Ishrat Case: Intelligence Won’t Survive The Investigation

By Nazir Baig / Gandhinagar

In 1988, the President of India handed Ajit Kumar Doval a small silver disc exactly one-and-three-eights of an inch in diametre, emblazoned with the great wheel of dharma, a lotus wreath and the words Kirti Chakra. It was the first time a police officer had ever received the medal, among the highest military honours our Republic can bestow.

The Fear Of Terror, India Fights Back

On January 17, the top brass of Indian security and Intelligence huddled to review the threat perception to vital installations. Only a day before, there had been a terror attack on a British Petroleum gas facility in Algeria that left dozens dead. Concerned over the emergence of a new terror tactics, the counter-terrorism brains recalled the fidayeen attack on 26/11 that woke India up to the very real threat to political and economic symbols of the nation. The meeting discussed and debated security at the potential targets knowing that 2,500 terrorists, being trained in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, were ready to wage war against the world’s largest democracy...

For all purposes, he looked like a Kashmiri. Tall, fair, bearded and wearing a pheran made of dark fabric, he was a familiar figure in Srinagar’s mosques where secessionist preachers spat fire and venom against the Indian state.  It was his job to identify them, have them followed and find a suitable place to abduct them. Usually, it would be one of the crowded bylanes in Srinagar’s shopping areas where an unmarked white Maruti van would suddenly appear, and men with scarves around their faces would hustle the preacher into the vehicle. In Kashmir, where terrorism is like mercury that dips and rises according to the heat, these operations are routine. Only, the tall man in the mosque was not a Kashmiri terrorist or Hurriyat sympathiser, but a trained Military Intelligence (MI) operative. Neither were the masked kidnappers agents of terror, but part of a crack MI unit that specialised in whisking away potential threats. The suspect would be taken to a secret location and interrogated for leads.  “If anyone spoke to me in Kashmiri, my cover would’ve been blown,” he says with a humourless laugh. “I can barely speak three words of it.”

Translating the language of terror is the main challenge facing India’s Intelligence agencies today. They have warned twice in February through “high priority” dispatches that soft locations —hotels, schools and security camps in Srinagar—could be in the crosshairs of Pakistan-sponsored Islamist terrorists.

It is unlikely that Hafeez Saeed and his ilk are familiar with Winston Churchill’s “attacking the soft belly policy”, but seems to be one being adopted by them to sow fear and panic.

In a country of 1.2 billion, with over 1,60o cities and towns, 19 nuclear power plants, 35 major hydro and thermal power projects, 18 oil refineries, 28 major ports, over 7,000 railway stations, 62 domestic and 22 international airports, 21 high courts, myriad public buildings and monuments big and small that are all symbols of what India stands for, are vulnerable to terror attack. India’s sprawling Intelligence and police network—which is constantly acting under political pressure —has so far kept terror casualties to a minimum. In the last decade, actionable Intelligence thwarted over 4,200 terror attempts on Indian soil while neutralising at least 2,600 terror modules.

The MI, similarly, has been preventing infiltration attempts, attacks on India’s 52 cantonments, ordinance depots, military academies and other army buildings. The challenge for the Indian Intelligence apparatus is diminishing Humint (intelligence gathered through informants), and an increasing dependence on technical surveillance.

India, a soft target
According to the 2012 Global Terrorism Index compiled by the US and Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace, India ranks first among countries most vulnerable to attacks by Islamic terrorists.

In October last year, Delhi Police prepared a list of 460 important and vulnerable places that could be attacked by Pakistan-based terror groups.

The state of high alert in security establishments was triggered by the substantial amount of arms and ammunition recovered from terrorists. In the last 20 years, over 12,600 kg of RDX and 31,500 kg of other explosives, including 4,660 rockets, were recovered from various modules plotting to carry out attacks in India.

Security analyst Ajay Sahni believes terrorists are looking for soft targets in India because their own capability has been eroded.“They are looking for unprotected areas. Although there is threat to nuclear establishments and sensitive government buildings, there are several layers of security arrangements I’m sure can’t be penetrated,” Sahni said.

However, Major General (retd) Afsir Karim differed on the issue of soft target contending that lax security arrangements in oil refineries are open invitation to terrorist groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

“If you pass by Mathura oil refinery, the poor security is appalling. The terrorist groups are looking for such opportunities. We should not blame anybody else for such poor security and Intelligence, but ourselves,” Karim said, adding that the political establishment was slowly killing the security and Intelligence apparatus required to prevent such attacks.

Analysis of Intelligence alerts issued in the last year revealed that nuclear establishments, hotels, offices of Indian Space Research Organisation, oil refineries and power projects remained prime targets of terror outfits.

The challenge before investigators is getting to the root of the origins of the plot and the perpetrators. There have been four targeted attacks on India’s vulnerable rail networks since August 2000, killing 280 innocent passengers. While two cases were solved, investigations into two other incidents, including the 2001 blast in Rishikesh-Hardwar-Delhi Passenger train, remain a mystery.

Among major terrorist attacks since 2001, at least eight cases are still under investigation. They include the April 2001 explosion in Memnagar, Ahmedabad. The modus operandi and terror outfit behind the blast are yet to be identified. Similarly, investigation into the December 2002 BEST bus blast in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, failed to yield any result.

Crowded locations have always been easy targets for terrorists. “There are plenty of such locations in all cities and towns of this country. The target could be a market, a shopping mall, a carnival or a theatre. It is in these places that the terrorists seek to inflict maximum fatalities and thereby greater focus on his actions and cause,” said an officer who has handled counter-terrorism work.

 Metro and railway stations and bus terminus too fall in the same category of crowded locations when it comes to potential terror targets.

All static military formations in the country, whether they are based within a cantonment or otherwise, are considered serious terror targets in the country, for the potential damage and the message it could send across the whole nation.

Among the other military institutions that figure among the targets of anti-India forces are the Chennai-based Officers Training Academy, Dehradun-based Indian Military Academy, Pune-based National Defence Academy, Ezhimala-based Naval Academy and Dindigul-based Air Force Academy.

These training institutions apart, terror groups may also target military formations such as the Command Headquarters of the Army, Navy and the Air Force, and other smaller formations spread across the country, apart from the naval bases in Mumbai, Goa, Kochi and Visakhapatnam, and the innumerable air bases.

