How does one measure poverty

Interesting that it took so long to finally junk calorie intake as the poverty estimation tool. Even if one take mere food as an indicator I wonder if the calorie intake took into account nutritional needs like proportion of protein/carbs/minerals/vitamins etc.
I think putting things like Education, access to health-care in ambit of calculating poverty is a step in right direction. After all these define your quality of life and also define in a rudimentary way the opportunities available to better the quality of life. Lack of opportunity is what will keep the poor poor and as such is as much a handicap as lack of food/shelter etc.
Its kind of sobering to think by that yardstick India is still miserably poor. I suggest we also put in place a mechanism to evaluation the effectiveness of poverty removal programs. Accordingly government agencies (and private/NGOs) can also be rated as 'good to reduce poverty, not so good etc'. Organizations that serve to reduce total poverty can be given additional incentives. Otherwise I wonder if any real poverty alleviation will happen in near future.

Bollywood as the new Quettawood

I usually enjoy our neighbour's newspapers. Some to keep track of what is happening next door, sometimes for entertainment - that comes from wild 'facts' quoted by writers who lament why no one else quotes those 'facts', and sometimes well because there are good writers.
Read this piece in Dawn a newspaper and a writer that I usually enjoy. But then suddenly you come across a comment like "It seems that rightwing Jews, who often guide the Indian media’s worldview..." and I was left scratching my head. I've come across all sorts of religions in my personal circle but somehow never a Jew! A quick check on wikepedia and I found there are around 15000 Jews in India a land of a billion. Must be a remarkable set of people to "guide" Indian media's worldview with so few a number. Maybe the author meant US media which maybe is guided by Jews and in turn guides Indian media. A very long shot but still worth trying.
Anyways so that is a problem. Even seasoned journalists which credential to be taken seriously do make such wild statements in the guise of 'facts'. No wonder the common man on streets in Pakistan (and I am sure plenty in India have similar narrow worldview) believes in all sorts of fantasies.
Reading another column in the news gave me an idea. There is no reason why India should not support Baloch fight for justice in a moral support sort of way. Maybe India can allow Baloch movies to be made in India (easy visas, maybe some technical support) which highlight legitimate Baloch struggles. It will be a soft power projection, being totally non-violent can be easily shared with the world and allow Balochis a creative outlet that otherwise might hunt for other expressions. Frankly any more guns in neighborhood is simply too many guns.

Still happens in India

Just where is NHRC when you need it?

Metro in Soviet Union

And you thought that train stations were boring? Check this out.

Simple but Effective

The idea of Ugandan Memory books covered on BBC news.

Begining of the Begining?

Jinnah continues to haunt an Indian political party. First it was Advani of BJP who hailed Jinnah as a secular leader (which he was - staunchly secular till maybe his demand for Pakistan which came in much later in his long political career). Now it is Jaswant Singh of the same party who reasons in a book why Jinnah was secular.
Both these are important points for us to understand. For Pakistan to understand its own genesis and more importantly for me (since I am an Indian) Indians to understand the dynamics of politics and ideologies that shaped our own freedom struggle in the 20th century.
Were Hindu-Muslim relations always hostile to each other? If so why did the Hindu soldiers from Meerut and Avadh rebelling against East India company raj in 1857 march to Delhi to fight in the name of the Muslim Mughal King Bahadur Shah Jafar? It certainly wasn't because he was a powerful king? It was because there was a certain sense of Indian identity and the last Mughal king represented a dynasty that had ruled much of India in the past and hence had a certain identity.
A lot of Muslim leaders were within the mainstream of congress and worked totally within the overall congress ideology. Even some areas of now Pakistan (NWFP) actually voted for India.
Was the idea of a unite single post British India sacrificed at the alter of 2 egos? Some say Jinnah wanted to be PM, Nehru wanted to be PM so we ended with 2 countries. Will the partition have been avoided if Jinnah's health conditions were not hidden? How did 1 (or 2 men) managed to create 2 countries despite the wishes of Mahatma (surely the most popular Indian during the 20th century among Indian masses)? Jinnah must have articulated a certain wish that found resonance with many who while loved Mahatma and many other leaders who stood for a unified country still found Jinnah's arguments compelling. For that to happen there must have been another political undercurrent that was against Jinnah's argument and not Muslims.
Unfortunately any such debate or articulation of thoughts is suppressed at the alter of our own demons. Gujrat prefers to ban Jaswant's book on grounds of insult of a respected leader instead of instituting a debate that would allow Indians to evaluate the argument dispassionately.
I am sanguine though that a beginning is made. That 2 big leaders of a mainstream political party have thought about it and articulated it is a good sign. BJP's expulsion of Jaswant for the act of writing a book in his personal capacity will hopefully make more Indians keen to read this book and start thinking about it. Let the debate begin.

