Start your Sunday by reading why Yossarin at Offstunped believes there has been a fundamental shift in terror pre and post 2006….and how this may be linked to a shift across the border in Pakistan as well…This is actually a series of posts which I would highly recommend.
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Next Britain’s ex-Home Secretary (equivalent to Home Minister in India), David Blunkett writes about how Braille “shaped his life by providing him from an early age with a window on the world”…Blunkett has been blind since birth. A very inspiring true life story.
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and, …

This weekend, please revisit 1962′s incredible saga of valour
Read about the unfortunate link between “greed” and science in China
and finally read what Sandeep has to say on the Media Knavery following the attacks in Mumbai.
As usual, excerpts from all the article are below.

Excerpts from a paper by B Raman written just days befpre the Mumbai blasts:
The manner of the current investigation by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai Police into an explosion at Malegaon in Maharashtra on September 30,2008, which mainly targeted and killed some local Muslims should be a matter of concern to all right-thinking Indians.
2. Large sections of the Muslims,the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) political class and the so-called secular elements in the Hindu community, which lose no opportunity to demonise the Hindu nationalists and the BJP in order to …

Excerpts from a superb post by GreatBong on why some people really do not like Arundhati Roy (Hat Tip: Neha; emphasis mine):
…The single line answer to why I do not like her is that Arundhati Roy is that she is a fundamentalist. And I have an aversion to fundamentalists. Of all forms.
…For one, fundamentalists like Ms. Roy are guided by a very rigid, unyielding ideology that becomes the prism through which they interpret all events. Anything that the prism does not illuminate is assumed not to exist.
The ideology of a fundamentalist is typically …

Excerpts from a well-written piece by Ganesh Sovani on why Janaab Antulay needs to think before shooting:
…In fact, there is no controversy at all, on this point that the troika of Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar all were killed by Kasab and his associate terrorist Imran on the backside entrance of Cama Hospital, which is at a stone throw’s distance from CST Railway Station, where the terror duo had mercilessly killed nearly 60 innocent persons few minutes earlier.
It is an entirely separate issue whether Karkare, Kamte & Salaskar …

This is a “lazy” post…Lazy because it is actually a collection of posts by different bloggers/writers who I follow online. Yet, I don’t feel the need to be particularly apologetic since I believe this collection of measures are some of the most forceful, realistic, practical ways of dealing with Pakistan. They all centre around the need to dismantle the power structures in Pakistan primarily by following a strategy of balkanization.

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

I have written on this theme before (in a long/ *must read* post)…but the recent attacks in Mumbai add a while …

Start this weekend with 12 steps to shock-and-awe Pakistan’s economy.
Next, read 5 things Muslims should have done in response to the terror attacks in Mumbai
Then have a look at the Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
and finally, consider 8 things India Inc, govt must do against Pakistan
Bonus: An interesting exchange of views between Nitin (Editor of “Pragati”) and Ahsan (in Pakistan) following the attacks.
Excerpts from all these articles below. 

Just as I had feared, people are beginning to forget Mumbai. Reminded me of Blasts? What Blasts? ‘Yeh to hota hi rahta hai’.
At some point in the next few weeks, the pain, sorrow and anger will become a distant memory…like a bitter after-taste which you cannot remember the next day.
As I said to many of those who came to the Remembrance event last week, Mumbai was not the first…sadly, it will not be the last..
This war will last long…It has only just begun. 
Today was the 13th day after the …

Some excerpts below from an intensely thought-provoking article by Radha Rajan. Although I do not agree with everything in the article, I believe it will trigger a debate that we all need to have but are shying away from:
*** Excerpts from Mumbai terror probe – silence of the conspirators ***
There is a growing feeling among a small section of political commentators and the politically well-informed that there is a sinister silence in certain quarters of the media and the Indian intelligentsia about the core details of the Mumbai’s terror attack …

In a widely reported statement, Pakistan’s PM President* Asif Ali Zardari said recently that India should not let rogue “non-state actors” push the two countries into a confrontation, thereby implying that non-state actors were solely responsible for the carnage in Mumbai.
Let me ask these questions to President Zardari:
1. If – as you claim – Pakistan itself is fighting these non-state actors, why is your government dragging its feet on handing over leaders of organisations supposedly banned by your predecessors? Why have past governments stonewalled long-standing Indian requests for handing over criminals and drug smugglers with …