted in more civilian casualties (independent repots put it at a whopping 94,000 in Iraq alone!) So indeed, the Bush administration ended up killing more people than what the terrorists could do in all of eternity. Moreover, generous funding by the US to the so-called Anti-terror countries gave reversed results. Take the case of Pakistan, Its economy was in shambles in the early 2000’s. But with military aid pouring from the US, after 9/11, its economy regained lost grounds. But instead of combating terror, Pakistan, a hard lined Islamic nation preferred to support the Taliban & the Al-Qaeda. So, the war on Terror, indirectly facilitated the “Islamic Jihad.” It gave the terrorists what they desperately needed, ‘reasons!’ They now declared that the very existence of Islam was threatened by the West, thus attracting volunteers & funds.
So the best way to combat terror would be to do it in a clandestine way. Most of these ‘Jihads’ come from the most economically backward parts of the society. They are mostly jobless & are disillusioned. Hence, by strengthening the economy of the rural areas and by imparting moral education, we can effectively thwart any attempts by terrorists. Another effective way is to strengthen the national & local intelligence agencies & also by facilitating a deeper penetration by the agencies into these terrorist organisations. This will pave the way for the gathering of specific Intel inputs well ahead. Moreover, enhanced vigil, better technologies, CCTV’s, X-Ray scanning & metal detector facilities at vital installations and a well-staffed, well-equipped & well trained Police force. States like Maharashtra allocate as little as 1% of the total police budget for intelligence gathering. No wonder why underworld dons & terrorists flourish in Mumbai! Moreover, Intel agencies must be freed from being used for political activities. Students must be trained to react to suspicious circumstances with professional expertise.
Borders must either be fenced or must be guarded by troops 24/7. Because it is through these borders that many illegal immigrants & Terrorists sneak in, they don’t need Passports! India must also adopt a tough stand against rogue states like Pakistan & Bangladesh, forcing them to act tough on terrorists in their territory. A good political leadership, backed by an efficient intelligence agency and coupled with smart Police forces will solve most of the problems.

The day when all these fructify, will be the day of salvation for all of us!

The Orkut Mania!

The Orkut Mania!

Social networking, for long, has been widely unheard of in a country like India. Youngsters usually flocked to Cyber-cafe’s to either play online games or do “mischief!” But a new age as dawned, wherein a great majority of our youngsters who are online, are down with the so-called “Orkut Fever.” The fascination of Orkut is that it does not let you go. Once you have logged in you cannot just leave it. One would have never known that leaving scarps for friends and acquaintances is such fun. After a person joins Orkut slowly and slowly more people start discovering that person. There are a few from some organization, few from some other organization, few college mates and few school friends and it keeps rolling. The list of friends in always growing and as you interact with each other there comes a time when you feel that you have so many things common with many people. This compulsion to find likeminded people can be done through Orkut and so no one can resist it.

If a person is an outgoing, extrovert, fun loving, looking for friends, then, yes Orkut is an addiction. Orkut is friendship based site, where people create their profile, few would be genuine and rest all would be fake, and upload their pictures to share with those friends who are far, and cannot be contacted. The addiction of Orkut is such that it has been banned in many offices and the reason given is wastage of man power. The beauty is that, a notable number of the so-called ‘Orkut users’ do not even know how to switch on their PC’s! They either depend on their parents or assistants in Cyber-cafes.

On Orkut one starts searching friends from one friend, then go on to peep in their profile, search for community that interest you. There are variety communities with such diversity as from cars to condoms or dolls to dialysis. You join a community and then you become active, people will scrap some comment and then it goes on and goes on, and hence the first thing as soon as you are on the net is that you would do is to login to Orkut check a new guy / gal or weather your scrapped or not. Though it sounds monotonous to manoeuvre around this limited website that forces us to do the same mechanical things over & over again!

Orkut is so addictive that one would love to sit on it for hours together, for such frivolous reasons like looking for friends, reading testimonials and scraps for other friends, or serious reasons like searching for communities that might be of an interest to you and its whole group of world filled from New Delhi to New York. I know about people who forget to eat, sleep or even their “morning business!” It’s so addictive, that they type & chat more with strangers hundreds or even thousands of miles away, but are adamant to even throw a word to their family members, centimetres away!

