Mumbai’s tryst with terrorist
Mumbai is truck again. It’s a sense of déjà vu for all. We saw the same horror scenes repeatedly on TV, the same rhetoric by the Govt. the same debate on talk shows. Nothing has changed after 26/11. Our booming economy and our status as a rising power has made Mumbai & Delhi as the most vulnerable cities to terrorist attacks. Look at the past four months and we were given enough warnings about a bigger attack in future. The number of failed bomb attacks – in Delhi high court, Delhi's Gargi College, Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and elsewhere. They were dismissed as pranks. Perhaps these were the result of the Karachi Project which David Hadley revealed in his interrogation to FBI. Mumbai blasts could be an indication that the Karachi Project is blooming in India. Home grown Jehad group have been active and our Intelligence have failed to trap them. Not one of the five urban terrorist attacks that preceded the latest Mumbai bombings has been solved. Perhaps the lull after 2008 has set in complacency in the intelligence agencies. This was evident in the goof-ups in the 'Most Wanted' list that was posted to Pakistan. It's clear that coordination among security agencies in India is still lacking. And why not as many of the internal security reforms proposed after the 26/11 attacks have bitten the dust. Despite decades of terror attack we haven’t been able to pluck the shortage in the Police personnel in our country. As per the home ministry, about 5,40,000 policemen were immediately required to make up the shortages in our police forces. But less than a third of that number has been recruited till date. Our projections for policing are well below the UN recommended ratio of 222 policemen per 1,00,000 citizens. Worse still, for a country repeatedly targeted by terrorists, India's internal security budget is less than 1% of its GDP, whereas India's defence budget is about 2.5% of its GDP. If the responsibility of the government is to protect its citizens, then it simply needs to spend more on equipping, training and arming our policemen to achieve greater efficiency. We urgently need to spend a huge amount on CCTV Camera installed on strategic positions. These footage are crucial in catching terrorists. The London bombers, the Time square bombers and Kasab were all caught on camera. We need to model our Police and surveillance on UK, which has about 1.85 million CCTV cameras and the average Briton is caught on camera 70 times a day as per the police figures. Living in a surveillance society is the need of the hour. We also need to adopt the idea of community policing from UK which has protected London which perhaps has the largest movement of terrorists through it but remains secure.
We need to accept that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its cut in aids to Pakistan will make our neighborhood a secure field for the terrorist to play as they want. Mr. Chidambaram has rightly pointed out that India is located in one of the most dangerous regions in the world. Our neighborhood is the global terrorism's epicenter. It is their aim to target India's economic rise and its cities, which remain crowded, disorganized and vulnerable. We need some elementary steps that could make citizens secure. Upgrading our police force, investing in technology for internal security and the long awaited national intelligence grid initiative could help fill this void, but it is still some years from being completed. Until then, we are left at the mercy of the terrorist.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Tryst with terrorists
Mumbai’s tryst with terrorist
Mumbai is truck again. It’s a sense of déjà vu for all. We saw the same horror scenes repeatedly on TV, the same rhetoric by the Govt. the same debate on talk shows. Nothing has changed after 26/11. Our booming economy and our status as a rising power has made Mumbai & Delhi as the most vulnerable cities to terrorist attacks. Look at the past four months and we were given enough warnings about a bigger attack in future. The number of failed bomb attacks – in Delhi high court, Delhi's Gargi College, Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and elsewhere. They were dismissed as pranks. Perhaps these were the result of the Karachi Project which David Hadley revealed in his interrogation to FBI. Mumbai blasts could be an indication that the Karachi Project is blooming in India. Home grown Jehad group have been active and our Intelligence have failed to trap them. Not one of the five urban terrorist attacks that preceded the latest Mumbai bombings has been solved. Perhaps the lull after 2008 has set in complacency in the intelligence agencies. This was evident in the goof-ups in the 'Most Wanted' list that was posted to Pakistan. It's clear that coordination among security agencies in India is still lacking. And why not as many of the internal security reforms proposed after the 26/11 attacks have bitten the dust. Despite decades of terror attack we haven’t been able to pluck the shortage in the Police personnel in our country. As per the home ministry, about 5,40,000 policemen were immediately required to make up the shortages in our police forces. But less than a third of that number has been recruited till date. Our projections for policing are well below the UN recommended ratio of 222 policemen per 1,00,000 citizens. Worse still, for a country repeatedly targeted by terrorists, India's internal security budget is less than 1% of its GDP, whereas India's defence budget is about 2.5% of its GDP. If the responsibility of the government is to protect its citizens, then it simply needs to spend more on equipping, training and arming our policemen to achieve greater efficiency. We urgently need to spend a huge amount on CCTV Camera installed on strategic positions. These footage are crucial in catching terrorists. The London bombers, the Time square bombers and Kasab were all caught on camera. We need to model our Police and surveillance on UK, which has about 1.85 million CCTV cameras and the average Briton is caught on camera 70 times a day as per the police figures. Living in a surveillance society is the need of the hour. We also need to adopt the idea of community policing from UK which has protected London which perhaps has the largest movement of terrorists through it but remains secure.
