Breaking News in Bombay via AP:
Seven explosions rocked Bombay’s commuter rail network during Tuesday evening’s rush hour. The blasts ripped apart train compartments and reportedly killed dozens, police and Indian media said.
Though the chaos makes it difficult to ascertain exact numbers, how many have been injured, Indiant tv reports said that “the death toll could be in the dozens.”
40 80 100 105 137 163 172 200 people have died and 300 464 700 are injured. I’m sure that before I can even update this post, one of you will comment with the latest numbers; I sincerely hope that they are not high. I know, I’m excessively idealistic, but whenever I hear “Breaking News”, “Bombs” or “Trains” or similar, I screw my eyes shut and pray for miracles.
Television images showed injured victims sprawled on train tracks, frantically dialing their cell phones. Some of the injured were being carried away from the crash site. The force of the blasts ripped doors and windows off carriages, and luggage and debris were strewn about.
Pranay Prabhakar, the spokesman for the Western Railway, confirmed that seven blasts had taken place. He said all trains had been suspended, and he appealed to the public to stay away from the city’s train stations.
Bombay, India’s financial center, and New Delhi, the capital, were reportedly on high alert. Bombay’s commuter rail network is among the most crowded in the world.
Developing… 🙁
……………………..
UPDATE # 1
Though CNN is reporting that no group has claimed responsibility, the NYT has updated the article I originally cited with the following:
The blasts appeared to have come in quick succession — a common tactic employed by Kashmiri militants that have repeatedly targeted India’s cities.
The first explosion hit the train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
India’s CNN-IBN television news, which had a reporter traveling on the train, said the blast took place in a first-class car as the train was moving, ripping through the compartment and killing more than a dozen people.
…All of India’s major cities were reportedly on high alert following the attacks, which came hours after a series of grenade attacks by Islamic extremists killed eight people in the main city of India’s part of Kashmir.
……………………..
UPDATE # 2
MANISH IS OKAY.
The image you see above is from Ultrabrown; his post on this horrific terrorist attack is here.
……………………..
UPDATE # 3
CNBC’s reporter phones in to update the death toll: 100.
……………………..
UPDATE # 4
The Mumbai Help blog has resources, updates and a very important reminder that blood donors are needed desperately.
If you’re not shaken to your very core by this tragedy yet, perhaps this simple quote from that site will affect you as much as it has unexpectedly moved me (every other person on my team at work is a PWCer):
I’m so sorry
harshad borgaonkar from price waterhouscooper. His i-card was found amongst the debries [link]
My prayers are with all who were lost, those who are injured, those who are fighting to literally pick up the pieces and help, those who cannot reach family and friends and everyone else who is affected by this craven, calculated attack.
……………………..
UPDATE # 5
Bloomberg.com provides new and updated totals:
India’s commercial hub, was rocked by seven explosions on trains and in commuter stations yesterday, killing at least 163 people and injuring 464 in the nation’s worst terrorist attack in 13 years. [link]
There is now a wiki for the event and instead of lashing out scornfully against India’s neighbor, please note that it was created by a Pakistani-American in California named Sabahat Ashraf (via ASATA’s mailing list). SAJA says he “helped lead similar resource (sic) during 2005 Kashmir earthquake”.
SAJA’s contribution to blast-related resources–which includes a link to SM Alum Manish Vij’s Ultrabrown— is here.
……………………..
UPDATE # 6
Via Reuters, the grim reality of the wounded city, where predictably, they are running low on hospital beds as well as blood:
“Most of the patients have received burn injuries and are suffering from severe trauma,” M.E Yeolekar, head of Sion Hospital, told Reuters.
“In my entire career as a physician, this is the second destruction I have seen of this magnitude,” he said, referring to bomb blasts in the western city in 1993 which killed 250 and wounded around 1,000 people.
On whom we are praying for:
Hundreds of relatives frantically pored over a list of dead and injured outside the hospital, a scene repeated at many other hospitals, packed with people searching for friends and relatives.
Some of the people who entered a makeshift morgue were unable to identify badly mutilated bodies.
Considering some of the uglier talk on this thread and elsewhere, it’s important to remember that Muslims died, too:
“I spoke to him 10 minutes before he died,” said Haji Mastan, sobbing uncontrollably over the death of his cousin Mukti Mahmood Darvesh, who was travelling on one of the suburban trains.
