A blog of my feelings…ranging from commenting about other's blogs to commenting about stuff which happens in life and from posting mails which I like, to ranting on stuff.

The terror attacks on Mumbai showed up a lot of truths, harsh realities and our vulnerability for terror. The attacks prove that some fundamentalists, no matter what religion they belong to, are hell bent upon wrecking India’s image as a safe, peaceful, economically sound and peace-loving country.

The Malegaon Blasts showed up Hindu fundamentalism, hard core RSS violence and mentality. Many earlier terror attacks have been pointing at the Moslem fundamentalists (or do we call them Jehadis?) This is not about any religion. This is also not about any city or any state or any country. This is about peace and war, about hurting an economy that was unhurt with all the global recession, about a planned attack on the financial centre of India, about continuous support of pakistan to terrorism and about a million other things which cannot be categorized.

I heard from a friend about the terror attacks and immediately, switched on the TV by 1230AM and saw about these blasted attacks on tv last night and was shocked.. tried to check the updates today morning having a hope that there would be peace reigning and mumbai would hae already bounced back, the way it did after the train blasts, but unfortunately for me, the terrorists had shown meticulous planning and had not yet yielded to the efforts of Mumbai Police. We lost many innocent lives and brave lives. We are also being given the news minute by minute by brave media people. Though there was no electricity at home today morning, I could keep a track of the updates through twitter.

Talking abt media, the news sure helps us to know abt the casualties, the relatives of the people taken hostage to know abt the updates, the relatives and family members of the people working in the spots attacked by terrorists to get updates about their near and dear ones. But focusing on police whereabouts, the NSG whereabouts and commando outfit whereabouts would enable the terrorists to plan their next moves and escape the cops or create more havoc like they did for the three brave cops Mr. Hemant Karkare, Mr. Ashok Kamte and Mr. Vijay Salaskar.

Talking abt the martyred brave cops, I had heard about Mr. Hemant Karkare through the amazing true story of the ’93 Serial Mumbai Blasts, written by S Hussain Zaidi, The Black Friday. I was blown over by his dedication and his hardwork and his planning to solve the case. I had also heard Mr. Ashok Kamte’s name but not Mr. Vijay Salaskar’s name. Being a non-mumbaikar and having visited mumbai only once in my life, for just a week to attend a wedding, I take pride to say that these people could be termed as a few of the best cops of India.

Talking abt cops of India in general, it was really ironical to see age old single load and shoot rifles in the hands of the cops v/s the advanced AK47s and AK56s of the terrorists. We still had the old 6 bullet revolver where as the terrorists had all automatic weapons. This shows our vulnerability and the extent to which red tapism exists in the Indian economy. Why weren’t we given automatic weapons? Do we have a fear that these police people, whom we depend upon on times of crisis, would “misuse” the advanced weapons? If not, then, why not equip them with all modern weapons and armoury? Why should we include politics in basic amenities like defence? The defence sector remains the same, whichever party comes into power. They depend on the same defence people, army, navy, airforce, police, BSF, ATS etc in times of crisis. When we are spending millions / billions / trillions of dollars on various things, why not on defence and equipping the defence people with all advanced and automatic and state of the art weaponry?

Talking abt politics, We have been hearing quotes and statements from all the world leaders around the world, but not a single statement came from the Indian Leaders. At the end of it, we can be rest assured that what would come out from the Indian Leaders would either blame the situation on Pakistan or say that we would work towards eradicating terrorism from this land. These statements are kinda repeated whenever something similar happens. I loved the way Arnab Goswami of Times Now put it. He put across three questions and asked the Indian Political Leaders to respond. However, we had the first statement from Dr. Manmohan Singh after 19 hours from when the terrorist attacks started.

Talking abt vulnerability, Think about the way in which so many armed terrorists with so much weapons and armoury have made it into supposedly Five Star Hotels or Seven Star Hotels. Don’t we have any kind of security checks happening? And how the hell did the terrorists get so much ammunition and rounds of bullets that they could hold siege for more than 30 hours? I mean.. it all seems to be some meticulous planning happening there. Over and above that, there were rumours that the terrorists came by a fibre glass dingy onto the Indian waters from Karachi. What happened to the boat? What was our Navy doing? Is that a way that you cannot locate fibre glass on radar?

Talking about Navy, weren’t there some news reports that some MV was on the Indian Waters and our Choppers and Coast Guard was chasing it to capture it? Were these rumours too? And how about the boat with some 8+ kgs of RDX? Was this a truth or not? Again a rumour? Why does the media have to give our the rumours as news? Why not verify the rumours before giving them as news? TRP Ratings are more important than the truthful and validated news?