India’s religious centres such as temples, mosques, churches or gurudwaras continue to be under constant vigil. Topping the target list is the hilltop Vaishno Devi Temple in Jammu and Kashmir that has been on the terror radar for a long time now.

Terror groups definitely want to target key installations of India to inflict maximum damage. The disaster that such attacks could cause is not just calamitous, but could also cripple the economy.

Indian intelligence agencies have assessed that such terror attacks could happen at installations such as hydropower projects, dams, oil exploration sites and installations offshore, atomic power plants, and even the stock exchanges, be in Mumbai or Delhi.

A terror attack on a dam could flood smaller states and Union territories. Similarly, strikes at hydropower plants could cripple electricity grids that could have an impact on both civilian lives and economic activity.

Strikes on nuclear power plants not only pose a threat to India’s capacity to meet its energy needs, but also are an environmental hazard of mammoth proportions that could take years to mitigate.

Ineffective counter terrorism?
If the threat is so real, then why is it that India has failed to implement a proper structure when other countries, especially the US, have managed to put together a centralised system to prevent another 9/11?

“The FBI’s budget is $8 billion, while our NIA, which is mandated to fight terror, gets only $12.53 million. It is hundred times more and we still compare ourselves with the US. They have spent trillions of dollars on internal security and look at our budget. It is embarrassing. Our political establishment is giving illusions of security but not the real security,” Sahni said.

All we need to do is simply convert the FBI budget in Indian currency, and the figures speak for themselves. While FBI, a department, gets Rs 43,000 crore annually, India’s total internal security budget is only Rs 59,000 crore. And that includes expenditure for all agencies, security forces and grant to state governments as well as procurement and modernisation of police force to secure the nation.

India has three primary agencies —IB, RAW and NTRO (National Technical Research Organisation)—to gather Intelligence and pass it on to security agencies. Besides, NIA was raised in 2008 to carry out operations to neutralise terror elements. There is a proposal for a National Counter Terrorism Centre on the lines of US NCTC.

In the states, special task forces and anti-terror squads are tasked with anti-terrorism operations. They are supposed to work in coordination with the Central agencies.  However, cat fights between agencies are common.

There is also open turf war between STF and NIA over territory.  A senior official said there is a general feeling within STF that NIA is trying to use Intelligence generated by STF to claim credit. NIA says STF is reluctant to coordinate to crack terror cases. 

Adding saffron terror to the terrorscape has politicised the issue. Furthermore, in Kashmir and the North-east, the turf war between the army and the local law enforcement agencies is so intense that information is not shared at all, allowing snarks to make hay.

But, Sahni argues that there is fine difference between structure and a working structure.

“USNCTC is toothless, although it is backed by organisations like CIA and FBI. We don’t need Rambos to prevent terror attacks. We need general policing and general Intelligence gathering mechanism,” he said.

Sahni recalled the analysis of CCTV camera footage of VT station in Mumbai during 26/11, in which a policeman is trying to shoot the terrorist Ajmal Kasab using an archaic gun. “He couldn’t fire straight. Today, the majority of state police personnel can’t aim the gun properly. It is embarrassing.”

Intelligence crisis
The first line of defence against terrorism is actionable Intelligence. However, raising human assets in border villages with the objective of gathering information on suspicious activities of terror groups is an uphill task.

Counter-terrorism along the border requires a local network of informers who are paid at each army post. Army officers complain of informers not just taking money from different posts trading the same information, but also that some of them are police informers who get paid by the cops for the info he has just shared with the Army. “In many cases the informers work as double agents,” said an MI source who has worked in Kashmir. “So we just pick him up, keep him for a few hours and set him free. This is worse than jailing or torture simply because he is then suspected by terrorists of having shared information with the Army. In many cases, they are bumped off,” he said.

Terrorists are aware of virtual drought in Humint pool and reliance on technical intelligence. An officer said terrorists have become smarter now and they avoid communicating through phone and email.

What next?
Despite the criticism the police and Intelligence agencies face, there has been no major terror attack in Mumbai since 26/11 and none in Delhi since the 2006 Sarojini Nagar blasts.

“We are fighting against odds,” said a former top police officer who retired recently. “We must be doing something right. There are areas in Delhi like Batla House where the cops have been told not to enter by the home ministry,” he said, adding, “You can imagine how demoralised the police are.”

The feeling is similar among ATS officials who are unwilling to stick their neck out for fear of being jailed for trying to arrest terrorists. “One of them dies in an encounter, the human rights organisations cry foul and an inquiry is instituted,” said a Special Cell officer.

Penetration of terror cells or groups sympathetic to their cause is the most difficult task. According to officials, this is getting more and more difficult since the modules have become increasingly watchful, making the role of technical intelligence that much more important.

In 2006, the IB tech Intelligence unit intercepted calls to Muridke in Pakistan from Bagalkot in Karnataka. The caller, Habib, was picked up in a joint operation and explosives recovered. Subsequent interrogation revealed that he was planning to attack reservoirs and power installations in Karnataka.

Similarly, terrorist Zubair was netted by the Intelligence unit last year while trying to pass on sensitive information related to defence establishments to his handler in Delhi.

Of the recent major successes for Indian Intelligence agencies in their counter-terrorism operations, the Hyderabad-Bangalore joint operation in August 2012 is touted as one of the best.

It was the arrest in Hyderabad of a small-time Bangalore-based rowdy that led to the busting of a terror module in Karnataka that was planning major attacks on civilian targets across the state.

He spilled the beans during interrogation, thereby helping the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka police to carry out a joint operation to crack the terror module. It was a six-month job that ended with the arrest of 11 terror suspects in Bangalore and Hubli on August 26, 2012.

The module had allegedly prepared a hit list of top Indian politicians from both Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka to bump off, apart from taking out some vital military installations based in south India, based on directives from LeT and HuJI handlers based in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Thus the cat and mouse game between the terrorists and the Intelligence establishments continues. Part of the Intelligence is psychological warfare. A former operative who worked in the North-east during the worst period of insurgency recalled interrogations being carried out, filmy style, under a naked bulb and two chairs with a table in between. Large portions of the walls of the room would be covered with flesh and blood, indicating fiendish torture. The
suspects, seeing the gore, would be so terrified at the pain that awaited them that would start singing immediately. “We didn’t even have to ask questions,” said the officer. “What they did not know was that the stuff on the walls was pieces of meat and blood we got from the local butcher, which we then smeared on the walls.” In real life, the flesh and blood are only too real.

