The Indian Blogosphere is abuzz with speculation about the blocking of all blogs hosted on Blogspot. It first came to my notice when one of friend asked me if I could view his blog (hosted on blogspot). I could, but apparently his ISP was blocking it. On doing some research I found that ISP’s like Reliance Infocom, MTNL, and Tata Internet Services were blocking blogspot blogs. Over the last couple of days more and more ISP’s have implemented the ban on blogspot. Now my ISP Dataone has also blocked blogs hosted on Blogspot (however the main site is accesible). As far as I know, there hasn’t been any public explanation given by the government, however since this comes on the wake of Mumbai blasts, many people feel that they are interconnected. It may be possible that terrorist are using innocuous looking blogposts for communication; however, mass banning blogspot certainly wont solve the problem. After all, there are several blog-hosting services like wordpress.com, livejournal, rediff. Its also very easy to anonymously set up blogs using free hosting services. And why only blogs ? Social Networking sites and forums will probably be more convenient for terrorists. So this kind of a mass ban on blogspot serves no purpose, if indeed this has been done to thwart terrorists. However, it’s probably better to wait for an explanation from the government before blaming them. I remember that in 2003, the government had asked internet service providers to block certain unlawful yahoo groups, but the idiotic ISPs ended up blocking yahoo groups in it’s entirety! Its highly probable that a similar incident has happened in this case also. After all, the Indian ISPs aren’t the smartest around.

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As Mumbaikars try their best to move ahead, and put this cowardly act of terrorism behind them, the question that is in every Indian’s mind is “What’s next ?“. The question is not whether another attack will take place but how soon it will take place.
To understand the gravity of the situation, first lets have a look at the major terrorist attacks since 2001[ Source : Wikipedia ].

2001 , October 1 : Terrorist target the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly. 35 people lost their live.
2001, December 13 : Terrorist attack on Indian Parliament. No casualty due to alert security forces.
2002, May 13 : 12 people are killed in the Jaunpur train crash in India, caused when Islamic extremists cut the rails.
2002, September 25 : Terrorist attack the Akshardham temple in Ahmedabad. 30 people died in the incident.
2002, December 21 : 20 people are killed in Kurnool when Islamic Extremists derailed a train.
2003, August 25 : 50 people are killed due to 2 bomb blasts in Mumbai.
2005, June 5 : Terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba attacked the Ayodhya Ram Janmbhomi complex in India. No casualties. All the terrorists were gunned down.
2005, October 29 : Multiple bomb blasts hit markets in Delhi, India, killing at least 61 people.
2005, December 28 : Terrorists open fire at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, killing a retired professor of mathematics.
2006, Match 7 : Bombings in the city of Varanasi leave at least 15 people dead.
2006, July 11 : Explosions in local trains in Mumbai.

This list doesn’t include the terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. There are terrorist attacks there almost every alternate week. On the morning of 7/11 itself 8 tourists were killed in 5 grenade attacks.

The length of this list proves the sheer magnitude of threat India is currently facing from terrorists. Lashkar-e-Toiba’s clout is increasing alarmingly. According to preliminary investigation reports this attack may have been carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba with the help of SIMI ( Students Islamic Movement of India ). Lashkar is now teaming with local and smaller terrorist organizations in several parts of India to carry out their action. This is a very worrying trend, as it increases their effectiveness by manifolds. However, the involvement of Pakistan in this is almost certain.
Yet, the most shocking thing is the reaction of the Government of India. In fact they have hardly reacted. All they do is to release a statement denouncing the act of terror and stating that we will stand united against Terrorists. Then as the days pass everyone forgets about it, till another attack takes place.
The only way of dealing with this crisis is by hitting back. By striking at the source of the problem. Doesn’t matter how much we strengthen our intelligence service, these kind of attacks will continue happening. The terrorists are bound to succeed at least one out of every 10 times. India is a vast and densely populated country with a lot of soft spots which can be easily targeted. To make matters worse it is surrounded by countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh where ISI as well as Terrorist groups have considerable influence. The security agencies has managed to thwart several attacks in the past. In May, this year 43kg of RDX along with large number of Grenades and AK-47 was seized in Maharashtra. However, it will fail , and when it fails the concequences will be disastrous.
It is no secret that terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, are based in Pakistan and is supported in various ways by the Government of Pakistan. In spite of several requests from India the Government of Pakistan has refused to take any solid action against these groups. India has been assaulted repeatedly, and every time it chose to ignore it and extend a hand of friendship to Pakistan only to be rewarded by another vicious attack. In this perspective let me quote what Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri’ said after the blasts :

“Anything can go wrong anywhere in India or Pakistan. There are bomb blasts in India, there are bomb blasts in Pakistan. If you have these disputes, it enables negative forces in both countries to blame the other country and exploit the sentiment…I think we should try and take advantage of this improved atmosphere and resolve outstanding disputes, particularly the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.”

Its worth nothing how he brought in the dispute over Kashmir while giving his reaction.

On July 12, the terrorist organization, Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel. Israel wasted absolutely no time in taking action on them, and opened fire on Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. When the World Trade Center was attacked 2,749 people died. America fought back by waging a war against terrorism. India has lost thousands of more people due to persistent terrorism. And we will continue to loose thousands of more citizens, till our Government stands up and takes aggressive action.

WAKE UP INDIA. WAKE UP.