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| ASK EXPERTS |
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| India Today panel of experts on 'War on Terror' answer surfers' question. |
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| Citizen Experts |
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| Mohan Menon
Retired IPS officer who also served in RAW
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| Murad Baig
Author of a book on Indian heritage
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| Dr Arup Kumar Sen Gupta
Writes that the media has a big role in bringing about the change. |
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| Captain Dinyar Karai
Writes on the counter terrorism strategy that India needs. |
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No people have seen terror like Indians have. Over 18,000 citizens died in attacks in the last decade. |
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 Dr B. Raman
Security and Counter-Terrorism Expert
Dr B. Raman, former Additional Secretary, Research and Analysis Wing. He headed the Counterterrorisim division of RAW, was a member of the National Security Advisory Board and has written several books on security issues his most recent being 'Terrorism in India: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow'
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| Will the people's views and suggestions actually help the government in making its policy to combat the threat of terrorism in the country? |
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-Rahul (mahipal2006rahul@gmail.com) |
| Definitely. In the US, the UK and other countries, the counter-terrorism agencies welcome the ideas and co-operation of the people through the Internet. If you register yourself with the FBI, it keeps you informed of the areas where you can help it. As I have already mentioned above, our intelligence agencies live in a well totally cut off from public contacts and follow highly primitive methods in this age of globalisation and instant interaction. |
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| Other Q&As |
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Q: While living abroad, please tell me how can I help my country in this war to combat terrorism?
-Ajay (sunita769@optonline.net)
- The best way you can help is by keeping the policy-makers and moulders of public-opinion in your country of residence or adoption informed of the true facts of the ground situation in India and the role of Pakistan's ISI and the terrorist organisations supported or sponsored by it. You could also help in removing simplistic ideas in the minds of people in your country that Pakistan's use of terrorism against India is due to the Kashmir issue and the Indian presence in Afghanistan. Pakistan started using terrorism against India from 1981 when it started supporting the Khalistanis. It uses terrorism to weaken and destabilise India and uses various pretexts from time to time.
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Q: According to you, what are the reasons that results in the lack of co-ordination among the intelligence agencies?
-Mike (mikedixon55@gmail.com)
- Lack of co-ordination is due to ego clashes, the culture of over-secrecy and the inability of intelligence chiefs to instil in their officers the realisation that all-in whichever agency-are working and fighting for a common cause. Secrecy is important in respect of intelligence operations-particularly with regard to the identities of sources, methods of handling and meeting them, our success in code-breaking. In all other matters, there should be sharing of details between the various agencies. They generally share a paraphrased version of human and technical intelligence reports without giving to each other any additional details, which could help in analysis and assessment. The National Commission in the US, which went into the 9/11 terrorist strikes, pointed out that better co-ordination alone will not be sufficient. There is also a need to cultivate in the counter-terrorism community the culture of joint action. This means that all agencies are individually and jointly responsible for preventing an act of terrorism. We do not have this culture of joint action. Otherwise, the IB, the R&AW and the Navy would not be blaming each other for the failure to prevent Mumbai--November 26.
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Q: I have been reading your articles on terrorism for last several years in different magazines. Why have you advocated reviving RAW & bleeding Pakistan as against a direct military onslaught on terrorist camps and bases of LeT in Pakistan?
-Vijay (VijayBee@gmail.com)
- I have been an advocate of deniable covert action against Pakistan to make it realise that its policy of using terrorism as a strategic weapon against India will not pay. We must have a mix of incentives and disincentives in our policy towards Pakistan-incentives by way of improvement in bilateral relations when it behaves and disincentives by way of covert actions when it does not. Our policy has been one of incentives only with no disincentives. Pakistani rulers-political or military-misinterpret our over-anxiety for good relations as a weakness. This impression has to be removed. Direct military strikes against the terrorist training camps will not pay as the US learnt to his cost after the Cruise missile strikes on Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan in August,1998, and after the recent strikes on Al Qaeda's and the Taliban's hide-outs in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. The terrorist training camps do not have permanent structures. Like gypsies, they keep shifting their tents from place to place. Military strikes against them could kill innocent civilians without destroying the terrorist infrastructure. As the Americans are doing against Al Qaeda, we must go after the leaders and other senior operatives of the LET and other organisations one by one. We have not even offered huge cash rewards to anyone in India or Pakistan, who will help in neutralising these leaders. The Americans have been skilfully using the Internet in their hunt for Al Qaeda leaders. We have not even thought of such methods. Our counter-terrorism ideas and methods are utterly primitive.l
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Q: Why do we hear every time that the terror attacks do take place due to the intelligence failure? Why don't we learn anything from past or we still have a chalta hai attitude?
-Daljit (bhabrads@yahoo.com)
- Every successful act of terrorism speaks of an intelligence or physical security failure or both. There are two kinds of intelligence failure-zero intelligence and inadequate and incomplete intelligence. There are very rarely instances of zero intelligence. What one calls intelligence failure are essentially instances of inadequate or incomplete intelligence. An adequate and complete intelligence report will answer the questions what, when, where, how and by whom. Intelligence agencies do provide on occasion answers to all these questions. A good example is the report of the MI-5, the British internal intelligence, sent to the R&AW in 1995 about the plans of some unidentified terrorists to have arms air-dropped in Purulia. The report was 95 per cent complete. The only deficiency was it could not identify the terrorists. Despite this excellent report, the terrorists could not be trapped on the ground while collecting the air-dropped arms because the follow-up action by the IB and the West Bengal Police was delayed and bungled.
Intelligence agencies have succeeded in many instances in collecting excellent human intelligence in Punjab, Kashmir, Tamil Nadu in respect of Al Ummah and the North-East. Their major failures have been in respect of jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K and Maoist terrorism in Central India. The main reasons for their poor performance are difficulties in penetrating the terrorist organisations responsible, lack of good relations with the Muslim community and the Dalits and tribals, who support the Maoists and the lack of joint action by the central agencies and the state police. Good relations with the community help in improving the flow of human intelligence. The hurt caused by the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the minds of Muslims comes in the way of the Muslims in North India co-operating with the police and the intelligence agencies.
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| Join the War on Terror today |
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| You can also |
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SMS ‘WAR’ to52424
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| In case you come across any suspicious activity or have any information to tell the Anti-Terror Squad, |
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| Dial All India Toll-Free
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| Terror Helpline No.1090
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| The identity of the caller will be kept a secret.
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Here's a list of emergency numbers and addresses in 6 important cities.
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We bring together stories, videos and pictures on terror attacks across the nation.
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India Reacts
The prime purpose of the terrorists is to shatter the peace and unity of the country. The only way to defeat them is by defeating their mindless purpose-- stand with determined resilience with the people of the country irrespective of communal, linguistic and regional barriersn.
Swarnima Bhattacharya
, Lucknow
Much has been spoken by the leaders, but no concrete work has been done so far. The ministry should not be headed by any politician but by some retired police or preferably some military official.
Shailendra Vikrant , Chandigarh
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Headlines Today anchors pledge to fight terror
Are we safe anywhere?