UNDER THREAT

Tamil Nadu

• Kanyakumari: Vivekananda Rock
• Kudankulam: Nuclear power plant
• Madurai: Meenakshi Temple
• Kalpakkam: Atomic power plant
• Mettur: Dam
• Avadi: Heavy vehicles factory
• Chennai: Harbour, MAC Stadium, Officers Training Academy

Kerala

• Thiruvananthapuram: Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre
• Kochi: Cochin shipyard
• Mullaperiyar: Dam
• Ezhimala: Naval academy

Karnataka

• Bangalore: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
• Indian Space Research Organisation
• Chinnasamy Stadium
• Indian Institute of Science
• Karwar: Naval base
• Kaiga: Nuclear power station

Andhra Pradesh

• Shriharikota: Satish Dhawan Space Centre
• Nalgonda: Nagarjuna Sagar Dam
• Visakhapatnam: Naval base
• Charminar
• Golkonda fort
• Tank Bund
• Rajiv Gandhi Int'l Airport

Odisha

• Balasore: DRDO missile testing centre
• Puri: Jagannath Temple
• Konark: Sun Temple

Maharashtra

• Harbour
• Naval base
• Mazagon Dock Ltd
• Bombay Stock Exchange
• Offshore oil installations
• Railway system
• Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
• National Defence Academy
• Nuclear power station

Goa

• Naval base
• Shipyard  Gujarat

Gujarat

• Akshardham Temple
• Atomic power station

Madhya Pradesh

• Major temples

Uttar Pradesh

• Court complex
• Sankat Mochan Temple, airport Uttarakhand
• Indian Military Academy

Bihar

• Officers Training Academy
• Buddhist centre

Himachal Pradesh

• Tibetan government in exile
• Nathpa Jhakri hydropower project
• Bhakra Dam

Punjab

• Nangal Dam
• Golden Temple

Haryana

• Tourist spot

Rajasthan

• Oil refinery
• Tourist spot

Jammu and Kashmir

• Vaishno Devi Temple
• Baglihar Dam

Delhi

• Parliament House
• National Defence College
• Metro Rail

The many faces of terror

LASHKAR-E-TAIBA
Founded by terrorist Hafiz Saeed in 1990, LeT runs recruitment and training centres in Muzaffarabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Multan and Quetta in Pakistan. Over 2,000 franchisees of the terror outfit are controlled from its headquarters in Muridke.

Banned by Pakistan, US, UK and India, LeT uses charity organisation Jamat-ud-Dawa as a front.

TARGETS: India, US, UK and Chechnya

MODUS OPERANDI: LeT was the first to carry out fidayeen (suicide) attacks in Jammu & Kashmir, targeting security forces and non-Muslim civilians through two sub-groups—Jaan-e-Fidai and Ibn-e-Tayamiah.

STRIKES
December 28, 2005: Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore, 1 killed
October 29, 2005: New Delhi serial blasts, 61 killed
March 7, 2006: Varanasi serial blasts, 27 killed
November 7, 2006: Mumbai serial blasts, 200 killed
November 26, 2008: Attack at Taj, Oberoi and Mumbai CST, 166 killed

JAISH-E-MOHAMMED
Responsible for the audacious fidayeen attack on Parliament in 2001, Jaish-e-Mohammad was launched in 2000 by Maulana Masood Azhar, following his release in the IC 814 hostage swap deal on December 31, 1999. Jaish is aided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and has links with other terror groups.

TARGETS: India, Westerners in Pakistan and Afghanistan

MODUS OPERANDI: Jaish actively recruits cadres from PoK and Jammu & Kashmir to carry out fidayeen attacks.

STRIKE
December 2001: Parliament attack

INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN
An extension of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), IM came into the spotlight in 2007 with serial blasts in Varanasi and Faizabad. Founded by Bhatkal brothers Yasin and Riyaz, IM is the first home-grown terror outfit. IM is reportedly funded by LeT and Saudi Arabia-based Al Bashir.

TARGET: India

MODUS OPERANDI: IM extensively uses IEDs made of a mixture of RDX and ammonium nitrate, which is wrapped in a polythene sheet supported by a semi-circular wooden casket to give direction and thrust to shrapnels, thus inflicting maximum damage. A signature tiffin box and bicycle has been used by the outfit since 2007. The group also has a tradition of sending emails to TV channels immediately after blasts to claim responsibility.

STRIKES
August 25, 2007: Two blasts in Hyderabad leave 42 dead
November 23,  2007: Serial blasts at Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad civil court premises. Fifteen killed.
May 13, 2008: Nine blasts in Jaipur, 80 killed
July 25, 2008: Eight low-intensity blasts in Bangalore. Two killed.
July 26, 2008: Seventeen blasts in 10 Ahmedabad localities claim 53 lives
September 13, 2008: Five blasts in three Delhi localities leave 24 dead
February 13, 2010: Bomb blast at German Bakery in Pune. Seventeen killed.
December 7, 2010: Blast at Sheetla Ghat, adjacent to Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi. Two killed.
July 13, 2011: Three blasts at Zaveri Bazaar, Opera House and Kabutarkhana in Mumbai. Twenty six dead.
September 7, 2011: Blast at Delhi High Court. Fifteen killed.
August 1, 2012: Five low-intensity blasts at Jangli Maharaj Road in Pune. One injured.

HIZB-UL-MUJAHIDEEN
Another franchisee of anti-India groups financed by ISI, HM was raised in 1989 in Muzaffarabad  in Pakistan to carry out terror activities in India. With a cadre strength of at least 1,500 modules, the outfit is active in Bandipora-Baramulla, southern division for Anantnag and Pulwama districts and Rajouri.

TARGET: India

MODUS OPERANDI: The outfit has its own news agency—Kashmir Press International—used as a propaganda mouthpiece. It also has a women’s wing called Banat-ul-Islam.

STRIKES: HM provided logistical support to Pak-based terror outfits LeT and Jaish for several attacks in the valley. It also aided in the Delhi High Court attack.

