That's all, Your Honour!: May 31- June 5

1. First the Home Minister guaranteed to us that access to Headley will be given, there is nothing to worry. Then nothing happened. Then our Prime Minister also had to bring this up with the US President (that's right, at a time when co-operation regarding terrorists needs to be seemless, the head of our country had to request the head of US t grant access to a terrorist who is charged with planning the gruesome 26/11 attack in Mumbai). Now, when such an assurance happens at the highest level, you would except the process to happen soon without hiccups. Nah - that's not how it works! About 50 days after that assurance was given, a team had to leave to the US, had to face multiple problems for about a week; then the External Affairs Minister Mr. S.M.Krishna had to remind Hillary Clinton. And the worst part is that he said this “… access for our authorities to persons who have been apprehended by your government in connection with the Mumbai terror attack is the logical next step.” And then finally we were given access to David Coleman Headly. And the vagueness in that announcement is there for all of us to see here. Now, if you think that Headley is talking and all is well - read this. He is taking the fifth amendment! So much for co-operation huh?Rediff has the entire Headley saga documented in this link here, just go through the headlines to see how we have been played for about 8 months!

2. More than Mamta Banerjee, it was our national English media channels that were more happy that her party, Trinamool Congress, won majority seats in the civic body polls in West Bengal. They prepared so much footage on Mamta that they would have been disappointed had TC lost in these elections! They went gaga over her; infact if you didn't switch on TV all day on June 2, and then saw the news on that evening, you would think Mamta Banerjee became the Chief Minister of West Bengal (True, what else can you interpret from this headline "Mamta wins Bengal" ?). The details of the results are here. Quite clear that Congress has been reduced to a hopeless minority in this state. Also, if you are wondering about what happened to the investigations in last week's train blast by Naxals in West Bengal - CBI has been asked to investigate and some Naxal leader said "sorry" for the disaster. Apparently their target was the Goods train. Haa! What a shame these people are really.

3. It is common knowledge that our country has a super PM. Now, isn't it unfair that the Super PM doesn't get to have a "cabinet" of her own? :D.. Presenting to you, ladies and gentlemen, the National Advisory Council (NAC) - the super cabinet of India ! Infact this NAC was very much present during UPA 1.0 version too. Remember, Sonia Gandhi had to resign as its chairperson because of the Office of Profit controversy? Later, this office was bought in the ambit of those offices that are exempted from the definition of Office of Profit! And then NAC is credited with NREGA, RTI and now the proposed Right to Food Act. So basically then few achievements of UPA are credited to the NAC headed by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. That's all, your honour!

That's all, your honour!: May 2-8

1. In early March, the government was supposed to introduce the Civil Nuclear Liability bill in Lok Sabha and it withdrew that proposal in the last minute (and old post here has details on this and the bill). The government then said that they will discuss more with the opposition and listen to their concerns. In between, the Prime Minister visited the US and told the President of US that he will strive to get this thing passed. Given the united opposition stand against the bill, it was expected that the government will not introduce it in this session. However, much to everyone's shock, the government chose to introduce this bill on the last day of Parliament session! Not a word was amended - the same bill that was not introduced before was introduced on the last day of the session. Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Yadav apparently are supporting the bill now. Do you want to guess why? Because the Prime Minister has announced in the Lok Sabha that the government will soon take a decision on caste-based census. That's right - just because he was willing to sound positive on such a HUGE issue, Lalu and Mualayam who have no damn clue on this nuclear bill have agreed to support it. What a farcial way, this government is going to get this nuclear thing done at any cost. It bought MP's to get it passed in 2008 and now is doling out promises without thinking twice.

2. This is not the only deal that the UPA has made with its allies. CBI cases against Mayawati were lifted the moment she supported the government in cut motions. The corrupt A.Raja still stays, despite overwhelming evidence against him. Karunanidhi does not want him to go, and apparently the deal therefore is that the Congress will get an additional seat in the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu. Then there is Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel who continue to stay despite proven incompetance and corruption. And now this deal with Lalu and Mulayam. But hey, we cannot question because Manmohan Singh is a "decent" man.

3. Ajmal Kasab was pronounced guilty, and subsequently has been awarded the death sentence. This was an expected result. Anyone who thought otherwise would have been either naive and unbelievably optimistic. Our media, however covered this like as if this was a monumental judgement and the prosecution did an awesome job in getting him convicted. The prosecution lawyer, Ujwal Nikkam, even flashes the victory sign as if he just conquered Rome. Amidst all this melee, the TV media forgot that two other accused were held not guilty. That's right - the police arrested two people from UP and the prosecution could not prove the charges against them. So who is at fault here? The police? The prosecution? Or both? Did they know they had a weak case? If so, why did they keep these two people for so long? These are the questions to be asked, in my opinion. But hey, instead we were all busy celebrating that Ajmal Kasab got a "fair" trial !