Reporting from Ground Zero: Swine Flu in India

I came to Pune from Mumbai morning 8 and the bus normally full of passengers had quite a few seats. It might be the time of day, 8 am bus on a Tuesday morning might not work for the usual office goers who want to be at it by 10 but a suspicious lack of coughing sneezing in the bus is its own story. The expressway was practically deserted save the container trucks and an occasional car or a bus, so travel seems to be a bit impacted.
Pune has been homogenized. There are only 4 kind of people - without masks, green mask, yellow mask and white masks. Its interesting that 'swine' flew masks mostly resemble a snout! There was lesser than usual traffic on road, again might be the non peak hour. But I suspect its also because schools, theaters etc are closed. Overall the smoke situation is more than I'd prefer but marginally less than usual.
Passed the Aundh Chest hospital (1 of the initial 2 hospitals tasked to test for swine flu) on the way and the crowd there looked less than usual. But then again I only could see the entry side of the place so it seems the testing panic is now abated a bit.
I wonder about the masks though. Will they lead to a false sense of complacency since i understand swine flu masks need to have finer holes for breathing than normal surgical masks and I saw mostly the green ones and many people wearing handkerchiefs. The housing society also apparently distributed 2 masks/house. Given that masks need to be disposable and are effective only a few hours I am not sure if they are going to really help but if it leads to peace of mind so be it.
So as we see nothing really to panic about. People are a bit wary but life is going on.
What I find disconcerting is our tendency to react and not pro-act! The government initial asked private sector to stay out of it (conflicting statements there). The ministry said they'll co-opt private sector when they'll need to. They also said capability upgrade to test for the flu will take months and they are working on it. Given that WHO had upgraded it to Pandemic level months ago, that the ministry did not do any thing is bad. And the fact that they were waiting for the flu to hit hard within India when they planned to upgrade capacity speaks volumes about their critical thinking. A report in a newspaper yesterday mentioned it takes 6 hours for a batch of 40 samples to be tested. And there are so few government labs. What if like UK (much less population) which had 5000+ cases in the last week being reported India too is required to test hundreds of thousands of sample a week and has to wait for a month for new labs to come online?
I hope the government tasks one of the many professional health agencies under it to henceforth monitor global disease trends and accordingly act in time.

Increase Your Privacy

Ever wonder why is it that in-spite of blocking cookies and disabling javascript, many sites still manage to give ads that seem to reflect your browsing history?

Well there is more to history than browser cookies (and browsing history saved in browser is often more valuable to a data mining site than mere cookies so clear it often). One leading culprit is 'flash cookies' or Local Shared Objects used by Flash. These are outside browser visibility and hence are never cleaned by browser thus occupying disk space and providing a tracking risk.

To avoid LSOs on Windows try these 2 steps

1. go to control panel -> java
Open General -> Temporary Internet Files -> Settings and disable "keep temporary files on my computer"

2. If you use firefox you can also install Better Privacy addon

True Cost of a war

Most of us who live a war only from a distance don't really realize what it means to live under the shadows of guns. No wonder some of most war hating people I have met have been armed forces (Indian) guys.