HARKAT-UL-MUJAHIDEEN
Earlier known as Harkat-al-Ansar, the outfit was rechristened in 1997. According to Intelligence sources, HuM was responsible for hijacking IC 814 in December 1999. The outfit headed by Fazlur Rehman Khalil has strong ties with Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

TARGET: India, USA, UK

MODUS OPERANDI: HuM was probably the first group to use hijacking to make a terror statement in India. Armed with logistic support from Al-Qaida and blessings of ISI, HuM has been recruiting and training youths in the Kashmir valley.

STRIKES
July, 1995: HuM and Al-Farn kidnapped and killed five Westerners.
December, 1999: Hijacked IC 814
January, 2002: Kidnapped and killed American journalist Daniel Pearl
June, 2007: Two Indian soldiers killed in fidayeen attack

HARKAT-UL-JIHAD- AL-ISLAMI
The first Deobandi militant outfit founded in the 1980s to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan is backed by Tablighi Jamaat. Headed by Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the terror outfit was earlier known as Jamiat Ansarul Afghaneen (JAA). It changed identity in mid-1990 to aid the separatist movement in J&K.

TARGETS: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, UK and US.

MODUS OPERANDI: Supported by SIMI, HuJI penetrated western Uttar Pradesh and recruited hundreds of sleeper cells in the early 2000s.

STRIKES
October, 2005: Fidayeen attack at STF office in Hyderabad kills one
November, 2007: Aided serial blasts in Varanasi in which 25 were killed
July, 2008: Aided serial blasts in Ahmedabad which killed 56

AL- AKHTAR TRUST
An offshoot of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Akhtar is registered as a humanitarian organisation, but is used primarily as a courier agency to deliver arms and ammunition to various terror groups in Pakistan.

TARGETS: India, UK and USA

MODUS OPERANDI: Al-Akhtar provides financial support to terrorist groups in J&K. In the last few years, it changed names at least four times to disguise its anti-India activities.

STRIKES
According to Intelligence sources, Al-Akhtar financed the operation that led to the killing of Daniel Pearl.

Why In UP Madrasas Are Teaching An Anti-Terror Course?

To dispel any notion that madrasas breed terrorists, a seminary in Uttar Pradesh has introduced an anti-terrorism course in its curriculum.

Jamia Rizvia Manazar-e-Islam in Bareilly hopes its course 'Islam and Terrorism' will help students understand how terrorists misuse the Quran and the Islamic law to further their agenda.

The madrasa is run by Dargah Aala Hazrat, which made news last month for issuing a fatwa prohibiting funeral prayers for "any person associated with terrorism".

Opinion: ‘Terrorists want to destroy Pakistan, too’

By Asif Ali Zardari

The recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on October 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.

The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root. To foil the designs of the terrorists, the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process. Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India’s pain. I am especially empathetic. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims. India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan and the rest of the world must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization. These militants didn’t arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the Cold War. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. Strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.

Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.

The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge; Pakistan’s fledgling democracy needs help from the rest of the world. We are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism. We have 150,000 soldiers fighting al-Qaida, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan far more troops than Nato has in Afghanistan.

Nearly 2,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism in this year alone, including 1,400 civilians and 600 security personnel ranging in rank from ordinary soldier to threestar general. There have been more than 600 terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan this year. The terrorists have been set back by our aggressive war against them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Pashtun-majority areas bordering Afghanistan. Six hundred militants have been killed in recent attacks, hundreds by Pakistani F-16 jet strikes in the last two months. Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively. We understand the domestic political considerations in India in the aftermath of Mumbai. Nevertheless, accusations of complicity on Pakistan’s part only complicate the already complex situation. For India, Pakistan and the US, the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism.

Benazir Bhutto once said that democracy is the best revenge against the abuses of dictatorship. In the current environment, reconciliation and rapprochement is the best revenge against the dark forces that are trying to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India, and ultimately a clash of civilizations.

Is AP a soft state?

By M H Ahssan

Responding to a query from HNN — right after the Delhi terror attack, a few weeks ago — about the threat of terrorism in the state, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said: “We have driven away the Naxalites from the state.” That in a way succinctly describes the perception and mindset of the powersthat-be about the possibility of terrorist strikes in Andhra Pradesh. It also indicates the low priority given by the state government to combating terrorism of the kind that hit Mumbai last week.

This is surprising because Hyderabad has been a victim of terrorism — not once but twice last year. On May 18, last year, devotees were victims of a bomb attack when they came out after reading their Friday namaz. Later on August 25, innocents lost their lives in two near simultaneous bomb blasts on a Saturday evening that targeted Lumbini Park where a laser show was on and Gokul Chat Bhandar where holidaymakers had gathered to eat their favourite snacks.

In a belated move on Friday evening, director general of police S S P Yadav transferred the unsolved Lumbini Park and Mecca Masjid case to the Octopus. But it is a case of too little, too late. The Octopus was established in the wake of the terrorist attacks to provide intelligence and investigate such cases. But the supposed to be specialised agency has remained largely non-functional. For starters, little help came to Octopus in terms of personnel and office establishment — because the then chief of Octopus, a director general level officer A K Mohanty shared cold vibes with many of his other colleagues who were more interested in showing him in bad light.

After Mohanty was shunted out, the post was downgraded and Octopus came under an inspector general of police. But staffing still remains a problem. There are now 200 personnel in Octopus, but it is yet to be a cutting edge agency. “Even though staffers get 50 per cent additional salary in Octopus, nobody wants to join. Thanks to extensive corruption in force, many think that it is better to stay outside in field postings where much more money can be made,” confided a senior cop. He added: “If nobody wants to join an anti-terrorist outfit, how well we can fight terrorism ?”

A major bane in Andhra Pradesh police is intra-departmental politics. It is an open secret in the state police that the department’s two top officials — director general of police S S P Yadav and additional director general of intelligence Aravinda Rao do not see eye to eye and often act in contra directions. “This has led to lot of wranglings and demoralisation down the line,” a senior police officer pointed out.

Additionally, it is believed that a large part of the focus of the Andhra Pradesh intelligence department (like in other states) is on political intelligence. “A significant part of effort is on analysing the prospects of various political parties. Other than this the focus is on naxalism. But very little of it is on gathering intelligence on terrorism of the kind seen today,” police insiders aver.

