And you can ?

Sonia Gandhi has first hand experience of the pain that terrorism brings – she lost her husband and mother in law to it. If there is one person in the current political setup who has suffered because of terrorism, it is her.

I am not sure if public flogging is the right method just that it cannot be sure if it can be implemented. And thus it can be one of the solutions to the problem for now.

if your theory of the brain and the body pain is true in this scenario how do you explain the decisions taken in say Australia. Where every small bit of chance is not left out and every life is important.

Is this because of the differences in the size or that the Australian leaders care about lifes more than Indian ones?

People equal to atleast 10 jumbo jets die on the tracks of the local mumbai trains but nobody cares about it?

Where does this mentalitiy come from?

Is feeling pain the solution? Or Feeling itself? Something like empathy?

Suhit

Let me put it this way,
I care more about 1000+ IPKF soldiers who were killed due to delusions of Rajeev Gandhi.

As far as Rajeev Gandhi or for that matter Gandhi-Nehru dynasty is concerned it can go to hell. I do not give a damn.

Regards

you sure have a mean streak.
By the way Rajeev Gandhi would not have died if he was not meddling with Sri Lanka in the first place.
Ironically LTTE was supported by first Indira Gandhi and then her son.

Regards

Atanu’s response: I stand guilty as charge of having a mean streak. I am mean enough to insist that those who fail to protect innocent humans should feel a bit of the pain that the victims of terrorism suffer. I am mean enough to at least express outrage at the incompetence of those who have chosen to be the guardians of the society, and because of which incompetence and even criminal neglect defenseless people have to die while the leaders are protected at enormous public expense.

I disagree with the opinion of PM sleeping on his money bags while people are being killed. Government is working. It has its limitations.

I would say its the media which is sleeping (which also includes bloggers). We are so used to hindus being killed that whenever hindus get killed its just ‘innocents’ who get killed. But when a christian missionary dies its a nation of Hindu fundamentalists killing peace loving christians.
I would swear by ‘Hindu victims’.

But flogging the PM? Thats downright silly.

Atanu has an incendiary post which lambasts Islamic terrorism and suggests an alternative solution, which will actually spur the government to take concrete a [...]

We can publish the number of deaths attributed to them in a blog like yours which will be duplicated in other places. For example, you could have columns that list out the national party, the affiliated regional party, the acknowledged leader and the year in the first few columns and the breakup of Hindus, Muslims etc. who were killed in the subsequent columns. Providing sub totals simple, and telling.

I don’t know where to go for the elemental figures, else I would have published them myself.

Regards

Is India safe anymore?

The terror network in India has shown its true capabilities by planting bombs at will all over the country. The law and order machinery is in a frantic attempt trying to patch up the problems. But prevention is better than cure and we are too late now to prevent. We now have to uproot something which we could have nipped off in the bud earlier. And our government, bureaucracy failed us in that respect. And its not the people who made the mistake that are now repenting. Poor people are repenting for the mistakes their elected and non elected representatives have made.

Can people step out to lead a daily life without worrying about safely returning back home at the end of the day? If even sacred places of worship are being bombed (in true old Muslim invasion ways), can we consider ourselves to be in a peaceful and safe country? These iam sure are the current thoughts running in every Indian’s mind.

And iam sure the Government does not have an answer to that, an answer that can assure our minds. Iam sure Manmohan Singh of the Congress led UPA Government (for the record) is going to come out with a statement saying India is safe, government will do this and that. But honestly, after having heard him for quite some time now, i don’t feel like believing his words at all. Especially on issues like this. And they are dividing the masses further by adopting minority appeasement policies for garnering more Muslim votes.

Sad but true… We are losing our lands to jehadi fundamentalists of murderous intentions. And the political fraternity is sitting coolly counting the minority votes they make in the process.

Iam sure some Indians right now might even be contemplating moving outside India just to make sure that they are not bombed out of existence by a stupid fanatic.

I support your choice of the words Hindu victims.

Bombing Varanasi is similar to bombing Mecca or Medina.

Just imagine what would happen if that happened and that too by non-Muslims?

Has any country or Muslim leader / country come out stringly against these terrorists?

In UP, Mulayam and his cronies depend on the very extremist muslims who support these terrorists. The police are forced to so soft on this mafia because of their links to senior politicians.

From the column by Tavleen Singh on Cybernoon.com:

When I checked with police sources in U.P, if there was a deliberate policy to go soft on Muslims I discovered that the problem was more complicated. In the words of a senior police officer who asked not to be identified, ‘It isn’t that instructions have been given to go soft on Muslims. What has happened is that over a period of time the police has learned to understand the political needs of the government in power.’

When the police and administration is so weakened there is little chance of it being able to deal with terrorism. Combine this with general Muslim unrest over Danish cartoons and India’s recent nuclear deal with the United States and the terrorist violence in Benaras last week could be only the beginning. Our largest state with its huge Muslim population could turn into a centre for Islamist terrorism. This is scary because although a Hindu backlash may not be imminent – Mayawati is still favourite to win the next election there are signs that it lurks ominously in the wings. We must pray that it does not happen because when it does men like Veerbhadra Misra will not be heard.

