Mumbai

It has been a terrible 24 hours (or more) for India. Mumbai is virtually a war zone, looks like a battle field. I started following the incidents from about 19:00hours from yesterday. Mumbai has been brutally attacked by 20 or so terrorists at 10 different locations; more than 100 people are said to be dead; among them about 6 foreigners and many taken hostage. It seems that the terrorists arrived in a boat from Arabian sea after having dropped from a mother-ship off the Indian coast. Most of the news channels around the world have been covering the incidents live with in-depth analysis of what has been taking place. How long will this continue? Hasn't human life got any value?

There will be a lot of questions asked in the next few days. Who are responsible? How can a bunch of people just come in a few boats and attack a country which claims to be the biggest democracy and boast of third largest armed forces in the world? What are the politicians and the government doing?

India is not a stranger to indiscriminate terror attacks. Such attacks have occurred regularly, and with steadily increasing frequency, in recent years. In this year itself there have been bomb blasts in many major cities of India that has left many dead. Mumbai, India's financial capital, has been targeted before. So why did the government not have a Crisis- Management team in place? The terrorists it seems knew exactly what they were doing; where to hit , how to move around the city and even the layout of each hotel probably better than the security forces. Is this an intelligence failure or a Coast guard failure or a security failure or a total failure of law and order in the state?


Countries and individuals are of mainly 2 types; some are proactive, some reactive (early or late!)...In this case I felt that the government and authorities were almost inactive (with due respect to all the security, police and other forces who are still trying to rescue the innocent lives). It took the government about 24 hours to even establish a help line! I remember a movie which I watched recently called 'Wednesday'. In this movie a common man who was sick of living in terror, decided to act as he felt that the government and police were inefficient to maintain the safety and security of common people. No wonder people start thinking along these lines; There is widespread shock, anger and sadness around; especially anger against the politicians. I hope the politicians and authorities start doing something for their country. This should be a wake up call for everyone and let episodes like this never be allowed to be repeated again.