In a scenario of this kind, the police would act indiscriminately when terror strikes. This is what happened in the aftermath of the Mecca Masjid blast. With no intelligence whatsoever, the police under pressure to crack the case started picking up ‘suspects’ randomly and subjected them to torture. Most of them were not chargesheeted because there was no concrete evidence and others were let off by courts of law. All this resulted in growing anger among the youth and their social circles for targeting them without reason.

Charges of the police being anti-minority also came to fore because all those picked up were Muslims. “The end result was that we ended up in negative territory. We faced flak from all quarters and this is going to act as a dampener in our future efforts,” a senior police officer lamented.

Hindus, Muslims United In Grief, Against Terror

This is a sheer example of Hyderabadi (Deccani) Ganga-Jamuni culture (tehzeeb), where the citizens forget all communal rivalry and become united in the moment of crisis.

The twin blasts coming soon after hate speeches by Muslim and Hindu leaders may have got the cops mulling a communal line in their investigations also, but leaders from both the communities said they were united in grief, and were one in fight against terrorism. Four Muslims and 12 Hindus lost their lives in the recent blasts and scores have died in five separate bomb attacks since 2007, but it has failed to ignite a communal flare-up, leaders said. 
    
On the day of blast, the Hindu leaders were seen distributing food, medicines and water among patients at Osmania and Omni hospitals, where scores of Hindu and Muslim patients were cringing in pain. 

“When it comes to terrorism, we stand together and we will fight terror together,” said Bhagwant Rao, head of Hyderabad’s Temple Protection Committee.

 “If any Muslim youth is orphaned by the blast or needs any help, we will be the first to help him and provide him job and all sorts of help,” Rao said. 
   
Communal tension was palpable in Hyderabad following hate speeches delivered by MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi and VHP president Praveen Togadia, but both communities were quick to denounce their acts and doused possible chances of a flare-up. 
    
Thursday’s blast and subsequent calm in the city proved politicians playing the religious card or terrorists trying to cash in on such sentiments could not divide people, many Hindu and Muslim leaders said. “We believe that terrorism and its perpetrators have no religion. Terrorists are terrorists and they follow the diktat of senseless violence. I am sure Indians will always remain united against terrorism,” Khaja Arifuddin, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in AP and Orissa told HNN. 
    

Condemning the ‘despicable’ terrorist attack at Dilsukhnagar, he said that Indians are against all forms of terrorism, whichever quarter they come from. “We know for sure that terrorists and their sponsors are against India. Therefore, we appeal to all Indians—Hindus, Muslims Christians, Sikhs and others—to remain united in this fight,” Hafiz Peer Shabbir Ahmed, President of the state chapter of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind said. He said there are two reasons for the terrorist attacks— one to trigger communal riots and two, to make India weak. “We can defeat these forces only through our unity,” Hafiz Ahmed who is also a member of the legislative council said.

FOUR YEARS LEARNT US FORTY YEARS EXPERIENCE

By M H Ahssan

This Blog is four now! And this year it has grown further in its humble steps of offering a perspective on India News that is unique in the internet space. After 663 posts and 11,129 comments, it has significantly grown in its readership through direct visitors as well as email subscribers. It has also succeeded in adding many new authors. Many more people have recognized its presence and many more have appreciated its coverage.

It is a challenge for a blog like HNN, which tries to give space to different voices through posts and comments, to satisfy all of its readers. While most people have praised the blog many others have questioned many posts that appear on it. It is the very nature that each of us want to see more of the particular view to which we subscribe. But if we cannot have the openness to read and hear the alternate viewpoint and have a sensible dialog on that then it is turning away from the presence of that alternate viewpoint which anyway exists. And this applies to all of us on both side of the viewpoint.

We often disagree with the alternate viewpoint and sometimes in a very strong way. But not agreeing to see it in print or hear it - unless it is bigotry or an invocation to violence - would be a non-readiness to really go beyond the obvious understandings that may have been developed by our own life expereinces. This may include posts which are critical of HNN and we hope we find space for those critical voices too in the coming year which this Blog has been doing till now by allowing the most critical of the commenters to put their point.

But every criticism also comes with a responsibility. Many of the authors have felt that many critical commenters often miss out on the main point of the article and pick up on a single line or even just a phrase in a whole post and comment on that and get stuck with it. Some authors have even felt discouraged at times by getting stuck in a fight over some side issue on which they did not base thier post upon. We hope the commenters understand this subtle relationship.

HNN is not intended to be a website like some of the most visited sites in the Indian internet space. Some of these sites are notorious for allowing comments which display the worst kind of bigotry, particularly against the Muslims, to keep the visitor numbers high. We aim to have the comments posted so that there is a conversation possible rather than achieving any commercial end.

Some readers have raised a valid point that the positive stories do not come out that often. The blog is most open to give most space to such stories but struggles with having enough writers to do this. The site continues to be a voluntary work and hence it has limited resources under which we are trying to do our best. Any help from any of you to expand the reach and aims of the blog is most welcome.

The past year has been tough for many in India and across the globe. A year in which some deadly terrorist attacks rocked India multiple times with Mumbai being the last straw on the collective psyche of the nation, the Indian stocks tumbling to one of the worst performances globally with the economy slowing down towards 6% growth and Amarnath fiasco almost turning into another national controversy splitted on religious lines.

But it was not all that gloomy. Perhaps the most important one was the collective HNN leadership coming out in a strong way against terrorism. Right from the Deoband conference, to the Fatwa against terrorism, the Ramlila ground anti-terrorism rally in Delhi, the Ulema meet in Hyderabad denouncing terrorism, to many rallies across the nation denouncing the Mumbai terror attacks has put to rest any doubt, for the fair mind, of where the HNN stand on terrorism.

The strong turnout in Kashmir elections, touching 60% turnout, was a great achievement. And so was the signing-off on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

As we enter the fourth year of operations, we hope that we are able to widen the perspective of the blog and for that there are some initiatives being thought over which may be rolled out in the coming days. We thank you all for the continued support and wish all of you all the best for the coming year.

On behalf of the HNN Team, I thank each of you for keeping this blog relevant and running now into its fourth year.

Opinion: ‘Terrorists want to destroy Pakistan, too’

By Asif Ali Zardari

The recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on October 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.

