The apparent denial from Lashkar-e-Taiba came from a man calling himself "Doctor Ghaznavi" who made telephone calls to newspaper offices in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

The caller condemned the attacks, describing them as "inhuman and barbaric acts". He went on: "Islam does not permit the killing of innocent people. Blaming LeT for such inhuman acts is an attempt by the Indian security agencies to defame Kashmiri mujahideens."

Another leading Kashmiri group, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, denounced the bomb attacks as "outrageous", saying it abhorred the killing of civilians. Reuters reported the group's spokesman, Ehsan Elahi, saying from Islamabad: "Attacks on civilians are not part of our manifesto. We never carried out such attacks nor will allow anyone to do so."

I'm confused - so taking the lives of Kashmiris - thats not killing civilians? Or murder?
Guess that means LeT is out.

OT- Israel in Lebanon next? This is bullshit. If they try to pull another Gaza type stunt - I'm camping outside the Israeli Consulate in Mumbai. Any takers? Lemme know. I'm already pissed by this weeks events - and believe me - I'm sick of cribbing online about everything that goes wrong. From now on, there will be more action on my part.

I'm providing a list of links to Indian blogs with posts on the blast. Just to note general public opinion.

Mumbai Help - The Blog with everything Mumbaikars need to know.
Youth Curry - Rashmi Bansal - the editor of JAM. She's always very cool.
A Soul in Exile - A serious blog with serious issues.
Utopia - A poem of sorts.
Sepia Mutiny - Detailed and informative.
In Search of Nirvana - An eerie personal coincidence of a guy .
Looking for 7 on a 6 sided Die - A blogger with interesting opinions.
Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind - Another poem. 
Practical Thoughts - An angry blogger.
Cover Drive - Angry at the media.
India Uncut - A detailed look at yesterday's events.

I could keep linking all day long - but I won't.
Some of these blogs did amazing work yesterday - like Mumbai Help. They connected people and provided the lists of the wounded and the dead. Hats off to them. That's what I call productive blogging - instead of just ranting on and on like some of us. 

What pisses me off more is the sad reaction our authorities have to emergencies. It is always the citizens who respond to all the tragedies all the time. Our overall security system is shit is as well. Often the only cops we face in the stations are the single gaurds on the ladies compartments after 11 pm, which is sadly inadequate in itself for a city where there are people who actually can abandon dead babies and commit entire rapes around, in and near railway tracks, trains and stations. And our Government sits back and allows this to happen. Their forces are spent in controlling the Shiv Sainik goons who're already wrecking havoc in the state-  for what?  For some mud someone defaced the statue of their Boss's dead wife with - their Ma. The cops are too busy monitoring people's entertainment levels - like by shutting down dance bars, banning live concerts after 10:30 pm and they're too busy collecting petty bribes, molesting women and making general nuisances of themselves and earning all the derogatory nicknames which we call them and they so hate. Kya pandey?

I deviating. I'm pissed at their apathy. I'm pissed that all the politicians are going to do is stand around and 'condemn' and 'criticize' this 'dastardly act' while not doing anything to prevent this from happening again.

Tomorrow we'll all be back to normal. We'll use the trains again. Because we can't afford not to. And the security will stay lax. The 'intelligence forces' will be none the wiser on how to stop this happening again by actually following up on the trails of the so called 'massive shipments' of RDX they found last week (or a couple of weeks ago). And after compensating the families of the victims with a few lakhs of rupees the Government will go back to trying and solving the J&K problem with 'peaceful talks' and make the terrorists/ militants/ insurgents/ patriots/ mercenaries even more madder.

In the meanwhile, Musharraf will continue saying that Pak only provides 'moral' support to these terrorists/ militants/ insurgents/ patriots/ mercenaries.

And a few months down the line the same thing will happen again. ANd we will still be unprepared. We will still not have a better emergency and rescue cell in place. The 'Heros of the Day' will still be ordinary citizens. If you could only see the condition of the people who were carrying out the rescues. They had no clue what they were getting themselves into, some were sobbing with what they were seeing and touching. The injured were being man-handled because noone knew what to do. The dead just lay there for all of national TV to broadcast over and over and over again. This is not the first time. It happens each time. And then the Government brings it down on the media - calling them irresponsible for not being gentle with the audience at home. For being too obsessed with gore. But hey, its a business and anyways we need to show people how our taxes will never really help us.

I want to tell you guys another thing. There will be no memorials for those who died today. Thats a luxury the we cannot aford. They will be forgotten - noone will know their names - except the people who lost them. The only thing anyone in this city will remember a few weeks later - will be the way the Mumbai spirit worked again today - to help the injured, the stranded, the worried, the tired and the blood doners. Its pure shit.

A government that watches its people die quietly, is pathetic. That makes all of the Indian parties - pathetic. NO wonder we're stuck in a rut.The more I write -the sadder I'm getting. Good night.

