Trying to understand why terrorists are attacking Lahore
As Pakistan’s internal jihadi civil war intensifies, it is important to note that the groups targeting Pakistani cities—specifically the Pakistani army and law-enforcement agencies—are not the same ones as those that the Pakistani military establishment uses to attack India.
It is highly likely that the perpetrators of this [...]
The implications of terror-on-tap
A few remarks on yesterday’s terrorist attack on Pune (and an attempt to summarise the discussions over email, twitter & telephone).
There were two bombs. The one that went off was an improvised explosive device (IED) likely to be using ammonium-nitrate fuel oil (ANFO) with an RDX booster. The other was a [...]
And a question for Washington
Pune was attacked today, days after days after a top leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba named Pune as a target city at a public rally the Pakistani authorities permitted him to address (linkthanks @offstumped). (And yet, a significant element of Maharashtra’s law enforcement machinery was not engaged in securing the state against [...]
Would you co-operate with a mere regional power if you feel you have beaten two superpowers?
Kanti Bajpai is one of India’s best academic experts on international relations—and one who this blog holds in high regard. His op-ed in the Times of India today (linkthanks Raja Karthikeya Gundu), however, overlooks something big.
Arguing that India must stop [...]
On this week’s terrorist attack on Srinagar
“Barring that it took place around the corner from the offices of Srinagar-based television stations,” writes The Hindu in today’s editorial, “there was little to distinguish the incident from dozens of similar fire engagements that regularly take place in the State.”
During the course of the attack, the Pakistani [...]
Shouldn’t he tell his boss “to be alive to the impact of his government’s counter-terrorism strategies on minorities?”
The New York Times reports that a “radical Islamic group planning a protest march through the streets of a town that has achieved iconic status in Britain for honoring the passing hearses of British soldiers killed in [...]
And can we not get distracted please!
At a time when the astute businessmen running the Times of India are exploiting (via Oh, Teri!) the quintessentially Indian tendency to allow hope to triumph over experience, it is all the more important not to lose sight of reality. At the core of one of the most significant [...]
India cannot be competent in internal security without being competent in overall governance
“If 26/11 is not to become another one in an endless series of fatalities,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes “we need to keep asking the question: how can a people who have much to be proud of, be endowed with a state that has [...]
Democracy cannot operate without sunlight
Y P Rajesh in the Indian Express on Mumbai’s unanswered questions:
26/11 deserved an inquiry commission on the lines of the US commission that probed 9/11 and went on to blame the FBI and the CIA for intelligence failures. Particularly since the failures in India involved central and state, civilian and military [...]
India must expand its intelligence capacity in Western countries
Until US authorities arrested David Coleman Headley/Dawood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana no public account of India’s investigations into the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai even mentioned the Chicago connection. It is highly likely that Indian investigators had no clue as to Headley and Rana’s existence, leave alone [...]
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