Orkut addiction has reached new levels; people spend their free time reading and writing scraps on this so called social networking site. It is one of the more addicting things on campus - but the biggest benefits of it is that it really does put you back in touch with old high school friends and you can see what they’re up to and all that. So, it’s really helpful for people like me. I managed to “re-capture” all of them!!!

Orkut make available many capabilities including online dating, people who share the same hobbies and interests as well as possible business connections are linked by a so-called “Community”. Once the line of your interest is known you will be able to keep in touch with people having same interest and also create your own community or special interest arena. The special interest community lets you have many discussions on many topics the scope runs deep with Orkut as there are many variations available. Social networking in itself is very addictive, so is Orkut. Be aware! Though the prospects of this website are as vast as the blue ocean, the threats & concerns it offers are also equally frightening!

On Orkut everyone knows when your birthday is and they all say happy birthday, as if they all knew you. So happy Orkuting to you all out there!!!

The Beijing Magic!

THE BEIJING MAGIC!

“One world, one dream” This is the theme for this Olympics held in Beijing, China. Though at first glance, the caption/theme of this Olympics seems nothing out of the ordinary, a detailed, in-depth analysis gives a far better picture. The Greeks were the first one to conduct these Olympic Games in the year 776 BC in Olympia. So, it’s more than clear that Greece was the cradle of ancient Olympics. Since then, these games are at the beginning of every “Olympiad.” An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch. In this reckoning, the first Olympiad lasted from the summer of 776 BC to that of 772 BC. By extrapolation, the 4th year of the 696th Olympiad begins in summer 2008.
Today, an Olympiad refers to a period beginning January 1 of a year in which the Summer Olympics are due to occur, and lasting four years. The first modern Olympiad began in 1896, so the second began in 1900, and so on.
To better co-ordinate the games, the International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 on the initiative of a French nobleman, Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin. The IOC has become the heart of the "Olympic Movement", a conglomeration of sporting federations that are involved in the organization of the Games. As the Olympic Movement has grown so has the profile and complexity of the Games. Participation in the Games has increased to the point that nearly every nation on earth is represented. With the proliferation of satellite communications, the internet, and the continuing trend towards globalization, the Olympics are consistently gaining supporters.[6] This growth has created numerous challenges never before envisioned by Baron de Coubertin. Some of these difficulties include political boycotts, the use of performance enhancing medications, bribery of officials, and terrorism.
Despite these challenges the Olympics have continued to thrive and flourish. Each successive Games attempts to add more events in order to keep up with the ever-evolving advance of athletic expression around the world. The upcoming games in Beijing are planned to comprise 302 events in 28 sports.[7]. The most recent Winter Olympics in 2006 featured 84 events in 7 sports.[8] While the Olympic Games do continue to evolve, they also encompass many rituals that were established during their infancy in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most of these traditions are on display during the Opening and Closing ceremonies, and the medal presentations. For its part, the Olympic Movement has made considerable progress in fostering participation among as many nations as wish to compete, as well as focusing on the Olympic motto: Citius Altius Fortius - Faster, Higher, Stronger!
Now, coming back to the theme, the Chinese, for long, wanted to show-case to the world their booming economy & world-class infrastructure. Hence they are using these events to make their growing presence felt in the international stage. For this, Beijing in particular, & China in general have undergone a “transformation” For those in command in China, it was an opportunity to showcase to the world that China is not just the “Great Wall” alone. Hence, China generously invested over a whopping $43 billion US dollars! This makes it the most expensive ever sport on the planet yet. This is also more than thrice the amount spent in the previous Olympics in Athens, $15 billion US Dollars. It was not just the city & the building that underwent a plastic surgery, but also the people. The Chinese government invested several millions in trying to teach Beijingers, English & also basic manners.
Though critics argue that China could show the same amount of involvement in its human rights record & also in narrowing the rich-poor divide, China is reluctant. Truly, the scale & style of the arrangements for the games leaves visitors spell-bound! China has even banned private vehicles from plying on the roads, days before the events to rein in on the alarmingly high pollution levels. It worked. Beijing, after decades of urbanization, has finally seen clear skies! China has also relaxed its “iron grip” on free media, & has opened the doors for the international media. It has promised to continue the same even after the games.
All these arrangements are finally only benefitting the athletes, Visitors/tourists & hard-core fans. Well, that, i feel is a welcomable sign. Because, finally Olympics is not about the stadium or the money that goes into it, but the athletes & their spectators! Hoping for a even better games in the next 2012 London Olympics.