There have been a series of bomb blasts in Srinagar and J&K today. This was followed by the 5 blasts in Mumbai's Western Trains  today. Sorry - can't link anything yet cos there's nothing on the net yet. The media is looking for connections between incidents at Shrinagar and Mumbai, so then we can calm down once we can blame someone, preferrably terrorists. Though a lot of us commoners think that this might just be the Shiv Sena taking the action they had promised for the desecration of thir "Mother's" statue. But they generally avoid targeting their own.

The blasts occured around 6 pm (peak of the evening rush hour) in train compartments along the Western line at Mahim, Khar, Andheri, Bhayandar - and Borivali. There's a lot of confusion about the numbers - number of blasts, munber of injured and dead. In fact, authorities are yet to acertain which stations are hit, its a bit unclear.

SO far, cell phones are down and there is a lot of confusion. Eyewitness accounts coming up on the news now, they're speaking of the injured. Unfortunately, its also pouring now - no communication, transport down. 

Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore are on high alert.
The present disoriented count is 15 dead and numerous injuries.
Mumbai goes home on these trains, this is a nasty, unexpected attack.

Correction - there were 6 - 8 blasts, tomorrow -we might know better...

Links finally -
Serial blasts halt Mumbai's Western Railway, NDTV link, From Yahoo.

My TV screen shows civilians carrying the wounded and dead. They're angry that the railway police and the Mumbai police is very conspiciously absent. There are reports of cops refusing to pick up the dead- and people are mad- they're literally  yelling at media for the apathy of the authorities.

Its raining. And I'm home. My colleagues are at home relaxing as well. As are my family and friends. Schools and colleges are closed. Offices have been shut down.

Word is, there ain't gettin no where today.

So instead of attempting the tough trek to work, most Mumbaiites are snuggled up at home. There are mini rivers drifting down the city lanes and the roads are empty. BUT - people are panicking all over the place - I see them scurring into supermarkets and emptying the shelves just to be safe, just cos they remember last July. The newspapers are screaming murder at the BMC for once again bungling up emergency ops - the streets are still fucked up, the drains are still in the process of being cleared... as always things that were supposed to be done a month ago, before the rains got here, are still pending.  

Now that the high tide has receded, I hear that water levels are dropping. Yet -  The trains were not working from what I heard last and the cable is down so there is no television. I can recieve no news bulletins and that is a pain.

In the kitchen, my folks are cooking up a storm. A typical traditional Bong (Bengali) rainy day lunch of khichdi (kinda like a pot rice with pulses and veggies), labda (mixed veggies), veg crisps (deep fried veggies like padwal and aubergines) and fried eggs, fried fresh-water fish - the whole lot. Mouthwatering. This is a killer combo best eaten in the midst of heavy rains - its the kind of food that should be accompanied with lightening and low thunder growls. Ha ha. I love traditional Bong food. Ideally, this stuff should be eaten on the floor on banana leaves. But we'll be using plates of course.  

Nice rains. Time to catch up on some reading now. Namaste.

Yeh hai Mumbai, Dr Singh

"Will the PM’s call to action save the city? First, scan its chaos of numbers

Bas! Ab aur nahin saha jaata. Enough! We cannot tolerate this any more. Never has a B-grade Bollywood line sounded so sweet. The delivery was flawless, sympathetic but steely; the timing perfect. And the hero none other than Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minster of India.

In Mumbai to launch a long awaited metro rail system this week, Singh saluted the ordinary citizen’s “indomitable spirit”, but lashed out at the Congress-led Maharashtra government and the Shiv Sena-led Municipal Corporation for pushing the city to the brink. Mumbai, he said, needed to be freed from the “cancer of corruption” and the “stranglehold of land mafias”.

Messiah of the masses or wily politician? Like the dubious beneficiaries of Quota Politics, Mumbaikars are unsure. Forgive us for being sceptical: we have waited too long, been forsaken too often, and watched our beautiful, vivacious metropolis slip into the black hole of civic anarchy. Last year, the Economist listed Mumbai as one of the world’s most unlivable cities, consigning it to a global terminal ward, along with Dhaka, Abidjan and Bogota.

Here’s why:

• We are 18 million people crammed onto one tiny island, with a population density of 43,898 per sq km. (Compare this to just 9033 per sq km in Delhi). * Real estate prices are so unreal that in downtown Mumbai you could pay Rs 60,000 for a single sq ft.

• Yet, there are 19,846 buildings in danger of collapsing. And eight million people — nearly half of Mumbai’s citizens — live in subhuman slums, where every public toilet is shared by 4,000 people.

• Two million others commute like slaughterhouse animals on the hopelessly inadequate suburban train system, and another four million use moonscaped roads, pockmarked with an estimated 23,639 potholes. There is only one bus for every 1,300 people and only two public parking spots for every 1,000 cars.

• We have a water shortage of 1000 million litres. The commodity is so scarce that swanky skyscrapers have to rely on private suppliers, and those who can’t afford to eat must shell out Rs 20 for a bucket to drink.

• With a deficit of 1500 MW, the city is on the verge of a power crisis.