When Viral is the glue/packages off shelf flew

Sometimes a crank/or a tacky genius if you will
goes bonkers and hammers out of till
a review/a poem or the usual chill pill
that becomes a cry- usually happy, sometimes chill
sells a million - not that it makes sense but still.

lolz!

Search for Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal, totally hilarious

I'm a very visual person, I just can't see

"I'm a very visual person, I just can't see."

It happens outside Indyah

There is a little bit of Pune in Essex.
BTW I agree with the retired police officer - the solution to a menace is a lot bigger menace especially to cyclists and bikers.

Lost for Generations!

I came across this piece in Outlook reviewing a book on Shri Aurobindo and I realized that I have no real context to judge the book or the review for authenticity!
It is quite a shame that whole generations of Indians have grown up without knowing anything about India. Except for some kings of ancient India and smattering of Medieval India - mostly limited to Mughal empire and few notables like Shivaji and Tipu Sultan, no real discussion happens about modern India and its leaders - save Gandhi, Nehru and Bose.
What is lost is the knowledge of life and times of an galaxy of illustrious individuals who have done keen work in social spheres, philosophy, music and literature. What was the social condition of India before Raja Ram Mohan Roy and how did he effect that change? What about Swami Dayanand Saraswati? C Rajgopalachari?
So I land up in this embarrassing situation where a Frenchman writes about one of the modern greats of India and I in spite of my (above average I think) reading have no way to judge!

Hollowed Generation

It is somewhat of a wonder why India fails to win in international sports. Lot of factors are blamed from a lack of sporting culture, to politicians holding all sports bodies memberships to lack of sporting facilities to parental attitudes.
These are all valid reasons but are they all? I think it also has a lot to do with our nutritional status. Reports all over indicate that Indian kids as a majority are malnourished. And it is not just the poor classes but even middle and rich class. Its not that all kids are hungry, just that they don't eat right.
Coomi Kapoor in Indian Express makes a valid argument. Most of us simply do not know what makes a good meal. Our breakfast are typically fried parathas which while very filling are hardly what one should eat for breakfast. In place of breakfast being the most important meal it is usually dinner which ideally should be the least important meal.
This leads to a situation where 70% of kids don't get proper nutrition! So that means out of maybe 100 million kids and youth there might be in India, its only 30 million who are eating well. So in sports we are a nation of maybe only 30 million population which no sporting culture. No wonder.

Atlanta: We have a Problem

I never thought that shortage of over priced sugar syrup can be such a national emergency!

Finally the reason!

So this might explain why India's population is so high and still growing!

There are Brave (Wo)Men Too

My impression of Pakistani civil society is mostly of a society in denial and worst actually sympathetic to militants. Witness Imran Khan and so many other politicians who one would have expected to be liberals who actually support Jihadists overtly. That does not take away the fact that there are voices of dissent who see this as in fact a fight between obscurantism and liberal ethos, between warped notions of morality and a right to freedom for each, between good and evil.
Given the state of Pakistan I think most of the people who are actively espousing looking inwards are probably much more brave that most of us outsiders realize. Compare say the Indian media with Pakistan media. While by and large our media is free, often critical of government, I have not really seen too many biggies actually take on government when we invariably always end up blaming Pakistan. How many of our media groups actually champion the cause of human rights?
On the other hand I find Dawn almost always balanced. look here and here. The News is again fairly well balanced. And given the state of Pakistani society which has probably genuine sympathy to Jihadi groups, a super powerful security establishment that the rest of the world justifiably believe to be Jihadist and terrorists itself, and an executive that is at best ineffectual, on an average complicit with terrorists, it takes a lot of courage to point the accusatory finger inwards.
I wish we too have more media houses becoming as brave. In terms of individuals we all have heard of Asma Jehangirs of Pakistan and many activists within India so there we can still take hope that individuals in India still bravely battle the system, but in terms of mainstream coverage I think our media, especially TV is hopelessly out of tune with reality. Except from page3 kind of reporting there is very little actual news coverage. The the coverage often reeks of agenda.
Times Now - channel I earlier liked because well they did try and cover news now reminds me of Fox news of US. While yes a whole host of India and world's problems emanate from Pakistan, can we actually have a more nuanced discussion rather than simply calling them liars and duplicitous over and over again? CNN-IBN the other channel that I watch for news is somewhat fairer but again I do not see the kind of reporting that say Geo TV (that broke the story of Kasab's family being in Pakistan and first shots of his being Pakistani) does in Pakistan. Other Indian new channels are a travesty of news where breaking news might be a detailed coverage of what Rakhi Sawant wore to a party!
So long as there are these brave souls in Pakistan who risk life to show reality to Pakistani society there is still hope. Now to wish the same for India.