The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root. To foil the designs of the terrorists, the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process. Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India’s pain. I am especially empathetic. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims. India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan and the rest of the world must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization. These militants didn’t arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the Cold War. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. Strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.

Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.

The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge; Pakistan’s fledgling democracy needs help from the rest of the world. We are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism. We have 150,000 soldiers fighting al-Qaida, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan far more troops than Nato has in Afghanistan.

Nearly 2,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism in this year alone, including 1,400 civilians and 600 security personnel ranging in rank from ordinary soldier to threestar general. There have been more than 600 terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan this year. The terrorists have been set back by our aggressive war against them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Pashtun-majority areas bordering Afghanistan. Six hundred militants have been killed in recent attacks, hundreds by Pakistani F-16 jet strikes in the last two months. Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively. We understand the domestic political considerations in India in the aftermath of Mumbai. Nevertheless, accusations of complicity on Pakistan’s part only complicate the already complex situation. For India, Pakistan and the US, the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism.

Benazir Bhutto once said that democracy is the best revenge against the abuses of dictatorship. In the current environment, reconciliation and rapprochement is the best revenge against the dark forces that are trying to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India, and ultimately a clash of civilizations.

Absurd Provocation, Uncalled For Reaction

The road towards political gain through fomenting religious categorisation can only lead to disaster and death. Anyone would have thought that India would have learned that lesson with Partition, but evidently not as subsequent riots have shown us. But the current climate of outrage and acrimony over the Union Home Minister’s remarks are a cynical attempt to create something out of nothing. The onus for first strike has to lie with Sushil Kumar Shinde’s whose gratuitous jibe about the RSS and BJP running terror camps enraged the main opposition party. The remark was unnecessary at this point in time – nothing new has happened on this front.

The BJP’s reactions, however, are equally unnecessary. For all their huffing and puffing, there is little doubt that people inspired by the Sangh Parivar version of Hinduism have been involved in planting bombs in trains and mosques and that some of their members have rushed to the defence of the accused. The BJP has to decide whether it is against all forms of terrorism or not and whether it is fair to call Muslims terrorists and start foaming at the mouth when someone else calls Hindus terrorists. If terrorism cannot be related to religion A then it cannot be related to religion B either.

Having said that, it is also true that terrorists get inspired by someone or something and very often it is religion. The jihadis of the Al-Qaeda and similar groups have been promised some kind of religious reward to motivate (or fool) them. Similarly, members of groups like Abhinav Bharat are made to believe that their acts of terrorism will somehow help Hinduism. The argument cannot be that investigators and prosecutors are prejudiced when it comes to one community when your supporters are involved and are free and fair when others are caught. In fact all evidence points to the fact that investigators in India are usually biased against Muslims.

Unfortunately, the media, especially television news, is playing a perilous game here by egging on this apparent Hindu terrorism versus Muslim terrorism war of words. As it happens, there is no event around which this rage is based. By fanning flames of religion-based anger, there is a possibility of enflaming religious-based anger. This is a similar irresponsibility shown by television just recently over border skirmishes between India and Pakistan: an attempt to create news rather than report it.

For the political parties, words of outrage over religion and terror are blatant and deliberate moves to manipulate political discourse in the country and deflect attention from real issues. The UPA and the Congress are struggling with their falling trust deficit with the electorate. The BJP has just come through a presidential battle with palpable wounds.

The lack of maturity by our political class is self-evident. Fomenting religious is evil and short-sighted – whoever does it and whichever religion is targeted. At some point in our history we have to let go off religion as a vote-catcher and move on to more worthwhile issues. The misuse of the secular nature of our 

Constitution by our political parties has only led to problems for the people of India and indeed of the subcontinent. Surely, we cannot afford another conflagration?

Opinion: ‘Terrorists want to destroy Pakistan, too’

By Asif Ali Zardari

The recent death and destruction in Mumbai, India, brought to my mind the death and destruction in Karachi on October 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive homecoming rally for my wife, Benazir Bhutto. Nearly 150 Pakistanis were killed and more than 450 were injured. The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world. For me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.

The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root. To foil the designs of the terrorists, the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process. Pakistan is shocked at the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We can identify with India’s pain. I am especially empathetic. I feel this pain every time I look into the eyes of my children.

Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks. But we caution against hasty judgments and inflammatory statements. As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers. Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims. India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan and the rest of the world must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization. These militants didn’t arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the Cold War. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. Strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.

Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.

The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge; Pakistan’s fledgling democracy needs help from the rest of the world. We are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism. We have 150,000 soldiers fighting al-Qaida, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan far more troops than Nato has in Afghanistan.

Nearly 2,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism in this year alone, including 1,400 civilians and 600 security personnel ranging in rank from ordinary soldier to threestar general. There have been more than 600 terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan this year. The terrorists have been set back by our aggressive war against them in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Pashtun-majority areas bordering Afghanistan. Six hundred militants have been killed in recent attacks, hundreds by Pakistani F-16 jet strikes in the last two months. Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively. We understand the domestic political considerations in India in the aftermath of Mumbai. Nevertheless, accusations of complicity on Pakistan’s part only complicate the already complex situation. For India, Pakistan and the US, the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism.

Benazir Bhutto once said that democracy is the best revenge against the abuses of dictatorship. In the current environment, reconciliation and rapprochement is the best revenge against the dark forces that are trying to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India, and ultimately a clash of civilizations.

Insurance: The Most Misunderstood Industry

In a new book titled, Insurance and Behavioral Economics: Improving Decisions in the Most Misunderstood Industry, authors Howard Kunreuther and Mark Pauly, both professors at Wharton, and Urban Institute researcher Stacey McMorrow analyze the behavior of individuals, insurance industry leaders and policy makers, all of whom bring certain behavioral biases to their understanding of the insurance industry. The result, say the authors, is an overall failure to grasp how insurance can fulfill the roles it is designed to play: reducing future losses and financially protecting those at risk.

In the following essay, Kunreuther and Pauly elaborate on some of the key findings presented in their book.

Insurance is an extraordinarily useful tool to manage risk. When it works as intended, it provides financial protection to individuals and firms who pay insurers a relatively small premium to protect themselves against a large loss. But insurance is broadly misunderstood by consumers, insurance executives and regulators.