“Why did it have to end like this? He was young and he has children.”
It’s always darkest before the dawn:
In another hospital, staff constantly mopped up blood from the floor as patients were being wheeled in by the minute.
“We collected scattered limbs with our own hands and put them in bundles and sent them to hospital,” said Santosh Patil, a railway labourer, as he stretchered in a mangled body.
First person account of an attack designed for maximum carnage:
“It was a deafening sound and before anybody could realise anything the roof of the train was ripped apart,” said Mukund Thakur, who was travelling to the northern suburb of Andheri.
“People were thrown outside. I saw limbs strewn around me.”
During our lowest moments, all we have is each other:
Local people distributed food and water among hundreds of people who waited for news from their near and dear ones.
“We are trying to persuade them to have something,” Gurpreet Singh Bangar told Reuters.
“In this moment of distress and tragedy, people don’t care for food,” he said. “But everybody has to live.”
……………………..
UPDATE # 7
More from the Beeb. Some commuters never had a chance:
An eyewitness at Mahim told the BBC some of those who had jumped from the train were run over by another train coming in the opposite direction.
Others were lost in the stampede which was inevitable, considering all the panic.
What price, for a life? Nothing can truly compensate for such a staggering loss, but…
The Indian railway minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav, has announced financial help for the victims and their relatives. He said relatives of those killed will get 500,000 rupees ($11,000) each.
He has promised jobs for the victims’ relatives and said the railways would also bear treatment costs for the injured.
……………………..
UPDATE # 8
I know, it’s ten hours old, but this quote from the web chat WaPo hosted with Suketu Mehta, the author of Maximum City, almost makes me smile:
Washington, D.C.: As a former Bombay resident, I was pleasantly pleased at the way the city reacted to the bomb blast last time around. I hope the same sense will prevail this time as well — nothing defeats the terrorists more than gettting back to normal within hours of such an incident.
Every resident of the city — former or current — walks wounded today.
Suketu Mehta: Bombay is not going to be beaten down by these blasts. In 1993, the blasts killed 257 people; one of the buildings bombed was the Stock Exchange. The plotters were hoping to cripple the financial nerve center of the city. When the Stock Exchange reopened two days later, using the old manual trading system because the computers had been destroyed, it actually gained ten percent in the next two days. Just to show them.
Show ’em again.
……………………..
UPDATE # 9
Mutineer Neha reminds me to check and then change the “tolls”. At this point, 900 people are either dead or injured (200/700). Have mercy.
The number of dead in the eight near-simultaneous bombings during Tuesday evening’s rush hour in India’s financial hub has risen steadily as rescue efforts uncovered more bodies and people have succumbed to their injuries.[link]
Meanwhile, the city kept on keepin’ on and Suketu Mehta (see Update # 8) was right. As one tipster wrote about the Sensex in our News tab, “Can’t touch this”:
Following the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai yesterday, the Sensex opened marginally (nine points) lower at 10,605…Early nervousness saw the index slip to a low of 10,550. However, buying emerged at these levels and the index rebounded into the positive zone.
Unabated buying in technology and select index heavyweights saw the index surge to higher levels in the latter half of the day. The index touched a high of 10,939 – up 389 points from the day’s low. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 3% (316 points) at 10,930.[link]
……………………..
UPDATE # 10
More, from the Guardian/AP. While people once again board trains and the city limps back to its routine, hell isn’t over for far too many Mumbaikars:
Authorities say they do not know how many missing people there are. But Indian television stations are broadcasting pictures of dozens of missing in the hopes of helping relatives locate them.
You know how everyone knows or is related to someone in NYC? Same with Bombay:
“I’ve been searching for hours. I don’t know where else to go,” he sighed.
His colleague’s family lives in the southern city of Bangalore. “His wife called me up and said she hadn’t heard from him and we’ve been searching ever since.”
Because so many hospitals are treating victims, the search is difficult, Ahir says. Making matters worse, many with lesser wounds have been sent to the city’s many small clinics because the hospitals are overflowing.
“What do I tell her when she calls again?” he asked.
I hadn’t even thought of this heartbreaking reality:
There are also victims without families.
At a suburban hospital, a small boy lies unconscious, an oxygen mask strapped to his face. No one knows who he is.
