Value of life

What is the most important loss of the current Mumbai Bomb blast?Is it the death of 200 people, the modus of operandi or the loss of 500 billion? To me, it is the loss of 200 people. Any tragedy which Causes loss of more people will be bigger tragedy than this.

But I seem to be in minority. Stampedes at temple kill almost 100s Of people and media and others forget about it in 2-3 days. Recent Bihar flood killed 1000s of people and more than 20 million people are affected. Odisha flood have similar devastation effect. More farmers suicide in Andhrapradesh/Maharastra because they are unable to repay the loan. There are more deaths in tribal areas in Odisha because of Malaria. Do we care about the same?

As I am from Odisha, let me put some facts from Odisha. 2008 flood was of greater magnitude than pat couple of years and took more than 1000s lives. 20 Million People were affected by the flood. Though not In this magnitude, flood is a regular phenomenon in Odisha. I have not heard any year when there were no death because of flood. And no government tried to eradicate the same. Let us discuss the action taken by the state and central government. State government is busy in blaming central government. It is unable to distribute the little help it gets from others. There are tones of food grains and other relief material laying down in national highways of Odisha. What is the central government doing? Being opposite party to the ruling state government, it ensures that people of Odisha does not get the basic amenities, which will cause anti incumbency and hence more vote for the party. Honourable prime minister declared a help of Rs 200 crores but send only 5 crores. Honourable ex-home minister said there is no such provision like declaring it as a national calamity, thus stopped international aid, where as the same government has declared Bihar flood a national calamity. There are millions of people who don’t have food and shelter.

Now let us look at the number of deaths in malaria in Odisha. It is unaccounted, as media/Government does not bother much about it. The tribal areas don’t get the basic education or medical help from state. It is either Ekal Vidyalaya from Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram
or some missionary provide medical help to the tribals. State hospitals does not reach all the people, and in the hospital, the doctor is not equipped with medicines. And one can not guarantee
that the medicine present is not duplicate or expired. So the locals live at the mercy of expire/duplicate medicine and may be god.

So there are higher number of deaths of common people and common people lack basic amenities. Why are the media/Governemnt not speaking about the common people? Is the life of a villager who stays in a tribal village of Odisha less than a millionare who has visited Taj Mumbai? I think life is life, irrespective of who the person is. But our government and media think otherwise. Life of a Mumbaikar is higher than a farmer or tribal.

Old wine in new bottle

Recent Mumbai attack has shaken the Indian political leadership. It has forced the
ruling party to change the home minister both at the centre and Maharastra. What
will happen next? Will the there be a paradigm shift towards terrorism? Is
government of India serious towards fighting terrorism? My answer is a skeptical NO.


The current hue and cry is something similar to what happened after every terror
attack. And will die a natural death after 2 to 3 months. Prime minister has not called
a special session of the parliament. He is not interested in setting up central federal
agency, though congress spoke about it, and BJP said it will support it. Probable it
will become a poll issue and Congress will ask vote for Central federal agency.

Police modernization is a long pending issue. Police is ill equipped and can only
harass common people. How do we expect ATS with a service revolver and bullet-
proof jacket which is not bullet proof to fight terrorism? There is no difference among
political parties regarding police modernization, still it is taking long time to implement.



Mumbai blast is not the first terrorist attack. If we look at the previous terror attacks,
India has not got any substantial evidence in any terrorists attack other than last
Gujurat attack. Either intelligence does not gather information or the authority does
Not act based on the intelligence reports. We need better coordination between police
and intelligence agency.


Probable government has done its best by sacking the home minister. Now media
is speaking more about home minister and possible changes in Maharastra
government. What government needs to do have taken a back seat. After a couple of
week, Bombey terror attack will be history and media will speak about election
results and new plethora of permissions and combinations of coalition along
with election analysis.

There will be a new parliament and may be a new government. But a little
action taken. It will be the old wine in the new bottle.