Action plan

Its high time a Federal agency is set up to deal with terror. No Central
-State fighting in there. The set-up could be something similar to the
railways. Establish different security zones and be pretty sure that each
of the security zones would be able to cater to two states at any given
moment.

Starting from the south. One common zone for Tamil Nadu and Kerala. But
dont have it in Chennai or Trivandrum. Chennai is too far from Kerala and
Trivandrum is not that near to whole of Tamil Nadu. Pick a spot somewhere
in the south central of tamil nadu and establish a security unit there.

Populate the security unit with Marcos, NSG and whatever is
required.Importantly, this place should have a runway for planes to
take-off. Similarly, we must need to find a place somewhere near the
andhra-karnataka border to set up a unit for AP and Karnataka. Follow
similar patterns and have zones in the entire country. Don't make the
mistake of having only one unit in the North-east. Thats not an easy
territory and its better the same logic is followed there too. It would be
even better, if a unit is dedicated to each and every state. Why should we
think of costs at the cost of our safety and security? This is not an IT
company. Its the country at stake.

Now, all these security units will be under one central command.
Something akin to our armed forces. Whether the government stays or
changes, these units would remain in place and the command would change,
say, for every five years. All major decisions would be taken by the
central command. When crises, such as Mumbai arise(which in first place
should not happen), irrespective of what any government says, it is the
duty of these people to take stock of the situation and do the needful.
The state government will merely be a cooperating agency.

And how long will we have such a structure in place?-As long as Pakistan
is unstable, as long as afghanistan is unstable, as long as Sri Lanka is
unstable, as long as naxalism exists in our country, as long as there is
room for religious fundamentalism in our country, as long as there are
caste wars-which pretty much means that we cannot do away with this
structure in the next 15-20 years.

Your ideas on this are most welcome.

Just Something!

I generally pick up a topic and write on it. Thats my style. These days,
its not happening so. Writing on a specific issue has become very tough for me. That is why
this particular piece of writing may not focus on any particular issue. This would be more
like a fluctuating hockey match. Staying with hockey, we have won the Silver Medal in the
Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament that was held in KualaLumpur(Malaysia). A Silver Lining in the
gloomy skies that have cast over our hockey. What if the saying was "Every cloud has a
golden lining."? Would we have won the gold medal then?

What about my writing style? Well, that would be a nice topic to discuss. My
primary aim is to take up a topic, dissect it and conclude it. Any good writer would try to
do the same. But, I want that what I write would make for good reading too. Good reading in
the sense? Hmmm!!!! How can one say that a topic makes good reading? Why am I posing so many questions? There are different kinds of people and as a result reading will be of different
kinds too. Some people won't read at all. Some people will go halfway through and dump the
rest. Some people would skim the surface, looking for any statistics or names they would
like to find out. Some people would read anything because they just love reading.

I try to write in a way that makes the reader feel that I am talking to him.
Thats a very difficult art as quite a few people would know. Just writing for myself is not
my aim. If it would have been that a lot of articles would not appear in this blog. It
becomes important that I come up with the right kind of analysis because I try to write on
important issues. When writing on important issues one must demonstrate a certain level of
knowledge and responsibility. That is because, when an issue is important; it affects almost
all people. As a result, it is easy to offend their sensibilities. So, the issue must be
addressed in such a way that the right thing is brought out first.There is a small catch
here. I am talking about not offending most people's sensibilities and putting the right
thing forward. The latter one must be the main aim of the article, not the former. The
simple reason being that the majority of people may not always be right. So when the
majority may not be right and if an effort is made not to hurt people's sensibilities, then
grave injustice will be done to the topic in discussion. It is like walking a gilt-edged
sword. It is probably more tougher because they say "A pen is mightier than a sword". The
pen is mightier means that the edge gets thinner and writing tougher.

All readers may not be gifted enough to grasp the entire essence of the
article. A sentence may be pulled out from somewhere and quoted totally out of context. A
writer's job is so difficult.But, ultimately the truth must be brought out. The essence
needs to be there. Justice needs to be done to the point in discussion. And when one relates
all this to today's newspapers, we can judge for ourselves as to how far away from the truth
we are. Editorials are the only pieces of writing where such seriousness can be seen. The
rest of the newspaper is never at the same level.

I would like to conclude by saying that it is far easier to write about anything that comes to mind. Even that is not that easy.