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Managing the rage

All the intoning calls for action in the face of the Mumbai terror strikes can barely disguise the underlying sense of helplessness and anger we are experiencing. A lot of it is justly directed against the politicians. Their cumulative destruction of the Indian state has left us with few option ....Read more

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Cancel the MFN statusBy: debjani | Wednesday , 3 Dec '08 22:48:48 PM Reply | Forward Can India not cancel the Most Favored Nation status to Pakistan, cancl all the river water sharing treaties and all trades with Pakistan? That will not require any war. It is well within the sovereign rights of India. How on earth the GOI can accuse a country of terror attacks on us and continue splurging taxpayers' money for providing economic benefits to that same country? Please Mr. Mehta, use your column. Let us enforce the economic blockade now!Direct attacks will turn away the world's sympathy from India as Pakistan is sure to play the pix of collatoral damage of innocent civilians that are sure to happen. In fact it is not beyond them to strategically and delibe rately place women and children in and around the vaious terror camps.As per US is concerened, India's interests were and are never their primary concers and never will be. Can they for sure say that the money and other logistics they are giving to Pakistan is not being diverted to fund terror against Indiia?

RAGE FOR CHANGEBy: Vishnu | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 19:57:25 PM Reply | Forward As the author rightly points out, the need is to plan our response intelligently. But that is the job of the government and not the common people. The common people should put pressure on the government only then will our netas and babus wake up to reality and take those intelligent actions. We have shown our resilience too many times and that has been abused. If we control our rage now, our future will become even more uncertain because the govenrment who is supposed to defend us will go back to sleep. NO THIS TIME WE ARE NOT RESTING UNTIL CHANGE IS EVIDENT UNTIL WE FEEL SECURE IN OUR OWN HOME!

This govt. has got to goBy: Manish | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 16:46:00 PM Reply | Forward The first and the foremost thing. THIS GOVT. HAS GOT TO GO!!

a Dozen Blasts in a couple years - Where is the rage ?By: SS P | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 16:08:46 PM Reply | Forward What rage are you talking about ? The one that all politicians and media personel MANAGE for the Indian psyche... The reason this bomb blasts has stood out in comparison with the other dozen is the fact that the terrorists choose to ask for UK and US passports. If they had not done so, even this act would have lost its battle with Hindu Terrorists in the Indian News Media.....Even at this hour the Indian PM refuses to name the terrorists ( unlike in the Malegaon case). Why fire Shivraj Patil, he was doing exactly what the administration desired....

Punish ALL terroristsBy: Bharavi Kulkarni | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 20:47:30 PM Reply | Forward Although I understand your frustration, I still notice the Hindu/muslim classification when it comes to terrorism. There should be no ifs and buts about terrorism. Congress is generally "soft" on terrorism and BJP is supporting a Hindu terrorist suspect. This will NOT work. Our message should be loud and clear - Either you are with the idea of India or against it, whatever your religion is. We MUST punish Sadhvi, Guru Afzal and others of their likes. To do that, we need to put all of them in one bucket. We also need to give each human life same respect whether regardless of one's religion, caste, age, gender... by our deeds. Failure to do so will leave gaping holes in our security as the indian society... no matter how tough we are.

American policy is good and India should follow itBy: Madhup Rathi | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 4:37:30 AM Reply | Forward Your statement that "US objectives have still not been achieved. The global problem of terrorism has been exacerbated rather than diminished" reflects your anti-american bias. George Bush represents American interests and they have been achieved to a large extent. No further act of terrorism has taken place against American civilians. An important country in the middle-east is under American control (albeit after initial hiccups). Finally, Iraq is the first experiment of democracy in medieval middle-east.

Managing the RageBy: Dr. Ajay | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 3:54:30 AM Reply | Forward As the President, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi, would you care to spell out the initiatives which must be undertaken now. One would think that having strong interference free institutions for conducting India's affairs would be the starting point since strong and right institutions would frame right policies and actions.The point is what does it take to make such institutions?The Centre for Policy Research could start putting together a tangible plan on how India should be re-making its institutions. If there is a credible actionable 'to do' list which is sold to the public and politicians, then one might get somewhere.You cannot leave it to politicians Mr. Mehta to come up with the plan. They can only react to your plan. May I suggest that serious and credible wonks pool their intelligence to come up with actionable plan 1,2,3 ... and make it stick?

Crowds are often wiseBy: Suresh | Tuesday , 2 Dec '08 3:33:09 AM Reply | Forward Your suggestion seems to be that the rise of voices and the clamour they create are not sensible, deliberate, logical or insightful. Maybe not any one person's ideas are. But together they are making some important points that you might want to consider before waiting for some high paid consultant or gadfly to come down from the mountain and give you the gyan.People are angry - for a goo reason. List them outIntellignece failed - and when it did not fail, analysis failed, and when that did not communications failed. Look up C4I and see that you call out for good command and control. Dont just lecture - people are demanding it. Lastly - people are claiming that the training was piss poor. Indeed it was. The police looked silly and ineffectual. Go over the countless hours of TV coverage and analyze it - and then report on the effectiveness of soldiers and security peopel hanging about and talking purposelessly without any command or control.