We need to accept that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its cut in aids to Pakistan will make our neighborhood a secure field for the terrorist to play as they want. Mr. Chidambaram has rightly pointed out that India is located in one of the most dangerous regions in the world. Our neighborhood is the global terrorism's epicenter. It is their aim to target India's economic rise and its cities, which remain crowded, disorganized and vulnerable. We need some elementary steps that could make citizens secure. Upgrading our police force, investing in technology for internal security and the long awaited national intelligence grid initiative could help fill this void, but it is still some years from being completed. Until then, we are left at the mercy of the terrorist.
Mumbai is truck again. It’s a sense of déjà vu for all. We saw the same horror scenes repeatedly on TV, the same rhetoric by the Govt. the same debate on talk shows. Nothing has changed after 26/11. Our booming economy and our status as a rising power has made Mumbai & Delhi as the most vulnerable cities to terrorist attacks. Look at the past four months and we were given enough warnings about a bigger attack in future. The number of failed bomb attacks – in Delhi high court, Delhi's Gargi College, Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and elsewhere. They were dismissed as pranks. Perhaps these were the result of the Karachi Project which David Hadley revealed in his interrogation to FBI. Mumbai blasts could be an indication that the Karachi Project is blooming in India. Home grown Jehad group have been active and our Intelligence have failed to trap them. Not one of the five urban terrorist attacks that preceded the latest Mumbai bombings has been solved. Perhaps the lull after 2008 has set in complacency in the intelligence agencies. This was evident in the goof-ups in the 'Most Wanted' list that was posted to Pakistan. It's clear that coordination among security agencies in India is still lacking. And why not as many of the internal security reforms proposed after the 26/11 attacks have bitten the dust. Despite decades of terror attack we haven’t been able to pluck the shortage in the Police personnel in our country. As per the home ministry, about 5,40,000 policemen were immediately required to make up the shortages in our police forces. But less than a third of that number has been recruited till date. Our projections for policing are well below the UN recommended ratio of 222 policemen per 1,00,000 citizens. Worse still, for a country repeatedly targeted by terrorists, India's internal security budget is less than 1% of its GDP, whereas India's defence budget is about 2.5% of its GDP. If the responsibility of the government is to protect its citizens, then it simply needs to spend more on equipping, training and arming our policemen to achieve greater efficiency. We urgently need to spend a huge amount on CCTV Camera installed on strategic positions. These footage are crucial in catching terrorists. The London bombers, the Time square bombers and Kasab were all caught on camera. We need to model our Police and surveillance on UK, which has about 1.85 million CCTV cameras and the average Briton is caught on camera 70 times a day as per the police figures. Living in a surveillance society is the need of the hour. We also need to adopt the idea of community policing from UK which has protected London which perhaps has the largest movement of terrorists through it but remains secure.
We need to accept that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its cut in aids to Pakistan will make our neighborhood a secure field for the terrorist to play as they want. Mr. Chidambaram has rightly pointed out that India is located in one of the most dangerous regions in the world. Our neighborhood is the global terrorism's epicenter. It is their aim to target India's economic rise and its cities, which remain crowded, disorganized and vulnerable. We need some elementary steps that could make citizens secure. Upgrading our police force, investing in technology for internal security and the long awaited national intelligence grid initiative could help fill this void, but it is still some years from being completed. Until then, we are left at the mercy of the terrorist.
LIVING DANGEROUSLY
It's the fastest growing crime in India. New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh have been in the news for multiple rape cases in the last Month. A lot of noise is being generated about the rising rape cases in our country specially in Delhi and UP. Though the statistics suggests the dubious distinction of the ''rape state'' has gone to Madhya Pradesh. It has reported the highest number of rape cases as per The National Crime Records Bureau's publication. As an embarrassed government gets ready to enact tougher rape laws, the victims continue to face an insensitive police and criminal justice system.
