viewpoint

The terrorists know fully well that India is an easy and soft target. Till now we had the foreign hand triggering blasts, with a few active sympathisers. But of late, we have full-fledged terrorist organisations that are active.

It is time the politicians stop condemning such attacks or blaming it on ISI. Even if ISI is behind this, what are we doing to preempt terrorist activity. We have hardly any intelligence to stall surprises. Add to it the state-centre spat. The blame game continues for a few days with the Home Minister announcing that the state government (which controls the state police) was forewarned. And the nothing is done.

22nd July 2008 will go down in the history of Indian Parliament (sorry for the capital P this one last time). MPs brandishing cash, cross-voting, and mud-slinging; a Prime Minister not having the courage to speak; a Sikh MP from Bihar exhoring the Sikhs to vote for your own; Omar Abdullah’s crocodile tears; and so forth and so on.

With 15 cross-votes and all in favour of the UPA, imagine what would have happened if the ruling party had not managed to buy MPs. The biggest loser in this is undoubtedly the BJP which has once again proved its incapacity of offering an alternative; it cannot even hold its flock together!

The Congress, already gasping for breath hasn’t won either. It will now be hostage to smaller parties, giving in to their petty demands. Will it be able to push through the reforms the Left has not allowed it to implement so far? If it can do that and control inflation, it can hope to do well in the future.