Terror Attack on SriLankan Cricket Team

Another horror story coming in from Pakistan. While some comments on telly were somber, at least 1 gentleman from establishment was blaming India stating something on the lines of "they are showing us what you can do in Mumbai we can do in here" (more here). I'd say an interesting though inadvertent admission they did something in Mumbai.
Even some comments from Pakistan on this attack from civil society blaming India. When will they get their head out of sand? If India were to attack, they'd have attacked the army or the government. What benefit will India get in harming Sri Lankan cricketers?
Its this state of denial that is Pakistan's biggest stumbling block in fighting terror. Until Pakistanis realize the enemy is within they wont be able to counter it. And they may realize it too late!
One of the telly channels had an interesting idea. They observed that were the Pakistani agencies complicit in the attack? Given that all assailants escaped and they showed visuals of Policemen handling weapons recovered from crime scene without gloves on. It was my own first thought on watching the news early in the day on CNN as it broke. Policeman picking up a pistol with naked hands and feeling it around. And my thought was now the only fingerprints would be of police investigators that they will get.
Its intriguing. What if the telly channel claim was true and the aim was to take the team hostage? i can imagine the grenade going under the bus, over it as 2 coincidences. The Pakistani team not traveling with them another co-incidence. Why so few policemen accompanying the team?
could it be that the aim was to kidnap the team and ask for Kasab's release in exchange? India would have been in a bind jeopardizing its relations with Sri Lanka if they refused and get a lot of bad publicity worldwide. If they acquiesced, a lot of case against Kasab and Pakistan would have been weakened. ISI should surely have loved that outcome!
While I confess its mostly conspiracy theory though not entirely straining credulity, its pretty much in a way what many in Pakistan seem to postulate what it comes to terror attacks in external countries blamed on Pakistani groups.What is really sad is that given the history of Pakistani establishment duplicity(especially the armed forces), this conspiracy theory might not be so far off the mark.

New Game In Town

fool: ameer hone ka brilliant idea aaya hai,
ultimate adventure trips agency
proprietor: UnFortune's fool
Totally risky tour to Pakistan
sympathetic ear: totally flop idea
who will come?
fool: well people hang upside down on free fall trains for kicks
sympathetic ear: yes but then they are responsible for their own deaths
fool: and that when they know that statically its safer than going to shop for dahi at nukkad shop on a scooter.
here there is real danger

sympathetic ear: yahan pe outside agencies se torture and death ke chances zyada hai, woh bhi disrespectfully
fool: haan to hum kaun unki salamati ki responsibility lenge
sympathetic ear: heh heh
fool: tabhi to ultimate adventure

sympathetic ear: what service will you provide"
fool: book tickets, make reservations (not responsible for hotel being closed/demolished in the interim- part of adventure
fool: and maybe even book a cab/truck to go to whereever

sympathetic ear: visa?
fool: File for visa, woh to apna headache thode hi hai, if pak wants tourists they give visa

sympathetic ear: extended tour to afghanistan too
sympathetic ear: if they pay a nominal amount

fool: I heard <> are crazy maybe send them
sympathetic ear: heh heh
fool: i am telling u its the genesis of a genuine new travel genre

So folks if you are looking for the ultimate adventure tour of your life, I have an offer you can't refuse.

