Cyclic Tragedy and Farce
Perhaps we need to update Marx’s idea of history that it “repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” to suit the history of terrorism in India where each cyclic repetition consists of a brutal tragedy immediately followed by a hopeless farce.
The script is tiresomely familiar. Islamic terrorists attack and kill by the scores, if not hundreds, in acts of mindless mayhem and destruction. Even as the short tragedy is unfolding, the farce begins with the prime minister and other government officials declaring that they will punish …

Well, now we can be assured of our security and safety from Islamic terrorism. TRAI — the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India — is taking steps to combat terrorism by securing WiFi networks.
With terrorists using unsecured wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks to shoot off emails every time they carry out bomb blasts, TRAI is examining a series of measures to have security processes in place to protect such networks. [Source]

Christopher Hitchens writing in Slate:
The very name Pakistan inscribes the nature of the problem. It is not a real country or nation but an acronym devised in the 1930s by a Muslim propagandist for partition named Chaudhary Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind. The stan suffix merely means “land.” In the Urdu language, the resulting acronym means “land of the pure.” It can be easily seen that this very name expresses expansionist tendencies and also conceals discriminatory ones. Kashmir, for example, is part of India. …

A modern digital computer is a general purpose machine, as opposed to say a toilet flush which is a special purpose machine. General purpose machines can be programmed to do an infinitely wide array of tasks. Humans are the ultimate general purpose machines.
Humans can be programmed to do astonishing feats of technological and scientific marvels. Take the large hadron collider (LHC) which will go online in a few days. What seemingly superhuman planning, coordination, determination, knowledge, curiosity, foresight, . . . I am running out of adjectives to properly …

“Paging Dr Singh, paging Dr Singh. Dr Singh, please pick up the house telephone. Mr M J Akbar has an urgent message to deliver regarding the health of the Mango Man.”
Sorry, Dr Singh is busy driving a taxi.
What the hell is that supposed to mean, “driving a taxi”?
You know, busy doing other things. And besides he is not that type of doctor, the type you call in hospitals.
So what exactly is he doing. I demand to know. I don’t know why he should be driving a taxi.
Perhaps I …

The news of death and destruction from terrorism has become somewhat of a routine. The politicians make inane statements about how all this is most lamentable and aside from telling people to “maintain peace and quiet” they appear to go about their business as usual. The reactions from various quarters are predictable from past experience. One reaction which fills me with revulsion and disgust is the type that emanates from idiot pseudo-secularist commies. One such ended up in my mailbox just minutes ago. One Jaya Kamlani contributed this to a …

The Hindu reports that an official of the “Indian Union Muslim League has asked the media and public to not to brand the perpetrators of the deed as Muslims.”
“I appeal to the media and the public not to brand the perpetrators of the Bangalore blasts as Muslims,” State president of IUML K M Khader Mohideen told reporters here on Saturday night.
“These kind of people are neither Muslims, Hindus or Christians. The Centre and the state government should take steps to nab them quickly,” he said.
That’s an example …

A BBC report on the recent Ahmedabad bombs concludes with:
Mr Modi has been accused of failing to protect Muslims in the riots in Gujarat during 2002 in which at least 1,000 people died, including many in Ahmedabad. The violence erupted when a fire broke out on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing at least 59 people.
I suppose BBC had reported the American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 with something like:
The US invaded Afghanistan after the twin towers of the World Trade Center in NY collapsed after fire broke out killing …

Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard University, wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple of day ago: “The Worshippers of Death”
A few people wrote advising me to not to mention Islam on a blog about India’s economic development. They think it is taboo to mention Islam and point out its influence on the world today. That is puzzling to me.

Religious insanity should be ridiculed as strenuously and as frequently as one can. Here I am talking about the recent demand by the Pastafarians that since their religion forbids the eating of pasta without meatballs, all vegetarian pasta dishes be banned. It offends the Pastafarians that people can even contemplate the eating of pasta without the required half a dozen meatballs.

I know that outsourcing things to India is all the rage in the world today and how the world is getting to be flat (thanks, Tom Friedman, what would we do without your wisdom) but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Apparently Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wants to outsource the idea of how the legal system should be run in a democratic state to India. His idea is that the state should recognize sharia, the Islamic legal system, for those who profess Islam in the UK. India discriminates …

The nation of India and the ideology of Islam have a long history. India was subjugated by Islam for many centuries and it bears those wounds till date. Now the entire globe is feeling the pain that Islam inflicts on what it calls “Dar ul Harb” or the “Land of War” (as opposed to it’s own dominion the “Dar ul Islam”.) India is unfinished business for Islam — as many high-ranking officials of Islam do remind us from time to time. In the Islamic division of humanity into two distinct …

If your government is manipulated into disregarding the law of the land by rioting murderous mobs, you might be a third-world country.
{Continued from part 1.}
Taslima Nasreen got hounded out of Kolkata by rioting Muslims. The state of West Bengal displayed its spinelessness and instead of providing protection to a visitor, gave in to intimidation and violence. She was packed off to Jaipur. The fear of murderous mobs compelled the Rajasthani government to kick her out. She is now hiding somewhere in New Delhi, the capital of India. One …

Here we go again. In March of 2001, the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. These statues had stood there since the early 6th century. Symbols of universal compassion, these were in the eyes of Islam, something that had to be destroyed.

Full marks for perseverance, though. “When Mahmud of Ghazni conquered Afghanistan and part of west India in the 12th century, the Buddhas and frescoes were spared from destruction though Buddhist monasteries and other artifacts were looted or destroyed. Aurangzeb, the last Mughal emperor distinguished for his religious …

My friend Nitin Pai of The Acorn has an op-ed in the Mint, “Why India must export its Islam.” He writes:
In a secular state such as India, there is little role for the state in matters of faith and religion. But the rise of a radical, intolerant version of Islam around the world is also not in its interests. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran have no self-imposed restrictions on promoting their own Islamic values. It is unlikely that India can counter these exertions of soft power by promoting the virtues …

Such a Pity
It is easy to slip into self-pity when battling what appears to be a nasty ‘flu. One’s view of the world is jaundiced and it all appears rather pointless. Events appear a grimmer shade of black when viewed from the context of physical illness. Yet, to put it in perspective, one should not complain about a temporary illness when others go through real ordeals. It is exactly one year ago that nearly 200 people lost their lives and several hundreds horribly injured just going about their daily business …

Well I am off to the City Formerly Known As Madras. I will be in Chennai for the weekend.
Here is a classic Christopher Hitchens piece for you reading pleasure. “It’s impossible to satisfy “Rage Boy” and his ilk. It’s stupid to try.” And don’t forget to see the pictures of Rage Boy here.

Just in case you were getting carried away reading Indian newspaper reports about how wonderfully Indians in the US were doing, here is a report that will give you pause. One can be fairly certain that this will not be reported by the main stream Indian press. After all, we cannot imagine home-grown jihadis, can we? We are a secular country.

“Where were you on Sept 11th?” is always going to be an easy question to answer for me, and I guess for a few hundred million others. Not only the day but the exact set of events that led up to the shock of learning that something extraordinary was happening would be forever remembered and often recalled.

India’s development is not insulated from global forces shaping the world. Islamic terrorism is a global reality that only the seriously deluded can deny. Its bloody hand reaches deep inside the global human breast daily and wrenches the heart out.
The world spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year trying to protect itself. The security apparatus we go through at the airports is in place largely to dissuade jihadists. Soon I guess the local train stations in Mumbai will have to have some sort of security in place.
Islamic …