Hijackers free, helpers get life - Kandahar cuffs on trio after 7-year trial

From The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) , February 6, 2008, comes this article Hijackers free, helpers get life - Kandahar cuffs on trio after 7-year trial, in reference to the December 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814.

The article notes:

The masterminds, Masood Azhar, Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Ahmed Omar Sayeed, are still out. The three were freed in exchange for the 189 passengers held hostage in Afghanistan’s Kandahar for a week.

For many Indians, it was a matter of shame that there was no Entebbe-type of raid when the plane landed in Amritsar. That shame was compounded when then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh personally handed over Masood Azhar, Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Ahmed Omar Sayeed to end the standoff.

The Blame Game

Sadanand Dhume wrote that "An increasingly radicalized neighborhood, fragmented domestic politics and a curiously timid mainstream discourse on Islam add up to hobble India's response to radical Islamic intimidation."

Here are two examples how fragmented domestic politics hobbles India's effectiveness in fighting terrorism:

From Naxal Terror Watch, which in turn found this article through Offstumped, comes this commentary Make Terror Victims the face of Anti-Terrorism Campaign, which criticizes the efforts of Congress and the BJP to prove that the other party has the worse record on fighting terrorism. The article argues:

By making the voice of the Terror Victims and the voice of those brave women and men in uniform who shed their lives fighting terrorism the Anti-Terrorism Campaign will not just have tremendous credibility but it would frame the public debate in the right terms.

This article Maya’s Intelligence Quotient from Hard News indicates that while there was advance knowledge of the terrorist attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur, the Uttar Pradesh government headed by Chief Minister Mayawati claimed that it had not received intelligence from the Centre. It also reveals other gaps in the state intelligence network. The article closes with this question:

If [terrorists] can attack a CRPF camp and get away, what is the fate of ordinary people?

Anuranan

Rahul Bose as Rahul and Raima Sen as Preeti in Anuranan

It's not often that one finds Bengali language films playing in movie theaters in the U.S. (unless it's a retrospective of the films of Satyajit Ray), so on a lark, I persuaded my husband to take me to see Anuranan.

Anuranan is about two couples: the dreamy/poetic Rahul (Rahul Bose) and his wife Nandita (Rituparna Sengupta) and driven businessman/domineering husband Amit (Rajat Kapoor) and his repressed wife Preeti (played by Raima Sen, granddaughter of Bengali cinema legend Souchitra Sen). Gradually, Preeti finds that she can find expression for her interests in literature and nature with Rahul. The relationship has tragic consequences.

As with many Bengali offerings, Anuranan is replete with quotations of songs and poems of Tagore. In the way that Anuranan deals with a woman who finds (non-sexual) self-expression through a man other than her husband, it recalls Satyajit Ray's films Charulata and Ghare-Baire, both based on stories by Tagore.

Birth of the Maitreya

Book cover for Birth of the Maitreya

Birth of the Maitreya by Bani Basu, with translation from Bengali to English by Sipra Bhattacharya, is a novel that reminds one of the Mahabharata in its scope and range of characters. Part I sets the stage and introduces characters from all walks of life; Part II, which is much shorter than Part I, provides the denouement.

The novel is set around 500 BCE, during the lifetime of Gautama Buddha. Essentially, it is about the efforts of Chanak and Tishyakumar to encourage alliances among kings and establish righteous rule. Notable in this book are the debates about the dharma promoted by Gautama Buddha and that of what we now refer to as Hinduism, in terms of caste, Vedic ritual, asceticism, and self-defence and ahimsa.

Without betraying too much of the story (notably about what happens to Chanak and Tishyakumar), the ending is tragic, characterized by fighting among kings, palace intrigues and coups, and failed aspirations. At the same time, the Persian army is advancing toward India. (I can't help drawing parallels with India today: the infighting that characterizes politics prevents a unified response to external threats.)

Still, the novel ends on a note of hope for new life: in this way, it recalls Peter Brook's film adaptation of the Mahabharata, in which Lord Krishna saves the life of one woman so that the human race can continue.

You may find a preview of Birth of the Maitreya through Google Books.