“We searched him for identification, any photographs, but there is nothing,” said volunteer Shilpa Basin. “What if he was traveling with someone and they are injured as well?”
How many children are orphans now? If he wakes up, will this little boy even know where he’s from, what his parents’ names are, who he is? Heartbreaking.
This reminds me of Lower Manhattan, after September 11:
Gandhi, a college student, said her family had spread out to various city hospitals. “We’re taking his picture and showing it to anyone – to injured people, even to relatives of victims. Maybe someone will remember seeing him and we will find him,” she said.
Another horrifying problem: how do you identify someone after something like this…
Gautam Chavan, is fearing the worst.
“I saw how the coach had exploded, if that is the state of a rail coach, what chance do people inside have?”
Scenes of badly wounded people being brought to the hospitals upset him.
“What if we can’t recognize him? What if he’s not recognizable? When will we know?” he cried.
……………………..
UPDATE # 11
Via The Hindu: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri makes tactless remarks, which rightfully get condemned by India (and me).
External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Navtej Sarna said “no cause” could justify killing of innocent people…we find it appalling that Foreign Minister Kasuri should seek to link the blatant and inhuman act of terrorism against innocent men, women and children to so called lack of resolution of disputes between India and Pakistan”.
What did the Foreign Minister say exactly? Oh, just this:
Kasuri has said the “best way” of dealing with extremism in South Asia is to tackle “real issue” of Jammu and Kashmir.
Right, because that justifies the slaughter of innocents.
Noting that not much progress has been made on Kashmir problem, (Kasuri) said “incremental approach is good but now we must tackle real issues. And this is the best way of tackling extremism in South Asia”.
Of course it is. Kill first, talk later.
several right and left blogs in the u.s. covered the blasts. however, predictably they looked at it through their own political prisms and some used it for their own goal scoring. some right-leaning blogs used it to give bush carte blance and left-leaning ones used the very same blasts to bash bush. on the huffington post, some posters had to actually point out to the other commentators that they were so interested in criticizing bush that none of them had even mentioned one word of sympathy for the victims.
Al Mujahid for Debauchery –
I am a Kashmiri Pandit whose family was forced out in the early 90s from Srinagar. However, I still retain friendships with Kashmiri Muslims [most of whom are ardent supporters of Kashmiri Independence], here in the US and in Kashmir.
And everytime civillians are killed in their name, they are outraged. Not least because it is a natural huma reaction. But also because it does their cause a large disservice, by conflating their legitimate demands [not all, albeit] with those of the Pakistan backed nutcases.
WOW. Axe to grind much?
How on earth is this a helpful or even respectful thing to say at a time like this? Is your sensitivity fuse blown?
If it isn’t abundantly clear, we are no fan of jingoists either. Perhaps you could take your own advice.
You are articulate and obviously have a different POV than most here; it could be a valuable one, but that would probably require that you lay off the sanctimonious usage and abusage of this tragedy for other ends. It’s about as distasteful as when politicians wrap themselves in 9/11 for their own, thinly-veiled purposes.
Americans in general are not interested in happenings in other parts of the world. London did receive a lot of coverage, and so did the tsunami. But other than that Americans have always been an insular species and not too concerned with what happens anywhere else in the world. I would love to see this change of course but am just saying.
This is a common stereotype which I think is not backed up by facts. IMO, Americans are interested in other cultures, but they have misgivings about getting involved in the politics of other nations. I’m focusing on the general public, and not the actions of its government – so those of you ready to trot out Allende can take a rest. American children are obsesed with Japanese anime, style-conscious American homeowners devour magazines that tell that what is in fashion in France and Italy, Americans still travel overseas in greater numbers, impressive for a country bordered by only two nations. It’s professional sports leagues are increasingly international.
So while Americans have no problem in interacting with the world, they will have misgivings about adopting some attitudes of other countries. From the mundane (Americans trying to figure out why the world is gaga over soccer) to the serious (the consensus that America is greedy, despite pushing for debt relief, being he most important nation in tsunami relief, etc.).
My own interactions with middle class Indians is not that different from middle class Americans. They draw their impressions of America from the media – so in America, sex is free and easy, everyone has an SUV, some ethnic groups are too be avoided. An American may draw certain impressions from the media as well, but will generally keep those to himself. An Indian will draw impressions of a country they have never been to, and challenge you to prove them wrong. (Or that may just be Bengali trait.)
