Seriously. Behold! P Chidambaram has a new plan. It's just like the old plan. The BBC has summarised it nice and neat so I'm just going to add my comments to their little list.
A national investigation agency would be set up
Oh shit, no! Not another intelligence agency. Okay, now, that's not fair, how many of them do work that's supposed to relate to terrorism? ALL OF THEM! Apparently P C believes that intelligence agencies are like violence: if they don't solve the problem, use more. In fact, if you think the real problem is that we have too many intelligence agencies, we have a committee that coordinates interactions between them.
Vacancies in the country's intelligence agencies would be filled and they would be equipped with advanced equipment
Good, good. This could actually help, provided they use the new resources to target this problem and not provide 'Z-class' security (which sucks, by the way, you have Chief Ministers getting nearly blown up and stuff).
A coastal command would be set up to secure India's 7,500km-long coastline
I have no idea what this entails. However, my bullshit alarm is going off. What happened to just tightening protocol and encouraging intelligence sharing between the Navy and Coast Guard who were already supposed to be patrolling the very area through which these people came? What happened to engaging local people in intelligence gathering? What happened to the obvious things?! Instead, the Indian solution: Set up a committee! Brilliant!
Pertaining to reaction
- a total of 20 "counter-insurgency, anti-terrorism" schools would be set up in various parts of India to train to train police and security personnel
- commando forces to be set up in the states
- laws relating to terrorist acts would be beefed up
Can you connect the dots? All these three things talk about how we react to these situations. They will not reduce the likelihood of attacks in the country, and they 'may' reduce casualties when these attacks happen. The first and second ideas would result in quicker resolutions to conflicts, hopefully. However, and here is the funny thing: We already have a commando force trained for exactly these situations, who have been deployed exactly 6 times in 20 years (4 times in the last 10). Why weren't they deployed in time on this occasion?
- The Chief Minister did not initially realise the seriousness of the situation.
- The NSG did not have an aeroplane so they couldn't get to Mumbai.
Get that! They had to borrow their aeroplane. WOW! Setting up a unit in all the big cities (as the Government plans, I'm told) is not a bad idea. I'll wait and see how this goes.
The third one is the worst. We know what that usually means, it means state oppression of the common minority man. It always has and there is no reason to believe this one will be better. No terrorist act proposed would have prevented this, or any of the other bombings that occurred in the months preceding.
Money laundering laws to be strengthened
Interesting.
In conclusion, we are ruled by fools. And it's depressing me.