PRAGOTI

Investigative journalist Gerald Posner of the Daily Beast brings about a startling revelation - that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist, alleged co-conspirator and operative in the gruesome Mumbai terror attacks on November 26, 2008, David Headley was also a US double agent.

"A major world power is being threatened by these civilizational tensions."
-- Robert Kaplan, Center for a New American Security

The leitmotif of old Bombay is its diversity. Populations with varied beliefs and languages were agglomerated by the British into an ever growing city, first as a trading post which then slowly transformed into an industrial and financial powerhouse. As the city grew, it spread, reclaiming land and absorbing islands, pushing outward into the hinterland that was linked by the railways. All along the rail lines and across the bay grew beautiful mansions and congested slums. Beside them rose skyscrapers and hotels, Irani restaurants and street food stalls. The films came in time, building on Bombay's polycultural theatre scene. Mumbai accounts for a quarter of India's gross domestic product. Some of it comes from the gangsters of the streets; most of it comes from the brokers at Dalal Street. This is a city alive and swelling, which is why journalist Suketu Mehta's opus called it maximum city.

According to Pakistani officials, security forces over-ran a militant camp on the outskirts of Pakistani Kashmir's main city and seized the alleged mastermind of the attacks that shook Mumbai last month. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was among at least 12 people in Sunday's raid on the camp run by the banned group Laskhar-e-Taiba the group reportedly responsible for the attacks. It remains unclear if Lakhvi will be extradited to India. These ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan took place amidst local Indian elections with certain Indian media stations speculating on potential Indian military action against Pakistan. Although the deputy editor of The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan states "that there is no danger of war between India and Pakistan" he believes that "this crisis is pregnant with implications for Indo-Pak relations and the future of Pakistan." Real News Network interviews Siddharth Varadarajan on the developing situation between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai Terror Attacks.

One of the fallouts of the terror attacks in Mumbai has been an over-the-top reaction from the Indian media and jingoist appeals made in the same by some people connected to the establishment, certain "celebrities" - more fittingly, vacuous and obtuse people familiar to the public, and others. In direct correlation to this has been a reaction of abject denial by several voices in the Pakistani media, mirroring the jingoism in India.