Forbes is reporting 200 dead and over 700 wounded 🙁
Here is a list of Mumbai/Thane blood banks with contact info.
KXB – I was specifically referring to happenings and not fun things like anime, etc. People in India and elsewhere generally know what’s going on in the U.S. But most Americans have no clue what’s happening in other parts of the world and nor are they interested. The geograhic insularity may have something to do with the psychological one. Their concept of international news is restricted to happenings in the Middle East and Israel. By contrast, if you watch the French news you will see thatthey report on all corners of the globe, including Africa (perhaps because of the Francophone element) and Asia and Australia and all of Europe and the US of course.
why were Shafraz’s comments deleted? i would much rather read that, even though one may take some exception to it and at least would have a chance of trying to refute it or argue it or debate it, than lame spoor’s repeated often vulgar one-note samba tiresome inanities which, for some reason that eludes me personally, others actually seem to still find funny and worthy of not being deleted. Shafraz wasn’t being overly rude or vulgar but was merely stating their point of view.
agreed…spoor was funny at first. but its old now…
Interesting that you mention this, Divya. On a slightly OT note, I actually had a non-minority colleague say (in the workplace!) that he felt the tsunami received far too much media attention because he didn’t feel there was any mystery or investigation aspect that warranted such heavy coverage. He elaborated that there was nothing special about a big wave coming and wiping out people, whereas he felt a war or terrorist attack was at least interesting in that there was a whodunnit angle.
How sick is the insensitivity of that?
Might have been accidental, since her other comment still stands. WGiiA, we’re not trying to be unfair or unreasonable. We are human, we’ve been known to accidentally delete someone innocent as we try and remove anti-Hindu or anti-Muslim garbage.
Mumbai is back to normal. The death toll has crossed 200, that’s 200 more Indian stars in the sky tonight. All trains are working again and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE SENSEX) closed 314 points up. The Prime Minister addressed the nation at 8 PM today, he saluted the people of Mumbai and Srinagar for their strength. For some reason the state of Kerala has been put on high alert? 😉
sorry anna, didn’t see that the earlier one still stands. i understand the difficulties you have in moderating a board. thanks.
Admin,
I was wondering if you can tell me why a story about IsraelÂ’s invasion of Lebanon deleted. I wasnÂ’t sure if the news tab is exclusively for news items relating to South Asia (if that is the case I apologize for posting the item). Thanks
I was wondering if you can tell me why a story about IsraelÂ’s invasion of Lebanon deleted. I wasnÂ’t sure if the news tab is exclusively for news items relating to South Asia (if that is the case I apologize for posting the item). Thanks
I’m not admin, but when I saw the article, I did not see what it had to do with South Asia. It’s an importnat story of the day, but it would look just as out place if this forum focused on China, South Africa, or Brazil.
It is. 🙂 All things brown, pertaining to the South Asian diaspora, etc. It’s not for other news stories, i.e., if we wouldn’t blog it here, it doesn’t belong. 🙂 Thanks for asking about it so nicely!
:+:
WGiiA:
No worries. 🙂
You’re a regular and I didn’t want you to think poorly of a space that is thrilled you waste your time with us. 😉
I was wondering if you can tell me why a story about IsraelÂ’s invasion of Lebanon deleted. I wasnÂ’t sure if the news tab is exclusively for news items relating to South Asia (if that is the case I apologize for posting the item). Thanks Hope this doesn’t cause any confusion, the posting was in no way my attempt to instigate fundamentalist rants.
Yes, it is for news items related to stories about the South Asian Diaspora or countries in South Asia.
ANNA,
Thanks for the response, it definitely makes sense and in hindsight it wasn’t a good move. Keep up the great work and don’t be overwhelmed by the fools they come dime a dozen.
Whose God is it anyways?, I deleted the rant by Shafraz. Accusing Hindu Indians of reaping what they sow and what not was pure and simple flame. They next 40 comments would have been wasted trying to diffuse the situation. There was no debate potential there. Our fingers are already tired from moderating so I am erring on the side of caution. If we delete anti-Muslim flame it is only fair that we delete anti-Hindu flame.
Wow, for once I get to be the “cool Mom”/good cop who’s more lenient. 😉 Who wants chocolate chip cookies and horizon organic milk? 😀
DD –
Wow — all about the entertainment value. Sick indeed.