Talking abt TRP Ratings, the press/media were forcing themselves on the poor and psychologically harassed tourists who were released from the hotels. The same press/media were asked by the commander of the NSG to keep silence and maintain dignity. He actually walked away when the press kept on asking him questions after being fed up of the press. The same press, who were commended by the Army General were asked to maintain dignity. Agreed that we are completely dependent on the media for any updates about the situation, but let us also realize that even the terrorists might get to know the updates through the media. Let us also keep in mind that if a person is injured or if a person is rescued, the person’s first priority would be to take care of himself and get back his peace of mind. On the contrary, our media is hell bent on shoving their microphones and their cameras on them. Does this not show how much the media are suckers for “sensational” news to increase their TRP ratings and thereby the money for their producers.

Talking abt money, another point of view of the possible reasons of these terrorist attacks could be that due to the global recession, many countries have been affected drastically and in India, only the IT sector has been affected. Everything else is going on as usual. So, we could consider this angle too. Attacking a couple of star hotels in the heart of mumbai and ensuring that there are chaos and also ensuring that the markets are shut down for a day or two would hurt the economy. Also, please note that the terrorists did not bother to check if a person was a marathi manoos or a north indian or an indian or a pakistani or a hindu or a muslim or a foreigner or a jew or a parsi. The terrorists were just interested in creating havoc and they have been successful there.

Talking about marathi manoos, One person who has not been active on the media is our beloved Mr. Raj Thakarey and his MNS guys. When they showed their power in assaulting the poor North Indians who were in Mumbai trying to make a living, we all had some expectations that they would come into the foray here and do some social help by either donating blood or arranging extra ambulances or giving some press releases to calm down the marathis who were hurt and who were concerned about their / their relatives / friends lives during this drastic act of terrorism. Absolutely nothing was / has been heard of/from them. I guess the next time they give a press release, they would mention that the “free” entry and exit from mumbai and the presence of such a large number of outsiders influenced the terrorists to enter mumbai and they would also mention that the brave people who have died / rescued others were all marathis. Agreed and Kudos to the bravery of the marathis in general, but don’t you think that a press release from these “leaders” whom people trust blindly would do a world of good?

I have been creating this post from the time that the attacks happened and have been updating it as and when I keep getting any further notable updates that I feel like making a comment on. This is not live blogging, but this is live post creation!

Mozilla was, by far, the first non-microsoft product that I used. I was given a demo of Mozilla products (thunderbird / firefox) by my colleague and good friend, Devidas, and I must admit, I was floored by the same. I dunno whether it was the way they gave me the demo or the actual product specifics. But now, on thinking back, I guess it is both the product specifics and also the way they gave me the demo.

I was in a BPO when Devidas introduced me to Mozilla. I even pestered him to uninstall MS products like Outlook and IE, but then, that was not possible. So, I asked him to install Mozilla for me. He did not, on the contrary, he asked me to figure out a way to install them myself. I installed FF and Thunderbird for my browser and email clients. I configured them myself when I was in the, so called, “swing shift” which was actually a shift in the work timings to cover both USA and Australian time zones and which used to work from 6AM to 3PM. So, I was kinda free to figure out how I had to install what and what should be entered where for the browser to work and to receive the emails. Installing the browser was easy, but I was vexed when it came to installing Thunderbird. I did not let go of my hopes and at the end of it all, it worked out. But I had made an elementary mistake, I had configured my office mails in thunderbird, which meant I had to use only one system forever. And being in a BPO, it was not possible. So, there went all the efforts, not into the drain, but into my brain for an alternate solution.

I was put to the night shift and I started using only one system forever, no matter which shift I work in. I configured outlook with my official mails, and then, configured thunderbird for the various mails of the forums that I was a part of, for the bulletin board junk etc etc. Devidas actually was happy that I had that “killer instinct” and he commended me for being successful in something that was something very new to me.. Being a duffer in technological things, I had opened my eyes up to the amazing wonders of technology.

From then on, I use Mozilla FF and I have never deviated. My current engagements at office prevent me from using Thunderbird or participate in any forums and moreover, I am not into tech stuff @ office too.. So, I dunno how much of a use would any tech forum be for me. So, no more thunderbird for me, but regarding FF, I now have had FF installed on almost all the pcs in my office and I am considered some kind of an authority in FF and related stuff in my team and office! I have presented the FF stickers that I got in BCB7 to my office sysadmin and they are now on many pcs in the office!

I love FF, FF really ROCKS! I tried my hand on Google Chrome and the various versions of IE, but when compared to all this, FF ranked highest of all the browsers! FF still is the highest, and if everything goes as per my expectations, FF would take some tips from Chrome and make it a faster experience for browsing to RULE the BROWSER WAR!