It doent happen in Indyiah!

The mystery of Ireland's worst driver screams BBC. I wonder how many times this happen in India? Maybe not, since when have police simply noted a driver's address to send the parking fine? Here we usually pay it upfront, discount if you don't demand a receipt : )

The most unlikely movie

Its been a slow day as you can make out. So here I stumble onto this short brilliant piece. Have fun reading :)

The Virgin Taste

Something to cheer up a dreary day. The raw emotions of a flier on a Mumbai London Virgin flight when the man met the food. The sort of criticism that feels like being hit on the head with a slice of lemon wrapped in a gold brick. Apparently Sir Branson phoned up the guy and offered him to be the food taster/selector for Virgin for a month!
Hand it to these British for their sense of humour.

Those Magnificant Men in their magnificant Flying machines

Hudson Miracle is a happy ending to a trying situation. An ordinary flight 'might' be a piece of cake for a well trained pilot with computers doing a lot of work, its the out of ordinary that requires exceptional skills and training. I am reminded of earlier stories I read that illustrates how its also a matter of mind and skill.
One story I am reminded off was where one of the wheels on a plane got blown off (cant remember whether it was while take off or during the flight). Now a plane is a massive beast. So apparently landing with a wheel blown is somehow more dangerous than a wheel blown during a car ride. And the airport in question had a concrete wall some way off the runaway. Now with a wheel blown it would have been probably that the plane would skid and apparently there was significant danger of it skidding towards that wall.
And this is where the skill and prowess comes in. The solution itself was elegant - simple, but not easy. The pilot(s) came down at high speed purposely hitting the runway with the other wheel and whizzing off. 3 attempts and the wheel on the other side blew too lending that necessary symmetry to the plane essential to avoid the slammer of a wall. The plane then landed safely staying on the runway. Wouldnt have been easy on the passengers especially the dive and surge but hey then landed all right!
Another case I recollect was a case of a plane going down under overflying Asia. Somewhere near Indonesia or some place in Pacific a volcano coughed spewing ash all over. Now a lot of ash is carbon. So this plane going high up met the ash and ended up all sooty. So much ash that the engines got choked!
Attempts to revive the engines consternating the passengers. Unburnt carbon can burn and engines seemed on fire. No good. So what do the pilots do? Sit back and simply pray? No Sir we will think of something almost wickedly cool. So these bright folks actually came up with an idea.
The plane was taken to a much lower altitude. Now planes can glide a lot and I am not sure if the engines were totally knocked off or as the fire spewing remark indicate, they had some juice though not enough. So now at low altitude the air gets thicker, a lot thicker (which is why these jets fly so high, thick air means a lot of resistance). So this air now starts acting like a giant blower (the kind that sometimes comes with vacuum cleaners) and it cleaned off the ash that was filled in the engine and there you have the engines back online. Whew! But hey it ain't the end of story. After all an ash bath wont just dirty your engines, it'll mess up your windshields as well. So the wind screen is caked and so we have no visual. Almost no. Apparently a corner had some visibility. So the brave co-pilot stands on the seat and looks out relaying instructions while the captain lands the plane! Wheeewh!
Then there is this case of a jetliner pilot in Canada who was a hobby glider too and one fine day found this engines gone kaput while in the middle of a flight. The cool dude actually glides the plane for almost 250 kilometers to a nearby disused airfield. The locals enjoying their usual cycle races on the paved tarmac had the scare of their lives but the plane landed safely as a glider.
The best story - my recollections are sketchy but it was I think a FedEx plane flying transatlantic. This case apparently got the pilot a medal for bravery and none deserved it better. Now FedEx had a policy that any employee can travel in their planes - these were old days, and a bloke did travel. This bloke was depressed, suicidally depressed and harboring some notions of deep injury done by FedEx. So the plane is over Atlantic coming to US and in between the cockpit door opens (those were easy old days remember) and this traveling bloke comes in with an axe (those were easy old days remember) and hits the caption and the co-pilot. The captain takes a hit and gets paralyzed on side. The co-pilot is also severely injured. So imagine you are those pilots, critically injured, being stricken and are also flying. Not the easiest of time to be thinking one.
So the captain sees the attacker behind the co-pilot getting ready for a fresh heave. Thinking quickly he turns the plane nose up. The co-pilot falls behind and he along with the attacker slide to the rear of the plane. Amazingly maybe because of survival instinct or because he and captain were on same wavelength the co-pilot realizes this is lucky and holds on to the attacker (who maybe did get injured himself in this slide, i do not know) so that he is unable to strike further and both stay in rear grappled.
Meanwhile the caption radios US which arrange for immediate touchdown as soon as the plane arrive and the captain, semi paralyzed flies the plane alone and manages to reach US and land. Amazing story.