The reasons for this sudden increase in rape is a complex mix of migration and growing urbanization, shrinking spaces in cities and the high visibility of women outside their homes. Lack of value-based education, dwindling healthy social relationships, and easy access to vulgar pornography are some of the reasons cited by the experts. However, law enforcement agencies argue that actual rape cases haven't increased substantially, what has is their reportage. And in any case since 80 per cent of the accused are known to the victims, it's a crime virtually not preventable. Not only that, the rate of conviction of rapists is also insignificant. Put together, these factors create a lethal combination that encourages rape, for the fear of being caught and punished is insignificant while the chances of getting away with the crime are very high.
India's booming economy has brought sweeping social change in our culture. The number of women in the workforce has roughly doubled in the past 15 years. There has been an explosive clash between the rapidly modernizing city and the embattled, conservative village culture upon which the cities increasingly encroaches. A Thomson Reuters Foundation global poll named India as the fourth most dangerous place for women in the world, after Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan. It is about women’s lack of choices in general. Unlike Afghanistan, Congo or Somalia (fifth on the shame list), India is not war-torn. It is just violent towards its women through deeply entrenched social and cultural conditions. Apart from rape, murders, dowry deaths, honour killings and various forms of domestic abuse, our failure to check female infanticide and foeticide, or trafficking of women, or to provide women adequate healthcare and education have clinched our place in the top rung of the shame list.
The rising rape cases have created some ripple in the urban women resulting in the creation of a “Besharmi Morcha” in Delhi. This group proposes a “Slut Walk” an international street protest by women. It is as a march against sexual violence and opposition to the general belief that a woman’s indecent dressing promotes rape. But let’s not lose perspective. The Slut Walk is not a movement to empower women in India. It is more an urban & elite class protest. It is like polishing a door knob when you don’t have a door, or even a roof over your head. Me-too feminism plucked from countries where women’s rights and gender equality is treasured doesn’t work for India, where women lack basic human rights. But this does not make it irrelevant. Feminism needs all kinds of movements and forms of protest. If calling it Slut Walk gets people to notice the protest and if it starts discussion and debates to bring in changes in perception then let the ‘Slutty Savitries’ protest.
It's the fastest growing crime in India. New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh have been in the news for multiple rape cases in the last Month. A lot of noise is being generated about the rising rape cases in our country specially in Delhi and UP. Though the statistics suggests the dubious distinction of the ''rape state'' has gone to Madhya Pradesh. It has reported the highest number of rape cases as per The National Crime Records Bureau's publication. As an embarrassed government gets ready to enact tougher rape laws, the victims continue to face an insensitive police and criminal justice system.
The reasons for this sudden increase in rape is a complex mix of migration and growing urbanization, shrinking spaces in cities and the high visibility of women outside their homes. Lack of value-based education, dwindling healthy social relationships, and easy access to vulgar pornography are some of the reasons cited by the experts. However, law enforcement agencies argue that actual rape cases haven't increased substantially, what has is their reportage. And in any case since 80 per cent of the accused are known to the victims, it's a crime virtually not preventable. Not only that, the rate of conviction of rapists is also insignificant. Put together, these factors create a lethal combination that encourages rape, for the fear of being caught and punished is insignificant while the chances of getting away with the crime are very high.
India's booming economy has brought sweeping social change in our culture. The number of women in the workforce has roughly doubled in the past 15 years. There has been an explosive clash between the rapidly modernizing city and the embattled, conservative village culture upon which the cities increasingly encroaches. A Thomson Reuters Foundation global poll named India as the fourth most dangerous place for women in the world, after Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan. It is about women’s lack of choices in general. Unlike Afghanistan, Congo or Somalia (fifth on the shame list), India is not war-torn. It is just violent towards its women through deeply entrenched social and cultural conditions. Apart from rape, murders, dowry deaths, honour killings and various forms of domestic abuse, our failure to check female infanticide and foeticide, or trafficking of women, or to provide women adequate healthcare and education have clinched our place in the top rung of the shame list.
The rising rape cases have created some ripple in the urban women resulting in the creation of a “Besharmi Morcha” in Delhi. This group proposes a “Slut Walk” an international street protest by women. It is as a march against sexual violence and opposition to the general belief that a woman’s indecent dressing promotes rape. But let’s not lose perspective. The Slut Walk is not a movement to empower women in India. It is more an urban & elite class protest. It is like polishing a door knob when you don’t have a door, or even a roof over your head. Me-too feminism plucked from countries where women’s rights and gender equality is treasured doesn’t work for India, where women lack basic human rights. But this does not make it irrelevant. Feminism needs all kinds of movements and forms of protest. If calling it Slut Walk gets people to notice the protest and if it starts discussion and debates to bring in changes in perception then let the ‘Slutty Savitries’ protest.
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