Where are our Tigers?

We all quite clearly understand that tigers are our national animals. Even though our national emblem, the Asoka Chakra carries only Lions to display, our leaders have rather chosen to declare this animal as our national animal. Tigers are not actually as ferocious as we know. In fact, tigers are more of what we call as”Shy-type”.
But statistics says things that are on the contrary. In 2002, official reports indicate the presence of over 40,000 tigers worldwide. Now, a mere five years have passed since then. But the tiger population has dwindled to less than 3,000. But, India alone holds around a little more than 1,400 tigers. This news comes after the central government launched “Project Tiger”, a supposedly “co-ordinated effort” to bring up the tiger population to a more satisfactory level. But unfortunately, the project has had total failure in acheiving its indented goal. Except the state of Tamilnadu, no other state has been able to show any improvement in this regard.
Though there has been good central funding into this cause, it has failed to reach its destined target. The government claims that it has not been able to access tiger populated areas in the central and North-eastern parts of India, where most tigers live. The reason, it claims is, “Naxal Threat.” These Naxalites or insurgents enjoy un-interrupted control in the jungles of the areas. Hence, it is practically not possible for the poorly armed forest rangers to do anything about it. Moreover, there are unconfirmed reports that local poachers have entered into an "agreement" with the Naxalites to carry out their activities. The poachers seek permission to operate in these Naxal dominated areas under naxal protection and the naxals in turn would get a share of the profits, which they invariably use for procuring “offensive weapons”. There are even allegations that the naxal themselves would hunt Tigers and sell their skin in the international ‘Black Market.’ This of course may be in addition to the secret cocaine business they do in order to fund their activities.
But, down south, there are no such problems for the government to take shelter in, except of course, the lethargic behavior of our corrupt, inefficient bureaucracy. Forest rangers, as we know them, do not carry state-of the art equipments like their western counterparts. The Westerners are using radio frequency chips and global positioning sensors (GPS) to pinpoint these animals and even track their “distress (!)” Signals. They also have sophisticated sniper guns to keep the poachers at bay. But in India, we still depend on decades old techniques that have been made obsolete by the changing tides. When I happened to speak to a forest ranger early this year, he was commenting on the state of the rifle that he carried. He said that these single barrel rifles where used in the Second World War by the allies, nearly six decades ago! Moreover he told me that he carried only 7 cartridges or bullets with him, against the stipulated 50 cartridges per ranger mark set by the government. So, naturally the few rangers, who really want to stand up against poachers, couldn’t hold on to the ground for long.
In Tamilnadu of course, the tiger population has almost doubled. A few years back, it was numbering around 50, and now it’s around 85-95. The Central Government’s “Project Tiger” has achieved reasonable success only here. We must understand that Tigers do not come out of their natural habitats unless and until they are forced to do so. With more and more agricultural lands falling prey to real estate developers and special economic zones, farmers are pushed by hunger to move further and further into dense jungles to bring parts of it under cultivation. Plus, wildlife parks also do not provide a serene atmosphere for these once proud animals to live. Constant shouting and yelling by visitors, who even go to the extent of throwing stones at these poor creatures, are more than just a threat to these animals.
I believe that it’ll be better late than never, to start working on this issue. A belated awakening will at least prevent the issue from going from bad to worse. There is an urgent need to arm the rangers with sophisticated gadgets and weapons to combat poachers. The government should amend the existing laws that are clearly flawed in more ways than one. People arrested under these acts find little difficulty in getting bail and ofcourse continue their misdeeds . Our bureaucracy, which already shows little concern to humans who can speak out, will, I suppose show no concern to these animals which can’t express themselves nor protest. Though these animals can’t vote, use the right to information act, or even initiate protests against “aggressors”, it’s our solemn duty to reach out for these animals. We must understand that they also enjoy equal “ownership” rights over this land and all that it holds. We cannot continue to remain insensitive to these fellow animals.
I hope that each of you readers, would do your little bit in this regard, so that our children continue enjoying seeing these animals, not on paper or in the museums, but 'alive' in the forests. These animals cannot say a word of thanks to our deeds, but definitely, that’s not what we should look for!