Happiness

The wasted lives

Is it just me or have you too noticed a sudden increase in the number of beggars? The cake was when I was eating in "BreadTalk" at Hiranandani Mumbai. Someone pokes me in the arm and there is a beggar! Bang in the middle of the resturant. The Iranian family next to me guiltily gave the juice that the little kid of 5 years had ordered to him. The restuarant waiters took almost 3-4 minutes to come in and remove him.
Its the same at work. Go out to the Chai Tapari behind to what is a private road and there are atleast 10 off kids begging. Then there are the hijras sometime in addition and then those folks dressed up as monkeys also touching you for money. Go out the other side for the lunch from a side entrance to this place 20 ft away and there are at least 5 more beggars.
Every traffic stop has at least 6-7 kids begging and my usual path is not really the heavily used city roads. I think for every hour spent on city roads there are at least 20 beggars who accost me. Which means that each foreigner will easily encounter at least 10 times as many. and those with families probably also 10 times as many. Its almost become like mosquito in a swamp. If I go from Aundh to MG road - a distance of around 9 kilometers I'll easily encounter close to 200 beggers! It is simply impossible to move around in city without having someone or the other grabbing a limb asking for money every few minute.
Now I keep hearing from these NGOs how kids are obtained on rent to beg. Many very young ones are also surgically operated and mutilated since it gets more money. The very young ones are heavily drugged so that they don't cry- ever notice how that infant tagged to the kids begging is nearly always sleeping? I suspect most of us know that beggers are also mafia controlled. Then why do we keep giving so much money to them in the process making it a lucrative trade and hence ensuring that kids stay out of school, drugged and/or mutilated?
I think its time that the local governments got serious to this menace. Haul up all these kids put them all in a shelter. Put their parents behind bars for renting them out and the mafias in jail under charge of human trafficking and child abuse.

