Topic of every single conversation in the past week!

No prizes for guessing whats coming up on this post. It's about the terror strikes in Mumbai. This has been the conversational topic for the past week. And I'm sure its the same with all Indians. Although every single person agrees with the problem that our country faces today, everyone seems to have a different opinion, on what needs to be done to change things. Justifiably there has been a lot of emotional talk, but talk won't magically convert to actions, do they?

I heard one of my friends talking about joining the defence forces. It was the only source of genuine smile for me the whole gloomy week. Well, first of all, he is not fit physically to be in the armed forces. Even if he was physically fit, he has no where the amount of mental strength required. Thinking of the mental strength, I remember telling him that his heart used to race while playing CS(Counter Strike), a popular Multi player game. Think of a real situation, where he is holding a real gun and real bullets a flying past you. Well there is no reset in the real world!

I also hear a lot of people blaming the politicians for what has happened. They deserve to be blamed. They did not do their job in the right way. If the government were to be a software company, all these people would have had pink slips by dawn break. For the sake of analogy, its equivalent to me introducing a virus in a product of my company, but just way more serious than that. But the disappointing fact is that, no one seems to come up with the answer as to who the replacements are for these people. No politician in India is worth the respect a leader deserves. There is no idol among us. So that leaves us with no replacement. Lot of people are suggesting that a newly formed party should come to power. Although a Nobel idea, it would never work. Even if it does, how can one be sure that they are better administrators than the current people. So it is better to have a known devil rather than an unknown fairy.

Others are contemplating on national television of removing the democracy. Well, although I do believe that a strong dictatorship is better than a weak democracy (as mentioned in one of my previous post), I think its better to continue with democracy at the moment. Think of the 100 years of freedom struggle, all the lives lost for one purpose, to bring democracy to this country, to bring freedom. Changing this due to some bloody lunatics, is a disgrace to their courage and the selfless sacrifices they have made for their homeland.

For the moment, I would like just one change from the politicians a.k.a our leaders. "Be true to yourself". They need not be answerable to anyone. Lot of things cannot be answered in public. But they should be able to touch their heart (hope they have one!), and tell that "I think what I'm doing is in the right interest of this country".

Lastly, all I have come to hear in the past week is finger pointing. Common man points to government which in turn points at Pakistan. I have seriously introspected and come to the conclusion that I'm not even half brave to take up a job in armed forces. I'm sure that I cannot be a great leader. With those two options ruled out, the only career choice I can make now, which will at some level contribute to this country, is to accept an Administrative job in the intelligence forces. Not field work, but I think I would be good at handling the back end logistics. On that front, I'll seriously consider taking up such a job profile after I complete my MBA.

India needs leaders. Inspirational leaders. Since they are hard to find, we have to make the best use of the current ones. As they say, "Live in reality".

Intelligence failure

It has been a shocking weekend. It is the first time that Bangaloreans had to face a Bomb Blast situation. Just when we were getting a false security feeling, these terrorists have planned and conducted this heinous crime against humanity. But the resilient Bangaloreans have not given up in the face of this disaster. Although this is a good sign, it also shows how we are almost getting used to the fact of terror strikes in our homeland. People are not shocked anymore. It is no where close to the panic during the 1993 Mumbai blasts. A lot has changed from that fateful day. Almost all the big cities has faced the wrath of the terrorists. And the terrorists have greatly succeeded in their goals, creating fear in the minds of innocent people, creating political, social, communal divides and tensions. But one thing that hasn't changed is our Intelligence Agencies.

We have 2 Intelligence agencies at the Center level, the CBI and IB. And every state has its own intelligence agency, which is just another department in the police force of the state. I have some facts about these agencies:

• The GC Saxena committee probing the Kargil fiasco had recommended setting up a multi-agency centre and a joint task force on intelligence. However, nothing much seems to have followed the report.
• The agencies don’t even have a proper database of terror groups, finger printing or even photographs.
• There is no centralized database. So a culprit in one state is a free citizen in another state's record books!
• The Saxena committee also recommended recruitment of 3000 more IB agents but of the 3000 agents required eight years ago, 1400 have been hired, 700 of them just last year. The current requirement is arround 8000.
• There is no Federal Agency like the FBI in USA or the MI-5 in the UK. The opposition leader Mr L.K.Advani has ruled out a Federal Investigation Agency though, noting that the Indian Constitution doesn't permit it. "Moreover, there is no agreement among the state governments to create such an agency." What the heck, we create new laws for all kinds of stuff, why not for this?
  
• India has got only a single satellite for the purpose of tracking and assisting these agencies. That too, this satellite is a low level one, with no capability of recording live pictures. I heard that even Sri Lanka has one such satellite, to track the LTTE! and that country is smaller that Karnataka!
• There is no special law to deal with the terrorists. So a person who commits murder is treated as an equal to a terrorist! What kind of democracy is this? When there were laws like POTA, it was scraped as soon as governments changed.
• India's Defence Budget for 2008 was Rs 72,000Cr. The budget allocated to the agencies is a fraction of this. When will India realize that WE ARE AT WAR. But this is not the kind of war where two countries fight for no apparent reason, it is a war currently fought by all the nations against one force - terrorists. So there is not point in bolstering our Air Force buying F-18's, when we can't use them. Even if we enter a conventional war, if we are right, we will have the international support.
• After the 2001 strike on the twin towers, there has not been a single terror attack on the US, even though they have been in war with two Middle Eastern nations (one of them again for no apparent reason). It is not because terrorists are sympathetic to US, its just that they know it is near impossible to strike again on US soil. It is because they have Agencies which are ages ahead of ours, and they have tougher laws and intend to implement those.
  

I would like to conclude this topic by stating that currently we are a soft, weak and a vulnerable target to the terrorists. Unless and until we can find a way to PREEMPT these attacks, we will be in for more such shocking news. At this point, I think, IT IS BETTER TO HAVE A STRONG AND GOOD DICTATORSHIP RATHER THAN A WEAK DEMOCRACY.
My consolation to all those who have directly or indirectly suffered from the blasts.