• We generate 7,800 tonnes of garbage everyday — only half that of New York — but much of it lies uncollected because there are only three municipal dumps.

• An estimated 80 per cent of Mumbai’s slum children are moderately or severely malnourished.

• There is only one civic hospital for every 1.5 million people, and each year, thousands fall prey to typhoid, cholera, jaundice, gastro-enteritis and leptospirosis.

Of course, it’s only fair to admit that Mumbai’s elected representatives have not turned a blind eye to all this. On the contrary, they have actively aided the city’s descent into hell.

Here’s how:

• Instead of addressing the need for quality, low cost housing, the state government has sought to create an artificial scarcity of land by insisting on archaic laws that allow the lowest levels of FSI or floor space per person.

• Equally archaic rent laws ensure that people pay only a fraction of what their property is worth, forcing landlords to neglect perilous buildings.

• Slums continue to grow unchecked, thanks to votebank policies. In 2004, when Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh vowed to make Mumbai slum free, he was forced to recant, by none other than Congress President Sonia Gandhi. And grandiose slum rehabilitation plans have been more or less hijacked by the builders’ mafia after they were granted free land by the state government in return for taking on low budget housing projects.

• Mumbai’s 4,526 crore urban transport project has been lying comatose for over 20 years, a much needed Sea Link Project is nowhere near completion after six years, and the 2,300 metro rail will only roll by 2011.

• Much of the city still depends on a hundred-year-old sewage system installed by the British, while the Brimstowad Files, a “new” storm water drainage plan, has remained in the municipal cold storage for over 12 years. Incidentally, the municipality has also been “locating” a suitable new dumping site for over a decade, with little success.

• Last year, an estimated 865 crore lay unused with the Urban Development Department because Chief Minister Deshmukh was too busy shutting down dance bars and slamming the door on “wardrobe malfunctions” to notice. And the Municipal Corporation recently forked out Rs 10 crore to international consultant McKinsey for suggestions on how to clean up its act, but Commissioner Johnny Joseph still can’t decide what to do with the report.

Naughty boys! Serves them right to be rapped on the knuckles by our prime ministerji. And like all schoolboys they have done the honorable thing: pitched into each other. While Deshmukh churlishly complained that transforming the city was the municipality’s job, the BMC, which has been run by the Shiv Sena for over 20 years, claims that the Congress government is taking the credit for the city’s infrastructure projects only to lure voters in the forthcoming civic elections.

It’s a familiar Punch and Judy show. But in the ringside seats there was silence — the silence of indifference and resignation. After the deluge of last July when Heaven wept 944 mm of rain and left 400 dead, Mumbai’s citizens booed briefly at the protagonists, and reached for their rotten eggs — before going back dry-eyed to the important business of minding their own business.

Now Dr Singh is asking us for more involved spectatorship. “Unless people become proactive and participate in urban governance, we cannot impose reforms from above,” he admonished, gently. But he seems to have conveniently forgotten one tiny detail. Mumbai contributes Rs 58,000 crore to the national exchequer, and receives only Rs 1000 crore in return from New Delhi. If you will excuse us, sir, it doesn’t quite add up. After all, as the architect of India’s economy, surely you know that solving a problem depends on how well you balance the formula.

farah.baria@expressindia.com "

Had to paste the whole peice. Informative, eh?

Another month. Another loss. Another cell phone gone. My life seems like an endless stream of Nokia 1101s. They come and they go. And like the maniacal 21st century entity that I am, I am forced to keep replacing these indispensible gadgets without which I will be left mute and speechless. Like an addict. Dependent on a ringing vibrating thingie, I seek out my next Nokia 1101 - the cheap and affordable hit. Aaaargh - the agony of loosing another cell. I pray to god that someone starts a help group for obsessive compulsive cell phone loosers like myself. I need help.

I've lost phones commuting, left them behind on buses and riks, I've lost phones cos I was drunk, I lost em in fights and at parties - but I have never lost a phone at my workplace. Er, until now that is. Come on people - congratulate me. Somehwere out there, in the netherworld of atheist mobiles - exist a set of barely used and pretty new devices - all from me and my pockets. Boohoo - I feel for their departed souls. 

Here's my theory. Cell phones were invented to be lost. The whole communication jazz is just a cover up. The cell companies are just as dangerous as the drug and arms cartels, they're just as bad as the big corporates - they serve to shrink the world's distances and my bank account. I know you bastards -I see what you want -you cannot have my money. I will not give in to you. This time I shall abstain from buying another cell phone.

Ooooo- whats that shiny lil thing in your pocket buddy?

Or maybe I'll get just this one more phone and then I'll stop. Help me world. Save me from the mobiles. I am feeling low man.

Japan wins pro-whaling vote

"Japan and its allies have won their first pro-whaling vote in 20 years at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in the Caribbean island of St Kitts.

Sunday's pro-whaling declaration, won by a majority of 33 votes to 32, calls for a move towards lifting the 1986 ban on commercial whaling."