Since it seems to be coming up so much: I just want to say that I really really appreciate SM’s ‘keep it balanced and extreme/hate-free policies’ as do many others. Those who complain about the blog being one-sided one way or the other usually have strong affiliations of one type or other, and so any comment that either seeks to understand the point of view of the other side or be critical of their own seems ‘extreme’ to them.
Clearly, a lot of hard work,time,intelligence and sensitivity go into making sure this remains a community (and what an important word that is in these times) that fosters dialogue and in which everyone feels welcome and is free to speak as long as it is clear that there is no hate-filled agenda.
PS: not to threadjack, but I do think SpoorLam’s satire is often funny and therefore acceptable…and while I agree that humour is subjective and his posts can get a little too anal (literally) for me, hey, there’s a rich Swiftian (and other) tradition of excremental/sexual satire behind him!
Firstly, SpoorLam is hilarious, and long may he/she rule.
Secondly, he/she satirises the essentialist views and inflammatory rhetoric of Hindu extremists who deal in victimhood and persecution complexes and talk about nuking Mecca and other such things like how anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor to Hindus etc etc etc
Thirdly I think his satire is very pleasing and cutting in the tradition of Swift and Rabelais. And all that thing about balls and missiles nicely mocks the macho priapic virility of Hindu nationalism effectively. It simply shows how crude those attitudes are in the first place. Plus it deflates pomposity.
Fourthly, by exaggerating these attitudes he/she shows how ridiculous such essentializing is.
Fifth, he/she is funny and naughty.
Hail SpoorLam!
I am sorry I cant agree with this. Its very common myth I think. People in India dont even have maps about their own cities and towns. I am talking about average folks not the upper 2%. If we really compare the upper 2% of US v/s Indian, the Americans would come out far ahead. But when comparing people compare an average person of the US to an advanced degree holder from India. Its apples and oranges comparison.
I have tried resisting asking you guys (Abhi, Anna, Siddhartha, et. al) to do this, since I do believe in free speech, but I’ve finally had enough and HAVE to request…can you guys PLEASE ban SpoorLam as well? His comments are disgusting, insulting, and in my opinion much worse than the comments of many others who have been banned here. Again, just a request, obviously you’ll do what you feel is right, and I do hate the concept of banning anyone, but I HATE the guy…and I’m nowhere NEAR on any level even close to being a Hindutva type. I feel you guys are banning a lot of people and deleting a lot of comments these days, yet somehow his insulting garbage is left alone. He is not funny anymore and he’s very offensive.
admin, i agree that the part about reaping what you sow was uncalled for at a time like this. (i’ve just read some rubbish about indians worshipping false gods, hence all the trouble). maybe i just overreacted because i don’t see every deleted comment as necessarily a flame. but reading what you’ve just said, you’re probably right. i myself have gotten carried away at times.
by the way, i waste far too much time here 🙂 don’t smoke, don’t drink, eat healthy, so i guess we’re all allowed to have one addiction (ok, in addition to most things sweet).
I’ll tell you what I will delete: any more requests to ban or the celebrations of Spoor Lam such requests invariably inspire. If we haven’t banned him yet, we obviously don’t feel that he violates our policies, which you are welcome to disagree with. Please scroll past him if it honestly bothers you that much. If we banned everyone who our commenters thought was offensive, this blog would be silent.
This is a thread about TERRORISM. The MURDER of innocents. The THEFT of everyone’s sense of safety. Please stay on-topic from now on, thank you.
hahaha. what a ripper.
it’s more like, “everyone we knoe knoes everything about the US.” What about the remaining 90% of not-us’?
Then, how do you and “everyone you knoe” score on the following quiz. Go on, take your time.
not to be snippy – but i found your comment somevaht patronizing.
I just got around to adding a comment here, after spending most of yesterday making sure all my friends back home were ok. Reading through these comments it looks like everyone has heard back from people they know. Janeofalltrades – I saw your comment saying that you hadn’t, I hope all is well.
As with others, what keeps me comming back here is the civil discourse and the administrators’ efforts to keep it that way.
I’m really saddened that yet another terrorist act has wrought havoc upon innocent people. My thoughts go to those who lost their lives or were hurt in this horrible event.
