Business requires conducive and peaceful environment to sustain and thrive. Devoid of these parameters confidence buildup is likely to take a deep plunge. By the word environment I mean economical, political and social aspects of a nation. The event clashes with the global economy already on a roll back mode and India (I hear) is set to play a role model in global transactions.

It is no news that the country is under threat and the crusade has been executed by young mislead boys who have decided to take scores of people into hostage, step by step. The English cricket team has decided to pull back their team back in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks. A 1 Kg RDX consignment was found in Jorhat District, Assam today and diffused eventually. The final test match was scheduled in Guwahati which earlier this month was under the terror target lists.

The Mumbai incident happened in a time where almost every intelligence department is trying hard to unfold the mystery surrounding the attackers and their mother organization. The whole country is trying to come into the terms that an attack of this nature and size, has taken place, LIVE on television. Bollywod produced a couple of films inspired by terrorism in 2008 A Wednesday and Mumbai Meri Jaan to quote a few taking terror perpetrators and their gruesome images right from our bedrooms to coffee table discussions.

I saw film by Steven Spielberg ‘Munich’, where the Israeli intelligence Mossad in a bid to take revenge eliminates key members of the PLO in retaliation of the infamous Munich Olympic massacre in 1972. There are more than 325 casualties in India as of now this year, and counting.

Yes, there is a stark grim connection in India’s own 9/11 and that what happened in New York in 2001. As the images flickered across television screens, I gathered the facts and explain you my own take of this one event.

9/11 and 11/26

New York and Mumbai

1. Where one is the world’s financial district the latter is India’s if not the entire south East Asian region
2. Both the events unfolded dramatic and unbelievable visuals which got viewers from all over the world hooked into their television sets. It was happening LIVE.
3. Both the events were planned much in advance and a dedicated fidayeen squad deployed for execution of this task.
4. Caught the viewer attention in Prime Time. (Mumbai: The first reported attack happened a little after 9 PM GMT. New York 9/11: although the planes started ramming the WTC at 8:45 AM the Indian viewers were hooked to the television very much in our evening, night slots.
5. WTC –World Trade Center and the Taj/Oberoi Hotel and others. Strategic locations of both the places are worth mentioning. Mumbai and New York are one of the costliest places to dwell and the two locations are strategically placed and of high real estate value.
6. Both the events managed to attract immense national and international print/ TV coverage primarily on account of the number of casualties.

Spiegel.de (Germany) reports that this event (Mumbai) is Barrack Hussain Obama’s first test as a future president of the US in terms of his own foreign read Asian relations.

It started with the May 13 Jaipur blast and Bombay being the latest. A colleague of mine expresses her naiveness by saying that this event will fade out of our memories sooner and we should get used to listen news of this nature and that this piece of news will gradually found in the newspaper’s 4^th or 5^th page soon.

Where do we go from here, is there a way out from here? I am not very sure, who are these people and what do they want and where did they come from? Also not sure if such events will stop here (Apparently the gun fights and hostage crisis is still on- should stop sometime).

Are we going to forget what happened today, are we becoming indifferent? How can I, as a citizen of India contribute to thwart such accident.

26 November 2008 Mumbai attacks - WikiPedia