Terrorist Attacks in Uttar Pradesh

Byoliveridley

Terror struck Uttar Pradesh on Friday, when militants triggered near-simultaneous blasts in court premises in three cities across the state, killing at least 13 and injuring over 59 others.Six bombs — three in Varansi, two in Faizabad and one in Lucknow — went off within a span of 15 minutes in the crowded court complexes between 1310 hours and 1325 hours. Some of bombs are believed to have been planted on cycles.A little-known outfit, called Indian Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility. UN intelligence agencies said senior UP police officials have received an email in which the outfit has owned up to the attacks.

Delhi on high alert following UP serial blasts

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  • Tamil doctors let their 15 year old perform a C Section

    Byoliveridley

    Where my home state of Tamil Nadu gets into the news for this bizarre story of parental pride gone too far.

    Two Indian doctors investigated over claims they let son aged 15 deliver a baby by caesarean | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

    Two Indian doctors are facing an investigation into claims they let their 15-year-old son perform a caesarean section to get into the Guinness Book of Records.

    The government of Tamil Nadu state in southern India today said it was launching an inquiry, according to Indian newspaper reports.

    It is alleged the doctors screened a video of their son performing the caesarean at a meeting of the regional branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) last month in the hope their son, Dhileepan Raj, would get into the record book as the world’s youngest surgeon.

    I feel like laughing at the parents, but the patient and her fetus were put at grave risk, what idiots!

  • |

    Eminent Domain gets deadly in India

    Byoliveridley

    Eminent domain is the concept that governments can acquire private land for “improvement” and “development” purposes. But what happens when you combine

    1. Farms that have been in families for generations
    2. A situation where land is the only thing you own, where all your value, your life and your sense of worth is tied to the land you own
    3. The insecurity that comes from knowing that your livelihood and shelter is being taken away from you and things are going to change. In the end, they might be for the better, your farm was not doing too well to begin with, but the uncertainty and fear of the unknown are much bigger in the short term than any possible long term benefits.
    4. The typical high handed situation in which the government dealt with the villagers in question

    Well, in India, people die.

    BBC NEWS | South Asia | ‘Seven die’ in India farm clash

    At least seven people are reported to have died after police fired on farmers protesting at the acquisition of farmland for industry in eastern India. The clash happened in Nandigram in West Bengal state where thousands of riot police have been sent to quell protests against a planned chemical hub. Police say they met fierce resistance from thousands of villagers. Police say two people have died, but doctors in a local hospital say five more men have died of bullet wounds. ‘Land grab’ Farmers in Nandigram have been resisting the West Bengal government’s plan to acquire farms for setting up a hub for chemical industries by an Indonesian company.

    As India’s manufacturing infrastructure and increasingly rapid industrialization starts to catch up with its already booming software economy, watch for these tensions to get worse. Indian governments are not used to handling issues like these in an equitable fashion. Hopefully, the sacrifices of these people will change something, but I am not optimistic. Lives are cheap in India. Nobody’s going to write a song about these 7 dead.

  • Hindu Terrorism Update

    Byoliveridley

    As they uncover a wide network of those involved in the Malegaon blast with linkages to an earlier explosion at Nanded too, investigators were on Sunday looking for 54 people suspected to have been given arms training at a military school in Nagpur.

    Highly-placed sources involved in the investigation into the blast at Malegaon on September 29 that killed six persons, said that interrogation of suspects indicated that 54 people had been given training in handling of arms and explosives at Bhonsala Military School in 2001.

    Some of them are believed to be involved in the blasts at Malegaon in 2006 and 2008 as well as the Nanded blast in 2006.

    Mysteriously a laptop said to belong to Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, an army officer arrested recently after investigations, has disappeared. The laptop is said to contain all the 54 names.

    via The Hindu : Front Page : Police looking for 54 people “who got arms training”

    Involving a military school and a Lt. Colonel, scary. Earlier post here.

  • Terrorist attacks in Mumbai

    Byoliveridley

    Terror struck the country's financial capital late on Wednesday night as coordinated serial explosions and indiscriminate firing were reported from at least eight locations across Mumbai.

