Terrorists strikes in Mumbai

Now at about 9:06 in the evening Delhi time, and 10:37 in the morning US EST -5 GMT the authorities in Mumbai are reporting the the operation in Nariman House has ended. However, operations are still in progress at the Taj Mahal hotel. They think they have one terrorist evading them.
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My head bows in real shame, How lowly the humanity has come down to... What they have want to achieve... Nothing can be achieved... Nothing... Even if they achieve anything at all, will that achievement be acceptable to Waheguru/Allah/God over the bed of dead fellow human beings...
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/general-discussion/23567-terrorists-strikes-in-mumbai.html

MAY WAHEGURU BLESS THE DEPARTED SOULS WITH PEACE AND THEIR FAMILIES THE STRENGTH TO COME TERMS WITH THE CALAMITY AND PROVIDE US WITH THE COURAGE TO DEAL WITH THE SITUATION WITH A BOLD FACE...

Aman ji

Your message is the right message because this is about humanity and not about looking for villains. We know there are villains. Next step to to change the landscape so they do not continue.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567

Already there are political games -- instead of understanding the challenges ahead.

Sikh commando pic - All Sikh squad - jungle fatigues and olive turbans - outside of Taj Mahal hotel - Mumbai India

See this link IBNLive | Mumbai Terror Attack
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567

0825 hours New Delhi time and 2225 hours US EST -5 GMT on my side. Taj Mahal is again on fire on the first and second floor. However authorities are now ready to search the entire building for survivors, dead and injured, and weapons and explosives.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567

Time will tell.

And now at 0855 hours New Delhi time DG NSG Dutt has just given a press conference and is now saying they will proceed with room to room searches. But there may still be other terrorists in the hotel.

Very sad to witness this big human tragedy after 911; how terribly Indian intelligence is fooled is saddening. I hope, the leaders should focus on unity of India to face this enemy in future successfully instead of politicizing it. It will take time to find out the truth though. Our prayers for the all victims and their families !

Some of us were looking for the role of Sikhs during the confrontation. The live feed from India did not seem to report this -- unless you watched carefully the funerals of Commander Kankare and also that of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan.

I have posted a link below, but also here another pic. It looks as if Sikh commandos who saw action were sharpshooters.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567

Why the Attacks in India Should Surprise Nobody
by Deena Guzder

Most Americans were shocked to learn that coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India's commercial capital on Wednesday evening. After all, India is not Iraq or Afghanistan or even Pakistan. According to pundits such as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, India is a shining capitalist success story and the next global superpower. In the pro-globalization narrative, India's eager-beaver working class has benefited greatly from neoliberal economic policies. Intellectuals extol India as the world's largest democracy and an example for the rest of the developing world to follow. Today, India is a popular tourist destination for everyone from backpackers on spiritual voyages to white-collar executives on business meetings.

Americans are largely shielded from the shocking reality of India. According to the World Bank's own estimates on poverty, almost half of all Indians live below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day.[1] The World Bank further estimates that 33% of the global poor now reside in India. [2] Moreover, India also has 828 million people, or 75.6% of the population living below $2 a day, compared to 72.2% for Sub-Saharan Africa.[3] A quarter of the nation's population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of $0.40/day. Someone should tell the starving masses who have remained largely marginalized and subjugated that India is a "success story" because that's not reflected in most Indian's lives. Income inequality in India, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is increasing at a disturbingly destabilizing rate.[4] In addition, India has a higher rate of malnutrition among children under the age of three than any other country in the world (46% in year 2007).[5],[6] India is possibly the world's largest democracy by some definitions; however, as Mahatma Gandhi, once asked, "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

Pundits such as Friedman play golf with the global elite and then pontificate on perceived economic trends. In Friedman's book, The World is Flat, he suggests that "Indians should celebrate Y2K as its second independence day." Yet, by some estimates, the high-tech sector employs just 0.2 percent of India's one billion people. Americans are largely unaware of the violent, systemic poverty plaguing India because the country is reduced to a caricature where everyone fielding Americans' inquiries in call centers is prospering. Having lived in India for four years and visited the country every other year, I am painfully aware of the reality on the ground. India is a country where children are forcefully amputated by beggar-masters and sent to elicit money; where poor women sell their bodies to truck drivers and contract HIV at alarming rates; and, where American tourists nonchalantly spend enough money in one day to support a hungry family for months.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567