4. YSR's son, Jagan Mohan Reddy own Sakshi newspaper in Andhra Pradesh. When YSR was alive, expectedly the only thing that the paper did was to sing praises of the government. Post his demise, the paper started criticizing the government more than the opposition does! Never mind that it is the same Congress party's government. Never mind that the entire cabinet is the same too! The CM Mr. Rosaih is very angry at this development, but given that no one really cares about his feelings here, his reactions are immaterial! Jagan Mohan Reddy is on a spree beating the government schemes. The ironic thing is that all these implementation problems existed even when YSR was alive - so whom is Jagan trying to fool, your honour?!

The Obvious Case of David Headley

David Coleman Headley, was formerly known as Daood Gilani. His dad is a former Pak diplomat and mom is an American. He is an American Citizen. His original name, as mentioned before, is Daood Gilani. He changed it to David Headley because that will make his travel across the subcontinent easy.

So why did he want to travel around the subcontinent? Because he was working for a terrorist organisation called Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT). Being an American Citizen with a name like David Headley, he was pretty sure that his frequent visits to India and Pakistan will just go un-noticed. And he was right. Despite his passport having multiple instances on entry into India, Pak etc, none of the immigration officers here in India or in US even doubted his instances even once.

So what work did he do for LeT? He came to India, did a detailed recce of many many places and submitted his videos to the LeT in Pakistan. Do you want to take a guess at what some of those locations?

1. Taj, Mumbai.
2. CST, Mumbai.
3. Trident, Mumbai.
4. German Bakery, Osho Ashram etc, Pune.

Do these names ring a bell? The famed 26/11 attacks took place at the top 3 locations. The recent Pune blast happened at German Bakery. This is just a list of some places. I don't know about the other places he went to.

Recent investigative reports also revealed that David Headley was also an FBI agent, possibly a CIA agent too. So basically a double agent. Worked for the FBI and the LeT. Ofcourse, it has neither been officially confirmed nor denied that he worked for FBI.

So, now lets connect the dots (duh! like there is anything to connect there). So essentially, David Headley is a prime conspirator in terror attacks carried out on India. He is one of those chiefly responsible for killing of the citizens of India. As also some citizens of the US, Israel etc. If anything, the US should have atleast given us the access to interrogate him. Afterall, we allowed FBI to interogate Kasab within weeks of his arrest.

But hey, what does the US do? It arrests him, but does NOT give us access to interogate him. It enters into a plea bargain with him. Yes, you read it right. It entered into a plea bargain with a TERRORIST. He pleads guilty, doesn't get the death sentence and no more interrogations. However, the kind souls that the US government officials are - they have told us that we can have video conferences with him in Indian courts. Rejoice people, for the US has been so magnanimous in offering us this wonderful facility.

So the US had to do this to protect its secrets, for he was an FBI agent too, apparently. The war on terror has just become a joke now. If you are wondering what will the Indian government do now... please, let's not even get into that.

David Headley is a Terrorist. Nothing more, nothing less. But hey, the obvious case of Daood Gilani ends with a plea bargain! Shame on the US(the degree of superlatives here really does not matter today - we have been insulted, and that's the truth).

PS: Links to all the claims above are available on the net.

Must read Cover story by THE WEEK

Right from the "Letter from the managing editor" to the detailed interview with Vinita Kamte, this week's cover story of THE WEEK is simply awesome. The cover story is about covert operations by both IB and RAW to nab terrorists supported by ISI and operating from Nepal. Every article has insightful details of operations, how the ISI shamelessly pursued terror againt India, how innocent lives were rescued etc. I will present the link for each article and also will make some observations on each of them :)

1. Letter from the Managing Editor: Click here.

This is basically an intorduction letter tell us what to expect. Hats off to Senior Correspondent Syed Nazakat for piecing together the story on the operations. However, what caught my attention was this question by the editor - "did the widow of a martyr have to apply through the RTI for the postmortem report?". Isn't it a shameful reflection of the system that even post mortem reports have to be obtained in this way?

2. No Pals in Nepal. Click here.

This is the main story detailing various operations of RAW and IB in nabbing atleast 400 terrorists till now. Interesting pieces of information are all revealed here. For example, it is mentioned that there were 4 flights per week from Pakistan to Nepal and there was just no commercial justification for them. ISI was using these flights to transport weapons into Nepal!. Do read the entire article for extremely interesting points. I will stop here for now ;-)

3. Charge of the Tigress. Click here.

These are one of the most explosive findings of 26/11 and sadly most of the media are not presenting them threadbare to us. I really feel great about the work Vinita Kamte h done despite the loss of her husband in the most tragic circumstances. Some of her revelations about how politicians passed irresponsible statements make your blood boil. he same politicians are still enjoying power this day, while the families of martrys are still searching for answers. It is a real shame that our system plainly refuses to learn from mistakes. Please read and also forward the article to as many as possible.

4. Interviews.

Brief, but interesting, interviews have been conducted with the incharge of IB (click here), RAW (click here , I like his statement "It is a game of scoundrels played by gentleman" !), Nepal's Home Minister (click here) and of a Gorkha arrested in 2001.

I assure you, these articles are of great learning value. Special thanks to @centerofright in twitter for providing this story.