Satyam Saga: Case of missing money

Something just doesn't square up in the Satyam saga. Raju's letter to SEBI mentioned figures to the rough tune of declared profits like 5400 crore and of this 5100cr is inflated. So that means actual profits are like 300 cr over a turnover of like 8000 cr. How is that possible and especially over a period of years?
My early days in IT while I was pretty much the end of food chain even then I had to explain a lot if my small team was below the margin threshold. and here is a firm that apparently has a 3% margin over all and its Project managers not realizing that their current project is like at 3% and their previous projects were at like 3% and their friend;s projects are like at 3% and yet they aren't being flogged by senior managers? And senior managers can't be flogging everybody?
And such state of affairs would have leaked out. So how can what is said by Raju be true that that's the extent of over reported earnings and only he and his brother knew. I would expect 2/3rd of the firm to know when there is orders of magnitude kind of differences. and if 2/3 of 50000+ know, all the world gets to know it very quickly. So things don't seem to tally up there.
Then there is the question of why did Raju confess it, why in such dire times? And why did PwC not uncover the fraud. How come only Raju knew? What about the financial analysts of the projects generating the invoices for clients? the finance guy collecting bills etc? Did PwC not check with banks? Was someone in banks giving Satyam false statements?
My initial thought was that maybe Satyam ran out of money for payroll so he confess to get a ligther sentence. But then there is the PwC angle. How come PwC didn't uncover anything? If a bank employee was giving false certificates what abt the other bank top brass who might be reading of a top client's disclosures and finding discrepancies?
Today's Business standard though gave another very plausible answer. Apparently after the Maytas fiasco Raju got Meryl Lynch to come and suggest some M&A activity. Meryl Lynch within 1 week of due diligence noticed huge issues with accounts and walked out. M L would have been obligated to report it to stock exchange so Raju came clean.
Which begs the question if PwC is not lying and they actually saw credible receipts than how did ML discover this? If that's not true then PwC is exposed? Maybe the truth is somewhere in between. The auditors where hand is glove with the embezzlers. But still that leaves the issue why did most of Satyam not realize the extent of fraud? Remember is not like 1 cr inflated to 3 cr, its more like 1 cr inflated to 30 cr which is very tough to carry out.
My hunch is that the real over reporting is not as bad as is made out in Raju's letter. They were earning more than 3%. But somewhere a lot of that money has been siphoned off. Apparently overstating profit while being a crime is a lot less serious crime than actual embezzlement of funds. And it might be done in connivance with auditors certainly in a group lot larger than 2.
Already there are reports in TV of how there are huge real estate investments done by promoters and some very credible people had already leveled charges of politicians awarding huge contracts and land allotments to the Rajus and these charges were levelled earlier.
It seems to be that some very serious crimes have been committed here and many shareholders and employees have been destroyed. This deserves serious examination

What letters reveal

Spent an interesting day reading some Pakistani newspapers. I usually find the Dawn pretty good and even at times pretty unbiased at least to the extent that they report what Indian media might be saying. However a quick perusal of the letters in the Statesman Pakistan was instructive. Except for one letter that probably came in during Mumbai attack that asked India not to finger point but work to find out culprits every other letter from private citizens apparently was to the effect that it is a RAW/CIA/Mossad/Indian Armed forces operation to foist a war on peace loving Pakistan. Some even said that Marriott blast in Pakistan was bigger and Pakistan didn't blame India for it then why is India blaming Pakistan for Mumbai!!
While it is possible that the newspaper selected only those letters that it found following its own world view a likely scenario is that the propaganda is so strong that majority of Pakistanis actually believe it so. Its surprising how many of the letter writers believed that 9/11 was enacted by US to start a war against Afghanistan and 26/11 was an in house job to inflame a war with Pakistan.
And that is the scary part. One person mentions how Kasab was apparently arrested in Nepal and framed for the Mumbai carnage? And this when TVs were showing footage of him strolling with an assault weapon in CST and people battling them. Really remarkable frame up where you 'arrest' someone (apparently against his will) and give him plenty of assault weapons and leave him loose? And people believe this story is what scares me and should scare all Pakistanis too.
The propaganda is so effective that most people are unable to accept the truth and deal with it. That is as much a problem because it makes even those in Pakistani establishment who might seriously want to confront the terror menace in Pakistan and actually work with India to really uncover the truth hesitate in the face of hostile public opinion since the public seems unable to see the truth. So someone comments that West is with India because of some conspiracy and China - Pakistan's old friend - is not supporting Pakistan enough because of commercial reasons? No one seems to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe all other countries are supporting India because it has a valid case atleast this time?
There is that old saying that - if every one is coming your way, You are in the wrong lane. Alas many of us forget that. So many letters blame US/Israel/India for the creation of Taleban, the troubles in FATA, the Marriott bombings etc. On one hand someone will comment India did Marriott and the same person will also mention how innocents Pakistanis are fighting Taleban which is a menace to Pakistan. Unfortunately they seem unable to connect Taleban to Marriott etc. Which might be a reason why so much of Pakistan is unstable. Years of brainwashing has ensured that an objective assessment of reality is no more possible.
Cleansing such a head in sand view I believe is the tougher task ahead of us.