Many consumers do not voluntarily buy coverage against potentially risky and serious losses. Case in point: Fewer than half the residents in flood and hurricane-prone areas were insured against water damage from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. And a significant fraction of the population does not have health insurance today, despite the large premium subsidies currently offered in the form of Medicare and Medicaid and tax breaks for employment-based health insurance. A principal reason for this is that many people tend to view insurance as an investment rather than a protective measure. If, after several years, one doesn’t make a claim, there is a feeling that one’s premium has been wasted.

Insurance firms also behave strangely. After they suffer a severe loss, they may decide that a risk is completely uninsurable rather than determining whether they should increase their premium. For example, prior to 9/11, insurers did not price terrorism risk when providing coverage against damage to commercial property. After 9/11, most carriers refused to offer terrorism insurance because they feared catastrophic losses from future attacks.

State regulators often constrain insurance premiums because they are concerned that insurance will not be “affordable,” especially to those who are at higher risk. In Florida, the state set up its own insurance company called “Citizens” that offers highly subsidized premiums to residents in hurricane-prone areas. Private insurers could not compete against these prices, and Citizens became the largest insurer of homeowners’ coverage in the state. All taxpayers in Florida will be required to help pay for Citizens’ losses, should the state be hit by a devastating hurricane.

Similarly, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health reform legislation requires sellers of individual and small group insurance to sell coverage to all comers at premiums that do not take into account the buyer’s medical risk, given age and local prices for health services. These policies assist those in the high risk category but impose additional costs on lower risks in the form of higher medical premiums.

Why do consumers, insurance firms and regulators behave as they do?

There is a tendency for those at risk to assume that disaster losses or major health related expenses will not happen to them. Given this view, they feel no need to purchase insurance protection. Only after suffering a loss will consumers voluntarily buy insurance. After a disaster, insurers may decide to restrict coverage, and state regulators are likely to prevent private insurers from charging premiums that reflect the actual risk.

Behavior of this kind defeats the three principal purposes of insurance: to provide information via premiums as to how serious your risk is; to provide motivation for undertaking financial protection against an event that could produce a significant loss but has a low probability of occurrence; and to offer incentives in the form of premium reductions to reward people who invest in risk-reducing measures.

Incentives, rules and institutions that encourage a constructive role for insurance will ultimately improve individual and social welfare. Several recent pieces of legislation have set the tone for appropriately dealing with risk.

In light of the private insurance industry’s refusal to provide sufficient amounts of terrorism coverage following 9/11, Congress passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) in 2002. It provided taxpayer-backed protection to insurers against catastrophic losses from future terrorist attacks if they agreed to make coverage widely available. As a result, businesses are now able to purchase reasonably priced terrorism coverage. To date, there has been no need to call on taxpayers to fund the guarantee. TRIA is up for renewal in 2014, and there is an opportunity to re-examine the appropriate roles of the private sector and the federal government in providing coverage.

The Biggert-Waters Act, passed in July 2012, proposed major reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) over the next five years. Future premiums will reflect risk (tied both to specific location and expected climate change) so individuals are aware of the hazard they face. They can also be rewarded with lower insurance rates if they undertake protective measures. FEMA is in the process of developing more accurate flood maps to set these rates. The Act authorizes $400 billion per year for this purpose over fiscal years 2013 – 2017.

The ACA requires insurers to offer insurance to all residents in the United States who do not currently have coverage through either their job or a public plan. It also levees a tax penalty on those who choose to be uninsured. To deal with the affordability issue, premiums are to be subsidized for some low- and middle-income households. However, with the exception of offering premium discounts for those who engage in a limited set of less risky behaviors (such as not smoking), premiums after 2014 no longer reflect individual medical risk factors. There is thus some concern that the penalties specified by the ACA may not be enough to encourage low risk individuals to buy insurance because of the high premiums they will have to pay.

What can be done to make insurance a better policy tool and to avoid adverse side effects of the well-intentioned programs already in place?

One way to convince people of the long-term benefits of insurance is to stretch the time horizon over which the event can occur. Studies have shown that people are much more likely to buy insurance or invest in protective measures if an event, such as a hurricane, that has a one in 100 chance of occurring next year is presented as having a greater than one in five chance of happening at least once in the next 25 years. And if the disaster does not happen – well, the truth is that the best return on an insurance policy is no return at all. One should celebrate not having a major loss!

Insurers should construct worst-case scenarios for rare events. They can then determine a premium that reflects their best estimate of their expected future risks, factoring in the uncertainty of the event’s happening. Insurers could also consider offering multi-year policies if state regulators allow them to price coverage that reflects risk over that period. A multi-year insurance policy with risk-based premiums coupled with a multi-year home-improvement loan to pay for risk-reducing measures may enable policyholders to reduce their overall costs.

State insurance regulators should be appointed rather than elected so they are less prone to being influenced by special interest groups and lobbyists. Regulatory decisions should make transparent who stands to benefit from a subsidized insurance program, and who will be paying part of that cost to protect others. State insurance programs, such as Citizens in Florida, should indicate to all residents in the state that property insurance on homes near the ocean (including second homes) is likely to be highly subsidized, and those living elsewhere may bear the expenses of the clean-up following the next severe hurricane.

These concepts, if followed, will increase the chances that insurance is better understood so it can fulfill the roles it is designed to play: reducing future losses and financially protecting those at risk.

Zakir Naik's IRF's Alleged ISIS Connection Makes A Strong Case For Action Against Preacher

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

Radical religious preachers who do sermons never begin their discourse saying thus. "Here I'm going to start my indoctrination session to prove that my religion is better than yours. In the next few hours, I'll do my best to convince you of my idea and ultimately convert you to my religion."

Instead, they typically play mind games with the enchanted listeners, often selectively quoting (rather twisting) the lines from sacred scriptures, to impose the ultimate idea of religious supremacy in the audience's psyche and ultimately establish why one should embrace that particular religion. This is arguably the trade technique of televangelists such as Zakir Naik.

Sunday Profile - Terror: Can This Man Win The Battle?

General Raheel Sharif has dealt well with military and political tensions so far. But the Pak army chief's real test will be how he deals with terror groups dotting the frontier regions.