If we use sharfraz’s logic, Pakistan has hell coming towards it. By the way India hasn’t supported the LTTE since they blew up Rajiv Gandhi. If you really think that what goes around comes around, your Pakistan is in for quite a lot of pain in the very near future.
Since I am responsible for intern indoctrination and paddling, I’m sure I’ll be granted this opportunity for clarification (and then I’ll get out of the way of all the deleting of off-topic comments and hate-shit):
We have an excellent example of why banning certain people would be problematic, right here. Two fans of the personality in question comment about how they’re glad he’s allowed here, a few minutes later, another reader responds by raising a strong objection to said character…in other words, what we all need to realize is, for every person on this thread whom we can’t stand, someone else digs them fiercely. We can’t please everyone, but we have been able to please the majority of our readers, which is all/the best we can do.
Back to your regularly scheduled commenting. 😉
Bombay will come through. I was in graduate school when Indira Gandhi was assasinated. The city was silent, waiting. Our mess hall was not functioning, no restaurants were open, but the college across the road managed to stretch the remaining food in their pantry and invited us over.
A week or so later we all went to Sion Koliwada and enjoyed a magnifient dhaba meal.
Bombay!
I just spoke with two friends in Bombay, and am happy to report not only that they are well but that they say that the people of Bombay have not let themselves be instigated by troublemakers (no bandhs, strikes, violence) and that for the most part the city is back to its usual bustling self.
Our love and thoughts are with the victims and their families who continue to deal with the horror of what happened.
Hail Mumbai and Mumbaikars! (said the Dilli-walli)
Rkay,
Majority opinion is not all that matters; if it were, this blog would get as twisted and hijacked as the news tab does. Our first experiment with letting our readers control and contribute content has been VERY eye-opening. What’s clear is that it’s too easy for one side to manipulate what happens, that’s why WE are here, or this would be chaos.
This is neither a democracy nor a place where being rude is going to be tolerated. By rude, I clearly stated that any further comments on this matter would be deleted immediately as off-topic. I’ve deleted you thrice, you don’t seem to get the message.
You have been heard. There is no need to repeat yourself. Please do not bring this matter up on this thread again.
I can’t stand when people take something absolutely literally and then proceed to go overboard in their indignation. The point being discussed was that it’s a shame that there is not much coverage of this tragedy in the U.S. Someone said that Indian lives don’t matter so much which inspired to me to respond that it’s not just Indians but generally the rest of the world doesn’t matter so much over here.
If you insist on acting so awfully clever please do tell us why there is so little coverage of this in the U.S. instead of flying off in every possible tangent and being so awfully patronzing yourself. The rest of the stuff is not relevant to this thread so let’s drop it.
rkay123:
If you’re waiting for me, then here: I have nothing to say to you.
You are taking my comment and running with it; there is no voting, THIS IS A BLOG. Stop trying to find a way to get YOUR way. And please STOP with your threadjacking or I will support forcing you to do so, which would be unnecessary if you’d cooperate and be courteous enough to respect that this thread doesn’t exist for your tangents.
What part of the following did several of you NOT understand:
I’ll tell you what I will delete: any more requests to ban or the celebrations of Spoor Lam…
This is a thread about TERRORISM. The MURDER of innocents. The THEFT of everyone’s sense of safety. Please stay on-topic from now on, thank you.
If you’re that exercised about a certain commenter, voice your opinions directly to the moderators of this blog offline. I cannot BELIEVE the hypocrisy of complaining that Spoor Lam distracts from the thread at hand when some of you are practically SPAMMING a thread on terrorism with your redundant requests. You want to know what’s distracting? THAT IS.
“Whether it is Russia’s KGB, Pakistan’s ISI, America’s CIA, Britain’s MI5 or Israel’s Mossad, it is an open secret that these agencies receive billions of dollars annually to carry out covert operations in foreign lands. Time and again we have seen in the news (which is later quickly dispelled) about their involvement in funding local warlords, mafia gangs and regional extremists. [b]To be honest even India’s RAW is no angel and has been active in its neighborhood – definitely in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.[/b]”
http://desicritics.org/2006/07/12/040634.php
i must say cnn is doing a fairly decent job of following up on the blasts. they’ve had two different reports so far and now a third is coming up on “why mumbai.” they’re not as extensive as i would wish them to be but given the developments in the mideast and other news, at least they’re making an effort.
