Continuing my series...
Dear soldiers:
[Mumbai Police, ATS, NSG, MARCOS, whoever else was involved]
It fills me with pride that people just like me are so brave as to not fear facing death in the line of duty. I really do NOT have the words to thank you properly. If any of you are in Paris sometime, send me an email [animesh @ gmail] and I would be extremely happy to buy you lunch. Its the least I can do.
At the same time, it feels me with great sorrow that the casualties on our side could have been reduced, and the mission could have gone more smoothly, if you were given better equipment, whether it be body armor [e.g., Mr. Karkare, who was shot through his 1990's vintage armor], or better weapons [one could see non-automatic rifles and pistols], or better IT equipment [PDAs with hotel schematics anyone?], or better training on how to handle multistorey-building situations.
We, the people of India, through our elected representatives, have let you down. And I am extremely sorry for that. That said, there were incidents of citizen help, and we would all like to take that as an example.
Finally, thanks a lot for making it clear to the public that at the the time of need, it is the regionless, religionless armed forces that come to our rescue, not the so-called "leaders" who only know how to divide us for their personal gains.
Jai Hind.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
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So true!
ReplyDelete-Sushant
I strongly felt that the news channels(NDTV, HT etc) were all very incompetent in their coverage. CNN brought a swat team leader from New Orleans to comment on the commando oeprations. He said that reporters need to be educated on basic swat operations. Just because a greande goes off inside the hotel, does not mean that it is by the terrorists. It may very well be a distractionary measure employed by the commandos. Instead, these guys fall flat on the ground and went tothe extent of connjecturing that the terrorists were throwing greandes at the media ( if only!!)And I really did not need Barkha Dutt, her voice sore from yelling into the microphone for 3 straight days, asking Simi Garewal and Ness Wadia for their opinions on "We the People". It was literally an "assault on the senses", as this writer puts it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.openspace.org.in/node/808
And even now, they only keep showing the same news reports over and over again. If there is nothing new to report, please refrain from using the pretext of "for those who just joined us". We joined you three days ago!!!!
Dear Princess,
ReplyDeleteI love you, and completely agree with you :). Although I must say that you have stolen a bit of thunder from my "letter to the media" post coming soon :).
My fav. part was when the people at NDTV were accusing Vilasrao Deshmukh of "disaster tourism", a couple hours after Ms. Dutt had done a tour of the burnt hotel and dramatically shown us the cups, plates and curtains!
We need Jon. Stewart in India, to show the shallowness of the media. NOW!