Nov
I’m at a South Bombay location as i type this. It’s been 16 hrs since Mumbai was attacked in most unprecedented fashion, yet the city remains under siege by a terrorist group. Nonetheless, away from Colaba—the epicenter of the attacks—there is light activity on the streets and most stores are open for regular business.
The audacity of the terrorists is alarming and there is no way to comprehend their motives or the negative impact it will have on the sub-continent’s stability and geopolitical relations.
Finally given a chance to get away from the sensational news reporting and endless #mumbai twitter stream, I have a moment to reflect, meditate, and pray. My thoughts immediately go to the innocent lives that have been lost to this atrocity and I pray for their families to find strength to persevere through these testing times. Setting aside all political malaise, I salute the brave men and women of the Mumbai police, NSG commandos, Naval marines, Anti-terror squads, and soldiers of the Indian Army who are risking their lives and going on the offensive to protect the people of India. Despite numerous terror attacks on India in the recent past, the government seems to lack adequate anti-terror strategies and infrastructure. But that hasn’t stopped these brave men to step in the line of fire to save Mumbai from total anarchy—no matter how primitive their support and protective gear.
Sitting at home last night I heard two loud blasts at 22:20, which was around the time I read @kapilb’s tweets about similar noises he was hearing. I tweeted about it and a flurry of tweets followed about a firing at Leopold’s Cafe. I put on the TV and watched in horror as the despicable events began to unravel. The western world awoke unawares to the situation and turned to twitter for an up to the second update steam. I too was up all night live tweeting the developments as they broke on local news channels like Times Now, NDTV, and CNN-IBN. Various sites picked up my tweets for reporting purposes, CNN.com and Mahalo.com being the most notable. In fact, I was even called through the night for updates on the standoff by radio stations in Edmonton and San Franciso.
I’ve always been a huge Twitter fanboy but am still marveling at its worldwide adoption over the past several hours as an instant communication and event tracking tool! Tipping point for twitter? I think so. Here’s a CNN article that also heralds today as “the day social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news gathering force to be reckoned with.” See for instance the way @Vinu risked his life while gunfire was being exchanged to bring us these photographs no sooner than the news broke.
Shockingly, the terrorists, all between the age of 20 and 25, exposed themselves completely while carrying out their heinous crimes. It’s discouraging to see young citizens getting disenfranchised by the system and rebeling so vehemently, especially in a country whose promising future lies in the hands of her 500 million youths. It doesn’t apply directly in this case, as most leads are not pointing to home-grown terror but its rise in India is a known fact. So what can we do about it? How can we include the youth by allowing them to express their emotions positively and make them feel like they’re making a difference or being heard. We often complain that the politics in India is outmoded, so how do we inject verve into our politics by making the youth feel like they have a duty to fulfill? After all, didn’t Gandhi say “Be the change you wish to see in the world?” I think that time has come for India. Barack Obama did it in the US and I’m certain that out of a population of 1 billion, someone can challenge the status quo and lead us towards real growth—socially, politically, and economically.
I recently purchased the domain riseupindia.com to build a social network to galvanize the large youth population in India and harness its diverse talents. I hadn’t thought through it, but now seems an opportune time as any to seed a discussion to build this idea in a collaborative format since many people are uninspired by the politics and leadership, or lack thereof, in India.
How can we build a social platform that will help increase transparency in our politics and give youth a real chance to lead our country in the forseeable future? I’d love to hear ideas and find folks to collaborate with. For how long can we have 81-year olds as leading candidates for our head of state position?