Arvind: As for security at your institute. That is secondary. The primary objective of publicly flogging these politicians is that to prevent such attacks in the first place. Politicians will forced to take firmer measures in intelligence, take stronger action against the extremist muslims.

Krishna: Wholeheartedly agree with you. manmohan singh organized a meeting with the minority community to gauge their mood after bush’s visit and the cartoon protests. WTF doesn’t he hold something similar for Hindus? Instead, his advice is to “maintain peace and calm.”. This outright whoring is so infuriating, it’s a surprise Hindus haven’t revolted against this second incarnation of the british raj.

Here you go, another pseudo secular

> in Varanasi about two dozen innocent Hindus were bombed out of

I think you meant to write two dozen innocent _Indians_ rather than separate the victims and perpertrators by religious affiliations even if it may be somewhat accurate! There are Indians (of all religions or better still free of religion) who wish to make the nation better and at the same time there are criminals who would wish to do them harm, who also come from all religions. I’d like to quote Javali as channeled by Amartya Sen:
“there is no after-world, nor any religious practice for attaining that. . . . [Religious] injunctions . . . have been laid down in the [scriptures] by clever people, just to rule over [other] people.”

So let’s all reduce the religio-political nonsense and focus on the real issues like poverty reduction, economic growth, the need for basic education for the masses and things like that. These are what will save the nation in the future.

Atanu’s response: I wrote “Hindus” instead of “Indians” being murdered with good reason. Who do you expect in a Hindu temple — Muslims, Christians, Jews? Could it be possible that the terrorists were targeting Hindus and not merely Indians? This sort of prevarication is offensive and odius. It is political correctness gone haywire.

It is not my pointing out that Hindus were deliberately murdered that should worry you. What should worry you is how the government persistently pitches one religious group against the other by actively discriminating between people of different religions. Why should any group of people have differential job opportunities based on their religion? It is that sort of blatant discriminatory privileging that should rankle but the pseudo-secularists are immune to such matters.

India needs a deal with Israel to learn to better secure the land from fanatic murderers and child killers way before a nuclear assistance promise.

The depravity of these heinous acts can be truly understood only when the victim is in your immediate family. In the absence of that, everyone who directly influences and establishes policies with Pakistan and extreme/violent groups on Indian soil should look at pictures like this every morning and remember how similar their child is/was, and how fortunate they are that it is not their own – http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/10firstlook1.jpg

With every article on how India is rising, the media should be forced to highlight the death and suffering of innocent victims and how India consistently tops the list of innocent citizens killed by radical Jihadi criminals.

If I were the prime minister and I were to be publicly flogged for deaths due to terrorism, I would make every effort to prevent deaths, even if I were the most insensitive person. One can bear 10 floggings, but what if it were 100 or more?
Of course, the doctors will be monitoring to see that it is not fatal. I would get better ideas, like, for example, making a national citizens database that includes details of every citizen, in a citizen identification number, with fingerprints, and a smart card issued to every citizen. Total cashless transaction system with smartcards, nationwide, would show where the money is coming from and where it is going. And terrorists can’t do anything without money.

And the very sight of seeing a sincere or seemingly sincere official creates a sense of shame in the lesser officials motivating them to work more. A sincere person can bear the pain better, but it’s hard for a rogue to bear, and so your system will be especially hard on rogues.

Atanu’s response: Is it your contention that the alternative to merely telling people to stay calm is to say “don’t stay calm”? Is it possible that the powers that be could actually respond to the attacks such as seeking out and punishing those responsible? Is talk all that they are capable of? If so, should they not be sacked for incompetence?

Can you please help readers like me understand why public flogging figures so prominently in many of the solutions that you propose to the problems that plague our country?

Would this mean that in places where Sharia governs crime and punishment that there are no crimes because of the threat of brutal public punishment?

Otherwise I completely agree with you. The political elite are so far removed from terrorism. We cannot expect the political elite to act against terrorism unless terrorism has consequences for them.

I wrote earlier that:

The systematic murder of at least 21 people and the maiming of 62 others will receive the usual treatment from the Indian government and the media: copious breast-beating, crocodile-tearing, awards of money, lectures on maintaining “communal harmony” et al. for a week or ten days, after which life will go back to normal, till the next set of bomb blasts, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

A few years ago the NDA government was quite prompt in reacting to the Parliament bomb attack by amassing troops on the border. I remember thinking then that only when the elite (in that case, the political elite) are threatened do we see any action (or atleast, the impression of action) from the government. If the common man, woman and child are exploded or hacked to pieces or burnt beyond recognition while they are praying, shopping, playing, travelling, working, it really doesn’t shock the Indian (government’s) psyche anymore.

I bet you that the Indian government’s response will be substantially different if and when the elite (political/economic/social) are targetted.

Regards.

Atanu’s response: Why public flogging figures in my solutions is a matter for an entirely separate post. Stay tuned.