In Friday, when General Raheel Sharif signed the execution warrant for Dr Usman (aka Mohammed Aqeel), he crossed an invisible line. Usman, who had led a 10man assault team which attacked the Pakistan army headquarters in 2009, taking 42 hostages and killing 14 troops, should have been executed a long time ago. He was spared because the Punjab Taliban led by Usman threatened dire revenge if he was executed. This time, the general had his way.

Hyderabad Blasts: Why India Is So Poor At Handling Terror

The Hyderabad twin-blasts yesterday illustrate once again why we are never going to be any good at handling terror.
 
We have a blunderbuss like Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde claiming that he had information about the possibility of a terror strike, but no answers on why something pre-emptive – even getting police forces ready to deal with the consequences – was not done.
 
Even if there had been no intelligence, any one with reasonable mental intelligence could have surmised after the hanging of Afzal Guru that something was round the corner.
 
But, instead, we had the Home Minister talking foolishly about the BJP and RSS running terror camps – exactly what Pakistan would have wanted to hear. Shinde merely confirmed to eager Pakistani ears that there are enough home-grown terror groups in India. So when the ISI unleashes its own dogs of terror, we can’t easily point a finger at them.
 
But this is not just about Shinde’s failures either. If reports that the BJP has called a bandh in Andhra to protest against the terror strike are true, that is even more irresponsible. A bandh serves no purpose at a moment of tragedy.
 
Point 1: You cannot fight terror if the country’s principal political parties are at war or trying to score political points against one another. Even assuming Shinde was right about the Sangh running terror camps, all he had to do was build the evidence, arrest and prosecute the guilty. Can you fight terror by seeking to make political capital out of it and making mindless remarks about Saffron terror, and then apologising for it?
 
The second issue where India is failing is in the area of centre-state cooperation. As Firstpost has already argued today, there is a strong case for setting up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) so that we can bring our combined resources together to fight terror.
 
But this can’t happen in our federal system where law and order is a state subject. To fight terror, you need to get the states on board since it is also manifestly in their interest to cooperate. No state in India is actually immune to terror.
 
Here, once again, the finger of accusation must point more towards the centre. States are deeply suspicious about the centre ability to be evenhanded when it comes to dealing with non-Congress-ruled states. This is the prime reason why they won’t cooperate on NCTC.
 
Consider the centre’s poor record on cooperation with states.
 
First, it will send former intelligence officials and Congress time-servers to be governors of opposition-ruled states. People like HR Bhardwaj in Karnataka and Kamla Beniwal in Gujarat have had daggers drawn with state governments. A former National Security Advisor in Governor of Bengal. How are states supposed to work in cooperation with the centre when governors cannot be trusted by elected governments?
 
Second, if the states appear to have blocked the NCTC, the centre is not exactly playing honest broker in the game. Many bills legislated by opposition-ruled states for dealing with organised crime and terrorism have been blocked by the centre.
 
A report in The Indian Express last February noted that “more than 20 bills have been kept hanging in states where the BJP is in power, some for more than two years now. These have been kept pending either by the governor, who actually cannot withhold consent, or by the President, whose approval is necessary for the Bill to become law.”
 
Among the bills were at least two to counter terrorism. One is GUJCOC (Gujarat Control of Organised Crime) in Gujarat and the other is MPTDACOC (MP Terrorism and Disruptive Activities and Control of Organised Crimes) in Madhya Pradesh. Both are bills these states consider vital to deal with terror groups.
 
The centre claims there is no need for these laws since its own Unlawful Activities Prevention Act is good enough. But do we have great faith in UAPA? There have been 11 terror strikes since 26/11 in India, and UAPA has been a miserable failure. In any case, why deny states their own stronger laws? It is worth noting that the existence of UAPA did not stop the centre from allowing Maharashtra to have its own MCOCA (the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act). GUJCOC is almost a replica of MCOCA, but it’s no-go just because Gujarat is run by the BJP’s Narendra Modi. Ditto for Madhya Pradesh.
 
Point 2: By playing politics with laws legally passed by state legislatures, especially BJP-ruled ones, the centre has essentially defeated itself on NCTC. It is largely up to the Centre to allay this mistrust by ensuring that state initiatives are not bottled up either by lackey governors or by the central government. How can the states buy into NCTC, if this law is used as another instrument to target the political opposition? The centre routinely uses the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to spy on its political rivals; the CBI is often used for targeting opposition parties. Which state CM in his right mind will then expect the NCTC to be used any better?
 
The third issue is one of playing politics with terror. And here, the Congress, the BJP and the other opposition parties are all guilty. The net result is a complete demoralisation of the police force, which then learns to live with politics and does not do its job.
 
When a police official is killed by terrorists in Batla House, Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh goes around telling Muslims that it may have been a fake encounter. It is one thing to assure a fair investigation, quite another to pretend that nobody in the police force was killed by militants.
 
In the run-up to 26/11, the BJP and the Shiv Sena were targeting Anti-Terrorism Squad Hemant Karkare for unearthing one Hindu terror module in connection with the Malegaon blasts. Karkare was reinstated as a hero only when he was martyred during 26/11. This, in fact, led other communal elements to throw another red herring in our paths by claiming that since the BJP and Sena had targeted Karkare, it was not Pakistan-trained terrorists, but someone else who may have been behind 26/11.
 
The situation is not any different with the other opposition parties that depend on vote-banks of various kinds. Politicians in Punjab and Tamil Nadu have tried to stall the executions of Balwant Singh Rajaona and Rajiv Gandhi’s killers a vote-bank issue.
 
A member of Mulayam Singh’s party offered a multi-crore reward for any Muslim who would bump off the Danish cartoonists who allegedly defamed the Prophet. Congress and Left politicians routinely deny there is any infiltration in Assam from Bangladesh – primarily to guard their Muslim vote bank. BJP politicians want to pretend that the infiltration is excessive (which it might be, but no one can stop demography).
 
Point 3: If political parties are going to adjust their positions on security issues based on vote-bank considerations, how is it possible to have any sensible approach to terrorism measures?
 
The bottomline: India’s politicians have made it impossible to deal with terror. The UPA government at the centre is more guilty than most in politicising terror and alienating rival politicians and states from coming together to tackle terror from a common platform.
 
Right now, India needs a unifier as Home Minister, and a Congress party that will not play politics with opposition-ruled states.
 
A crass political player like Sushil Kumar Shinde is not helping matters.