    At least 18 people are reported killed and 24 are seriously injured.

    The coordinated terror strike which reportedly began at 2233 PM at Chhatrapathi Shivaji TerminusCST, formerly known as the Victoria TerminusVT, killed 10 people in the premises of the station, police say.

    A petrol pump has been blown up in Colaba by armed men and at least 10 people are reported to have been killed in that strike.

    Three persons are killed in a bomb explosion in a taxi on Mazegaon dockyard road and an equal number have been gunned down at the five-star Taj Hotel.

    The victims in the hotel were its employees.

    via MUMBAI TERROR: Hotels, hospital, bus stands, cinema halls attacked

    All the attacks are in relatively affluent neighbourhoods and posh hotels in South Mumbai, clearly designed to terrorize people who would not normally be exposed to terrorist activity, and to further ratchet up tensions in India. Of course, scaring foreigners and tourists is a big deal as well. CST (or Victoria terminus as it is still referred to) is like Grand Central Station in NY city, an iconic Mumbai landmark and the starting point for many many trains. Security in this city of millions is non existent, so I guess such attacks are easy to carry out.

  • An Indian History Book to Read

    Byoliveridley

    Ramachandra Guha has written a new book about modern Indian history (independence in 1947-Present). Sounds interesting, here is an excerpt (h/t the always wonderful blog, 3QD).
    The Miracle That Is India : outlookindia.com

    Is India a democracy, then? The answer is well, phipty-phipty. It mostly is, when it comes to holding elections and permitting freedom of movement and expression. It mostly is not, when it comes to the functioning of politicians and political institutions. However, that India is even a 50 per cent democracy flies in the face of tradition, history, and the conventional wisdom. Indeed, by its own experience, it is rewriting that history and that wisdom. Thus, Sunil Khilnani remarked of the 2004 polls that they represented “the largest exercise of democratic election, ever and anywhere, in human history.

    Sounds like fun, people ask me about India all the time and while I have great experiential knowledge, this book would (if good) give this experiential knowledge some factual and structural backing.

    Fun!

  • |

    Lead in Paint, why???

    Byoliveridley

    1940-11_White_Lead_Paint.JPGThis makes my head explode, once again, science is helpless when faced with inertia, and greed. Lead-based paint has been banned in the US since 1978, and if this story is any indication, we’re still seeing the effects of peeling paint. But this bit of research from the University of Cincinnati suggests that not only is lead-based paint being used in more than half the world, it is actually legal.

    Study Supports ‘Urgent’ Need for Worldwide Ban on Lead-Based Paint

    Environmental and occupational health experts at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found that major countries—including India, China and Malaysia—still produce and sell consumer paints with dangerously high lead levels.

    Why would anyone need to use lead-based paint when alternatives have been available for the longest time, the health effects of lead, especially on children, are very well known, and there is no @#$%^&*# reason other than greed and unwillingness to change. What is the point of all these years of research if it makes no difference at all to the bulk of the world’s population? Depressing.

    Guess what, even if lead-based paint was banned today, it’s still going to be on the walls forever. As the paint peels, kids will be exposed, have lowered IQ, and all other kinds of health issues for as long as that house is standing, which in India could be a 100 years.

    Grassroots organizing is probably needed, and if effective, the stuff will be banned in India quickly, the government does move rapidly on these kinds of easy to legislate issues. But, enforcement will be lax, and awareness will lag, which means we are looking at (my rough guess) at least 20 years more of this issue.

    Once again, the absence of a ban and its implementation affects the poor and uneducated disproportionately. The way I see it happening in India is

    1. Some grassroots awareness, media stories, etc.
    2. A furore that lasts about a week, before the next big story comes along
    3. Maybe a government action that will “ban” lead-based paint
    4. The middle class and above are now aware that they can use titania based paints, so, a quick change for them.
    5. Everyone else is still stuck with the lead-based paint.

    And this does not even begin to address what the US is going through now, aging houses, peeling paint, poor people being exposed to dangerous levels of lead.

    The world ain’t very fair…