The recent attacks in India are morally repugnant, but the debate on how to curb terrorism needs to consider why people engage in such desperate acts in the first place. The perpetrators of yesterday's violence targeted two of Mumbai's most luxurious hotels: Taj Mahal and the Oberioi Trident. One night at either of these hotels costs, on average, Rupees 17,500 (US $ 355) in a country where the annual salary is Rupees 29,069 (US $590).[7] The death of over a hundred people on Wednesday should deeply upset the world, but it should also lead us to question the death of the 18 million people who die annually from the systemic violence of endemic poverty.[8] As Yale professor Thomas Pogge notes, the affects of poverty are felt exponentially more in certain parts of our "unflat" world: "If the developed Western countries had their proportional shares of [gratuitous] deaths, severe poverty would kill some 3,500 Britons and 16,500 Americans per week."[9]

Mahan Abedin, an insurgency analyst, told Al Jazeera after Wednesday nights attacks: "We have seen an increase in recent years in indigenous Indian Muslim organizations beginning to take a violent stance towards the Indian state and sections of the Indian society, particularly the commercial elite of places like Mumbai, in order to highlight, they would say, the sheer inequality of life in India."[10] Abedin continued, "there is a middle class of around 100 million who live very well but 800 million-plus people live in miserable conditions." Even people who commit heinous acts of violence occasionally make a valid point. The latest attacks should not evoke a knee-jerk effort to ratchet up the so-called Global War on Terror but, instead, make us question how to avoid such attacks in the future. By showing genuine concern for the plight of the millions of people who are at risk of death from poverty and by honoring the sanctity of the lives of the most destitute, we have the best chance of defeating the ideologies of hate.[11]
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567

[1] One-third of world's poor in India: Survey-India-The Times of India
[2] The Hindu : National : World Bank’s new poverty norms find larger number of poor in India
[3] Define poverty anew- Opinion-The Economic Times
[4] http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr04-05/engl.../0405fs07e.pdf
[5] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/S...FullReport.pdf
[6] Indian children suffer more malnutrition than in Ethiopia - Times Online
[7] The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Average annual income of citizen goes up in State
[8] Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights p. 99
[9] Pogge, Thomas W. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms . Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002 p. 98
[10] Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Carnage in India attacks
[11] Jeffrey D. Sachs "Net Gains." New York Times. April 29, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/opinion/29sachs.html

Guzder works for TIME Asia magazine in Hong Kong and is a dual-degree graduate of Columbia University's School of Journalism and School of International and Public Affairs. Please feel free to email her at dg2190@columbia.edu

In time of need Gurdwara organisations helped Police & other needy people.


Gurudwara volunteers provide food, water for forces
1 Dec 2008, 0311 hrs IST, Sharad Vyas, TNN

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Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=23567
MUMBAI: In the chaotic aftermath of the terror strikes many ordinary Mumbaikars came out on the streets to offer whatever help they could. One such

group of young Sikhs worked relentlessly in the last few days to offer food and water to security forces at Taj and Oberoi hotels.

About 20 to 25 Sikh men, volunteering for the Gurudwara Shri Dashmesh Darbar in Sion, saw the chilling visuals of the carnage on television and decided to help. Aided by 50 to 60 Sikh women, they set up a temporary langar at several gurudwaras in the suburbs and cooked food day and night. "Once, Shri Guru Nanak Sahab had little money left with him, but he used it to serve food to the needy. We all draw inspiration from that incident. A Sikh's first duty is to serve the needy,'' said Ajit Singh, a volunteer who was serving food outside the Taj.

On Thursday and Friday, the volunteers supplied 500 packets of food and water to forces at Oberoi and Taj, for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, they provided 1000 packets of puri bhaji.

This is not the first instance these men have helped in a major crisis. After the serial blasts in Mumbai's local trains in 2006, the men helped police to pack dead bodies in plastic bags, and immediately thereafter washed themselves and cooked food for the injured at the spot. "That was a completely different experience, one that changed our lives for ever," said another volunteer.

At the Taj and Oberoi, the youth coordinated with the police to make sure everyone received the food. The gesture was appreciated by the tired security personnel, who were glad to see that the common man cared for them. "This shows people care for what we are doing here," said an army jawan stationed at the Taj.