I actually stayed up late last night, because I had read that several of you thought Anderson Cooper’s show did well wrt covering this…it repeated at 1am and those of you who had left your favorable opinions were right. It was excellent, intelligent, worth losing some sleep over. 😉
I wonder if he’s got brown assistants/producers. 😀
while I don’t agree with this letter completely, I thought it was well written and shows a side of India that should be admired.
I sincerely hope people are not stoic this time around. I hope action will be taken and people will not forget after a couple of months.
Funny…I just received that letter about 20 minutes ago from a cousin. I had thought that she had written it, but I guess not. As for the sentiment, it’s nice and shows a people trying to show both solidarity and endurance. Does it gloss over real problems in Mumbai? Yes, but I’m willing to live with that. We had similar sayings here in NYC after 9/11, sayings that created a false sense of solidarity, an illusion we willingly embraced for the strength it gave us.
Are you talking about me? why shouldnt i take you literally? It’s what you said.
The point i refuted was that indians are god’s wisdom incarnate. but ’nuff said.
The questions i cited were deliberate – highlighting previous and ongoing instances of human depravity – but disconnected to indic involvement to allow a somewhat detached analysis on the forum. been floating in my head since morning – tag along if you want to. the burundi genocides have reportedly killed or displaced over half a million people. herschel grynspon, a jew, killed some german officer and that was cause enough for the goebbels to launch krystalnacht, the beginning of the holocaust. (was that terrorism? indeed such an act against israel today would likely be an act of terror – witness israel’s justification of attacking lebanon). the lord’s army in uganda has violated human decency by bringing children into the war – imagine girls as young as 7 being used as pass-alongs by soldiers, and mutilations so abhorrent they make the stomach churn. is this any more or any less disturbing than the mumbai bombings. why isnt there more coverage of these in the newspapers. are we all blind? do we not want to see misery except when it strikes close to home? can we not commiserate except when it is in our selfish interest to do so? what is the measure of man?
Maybe mumbai has it right. inured to pain and these random incidents of violence. will go on. And hence I posted that excerpt from Whitman earlier.
to get back To your posting – i disagree with kobayashi, manish and your (just to pick a few) postings that there is something insidious about the lack of indian focus in popular media. heck, it isnt like you particularly know about what’s going on in africa – so it is odd to see the hand-wringing. newspapers cater to their demographic. canadian newspapers covered this, because there’s sizable indic population out here(including I) – sells newspapers – had the target demographic lacked critical mass, big deal, stick it TO the Bakc pages.
I hate to get into a personal discussion here.. and i have to sign off now.. if you feel i’m leaving you hanging, i will owe you a discussion – post a link to your email add and we can continue elsewher.
Not sure if this is going to be deleted, but i will write anyway and briefly. Why don’t you guys start a separate thread for people who want to debate your policy in deletion. I feel for the moderators – I mean how much can you keep deleting. And i think it is fair that people debate your policy but obviously not on this thread.
Dear admin, why are there so many articles in this website about the bomb blasts in Mumbai but NONE about bomb blasts in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh? Are the lives of people living in these countries considered less than those of Indians?
“I sincerely hope people are not stoic this time around. I hope action will be taken and people will not forget after a couple of months.”
I think part of it has to do with India’s love-hate-once ruled by- relationship with the muslim community. Imagine if the United States was ruled by Al-Qaeda for 3 centuries or however long it was before the WTC attacks.
Basil,
Could you tell us where and when serial bomb blasts have taken place in Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh in the past two days that have killed over 200 people?
I think part of it has to do with India’s love-hate-once ruled by- relationship with the muslim community. Imagine if the United States was ruled by Al-Qaeda for 3 centuries or however long it was before the WTC attacks.
No – while the liklihood is high that it was an Islamic group like Lashkar or Jaish, it has nothing to do with modern day India’s feelings towards the Mughal era. India is the softest target in the world for terrorism, because terrorist groups (Islamic, ULFA, Naxals) know that the government will hold its punches. And if the point is ever reached that the gov’t has the terrorists on the ropes, these groups suddenly urge peace talks, until they can regain their strength.
Very comprehensive write-up. Probably the most explicit I have come across. Hope people who get into the root of this problem are as throrough as you have been and Bombay boomerangs to normal and moves like before.