New dirty bomb detection system

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is testing a ground-breaking counter-terror technology expected to dramatically increase its ability to detect and thwart a potential radiation attack, officials said on July 28.

The technology will allow a command centre in lower Manhattan to monitor 2,000 mobile radiation detectors carried by officers each day around the city.

The detectors will send a wireless, real-time alert if there's a reading signalling a dirty bomb threat.

A dirty bomb, intended to spread panic by using a small explosive to create a radioactive cloud in urban settings, has never been discovered or detonated in a U.S. terror plot.

But law enforcement considers dirty bombs a serious threat because they're easy to build and because of intelligence that foreign terrorists want to use them against American cities. The radiation detection system is being developed as part of a $200 million lower Manhattan security initiative. Police say the overall plan was inspired by the so-called “ring of steel” encircling the business district in London but is broader in scope and sophistication. The initiative will rely largely on 3,000 closed-circuit security cameras carpeting the roughly 1.7 square miles (4.4 sq. km) south of Canal Street, the subway system and parts of midtown Manhattan.

So far, about 1,800 cameras are up and running, with the rest expected to come on line by the end of the year.

The NYPD is using a single, high-bandwidth fibre optic network to connect all its cameras to a central computer system. It's also pioneering “video analytic” computer software designed to detect threats, like unattended bags, and retrieve stored images based on descriptions of terror or other criminal suspects. — AP

Say no to TB blood tests

The World Health Organisation recently issued a recommendation against the use of blood tests based on antibody response for diagnosing active tuberculosis, both pulmonary and extra-pulmonary. India's Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) has endorsed WHO's advice. Unfortunately, with TB, unlike diseases like HIV, the presence or absence of antibodies does not reflect true disease condition. So these blood tests lack the necessary sensitivity or specificity or both to be used as an effective diagnostic tool. When the sensitivity is low, many people with active TB are likely to be wrongly diagnosed and hence will go untreated (false negative); tests with low specificity will result in people with no active TB getting treated with toxic drugs (false positive). That explains why serological testing based on antibody responses has so far not been recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other reputed regulators. However, considering that in high prevalence settings like India, while the specificity of sputum smear microscopy testing is better than 99 per cent, the sensitivity is only 60-70 per cent, finding more reliable and inexpensive diagnostic blood tests for TB is a public health imperative.

The world body's recommendation is based on a body of evidence, including a study by its special programme for research & training in tropical diseases (TDR), which looked at 19 commercially available rapid blood tests. The WHO concluded that patient safety is adversely impacted by “commercial serological tests [which] provide inconsistent and imprecise findings.” Unfortunately, notwithstanding the unreliability and prohibitive cost, the private sector in India uses the blood tests on “at least 1.5 million people every year,” according to a report in The Lancet published in January 2011. These tests appear to have been done mostly at the expense of sputum examination. For example, a 2006 WHO report, “Diagnostics for tuberculosis — global demand and market potential,” found that in Tamil Nadu and Delhi, less than one-third of patients underwent sputum examination despite multiple visits while doctors based in west India relied solely on chest X-rays for diagnosis. That the government has to curb the availability of serological antibody tests and undertake awareness-building campaign among doctors and the public on the benefits of sputum tests cannot be over-emphasised. This is vital to public health — considering that in India the incidence rate of TB is a high 168 per 100,000 population and the disease kills two people every three minutes.

Staying with the process

Re-engagement is better than no engagement,” Pakistan's new Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, declared prior to her New Delhi visit for talks with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna. She could not have been more correct. It is a no-brainer that India and Pakistan have no option but to engage in dialogue to resolve the issues that trouble their relationship. It took New Delhi some two years after the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks to realise that the absence of dialogue was only pulling the two countries further apart. Indeed, so far apart had they drifted that the July 2010 Foreign Ministers' meeting in Islamabad was a public fiasco; to recover from that and set up a proper dialogue process, as mandated by the Thimphu declaration, took another eight months. That there are forces actively working to trip up the process again was evident from the triple bombing that claimed 20 lives in India's financial capital earlier this month. Ms Khar and Mr. Krishna were careful to avoid rhetoric and recrimination as they reviewed the official-level meetings that took place between March and June on a range of issues, including India's chief concern — speedy trial and punishment of the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai carnage. Expectedly, the joint statement released after the talks broke no new ground: the main focus of both sides has been to stay engaged and deal with the ‘doables' before moving on to the big issues on the list.

Even by this low threshold, the package of Kashmir-related confidence building measures announced by the two sides is meagre, except for the introduction of multiple entry visas with a six-month validity to ease cross-Line of Control travel for Kashmiris, along with travel for tourism and pilgrimages. Disappointingly, the two governments have postponed consideration of measures to improve cross-LoC trade, such as the introduction of banking facilities. The two sides now use a barter method as there is no other payment system. The weekly trading days have been doubled from two to four, but the list of goods that can be traded stands frozen at 21. An unnecessary sour note was struck by New Delhi's objection to the meeting between Ms Khar and Kashmiri separatist leaders. After facilitating this meeting — by permitting Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the other leaders to travel from Srinagar to the Indian capital — it was pointless to complain about it. India would have done better to accept the event for what it was, and left it at that. Foreign Minister Khar clearly meant to tell the military-mullah-media alliance back home that ‘inexperienced' she might be, but she was not straying from Kashmir as the ‘core' issue.

Pak talks may be exercise in futility

A sustained state of peace in relations between India and Pakistan is a good thing in itself. It would not only allow both nations space to prosper but also have a benign influence for stabilising a troubled region. It is doubtful, however, if mandatory ritualistic talks between New Delhi and Islamabad serve to bridge the gulf in ties that militarised Pakistan has succeeded in bringing about over the years. If it were a journey without maps, sheer diligence can help find the right path, but a journey without end is another matter.
Reiterative samples of this kind of dialogue underline the futility of the venture and engender frustration among ordinary people even when the interlocutors in question are honourable individuals who mean well. There is no reason for us to regard with any doubt the observations and sentiments expressed by Pakistan’s new foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar. This young, winsome personality has gained admirers in India on account of the way she conducted herself during the talks with external affairs minister S.M. Krishna earlier this week. She may not carry the burden of experience on her shoulders but Ms Khar gave ample evidence that she had her wits about her. But she remains part of a paradigm that is not designed to be productive.
In spite of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai originating in Pakistan, Islamabad cannot bring itself to take constructive steps on its own to help investigations even after the depositions of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana in the United States nailed the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. That, in fact, is just the point. When Pakistan’s state agencies are involved in plotting terror attacks against India, can we expect Islamabad to cooperate? This is why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Thimphu formulation of May 2010 — to carry on talking so that the “trust deficit” can be bridged — is unlikely to reach its full potential. Gopal K. Pillai, former Union home secretary who retired a month ago, said recently the matter of obtaining voice samples from Pakistan of those who telephonically guided the Mumbai attacks on that fateful day has not moved one inch. Nor have steps been taken by Islamabad to lend any urgency to investigating those involved. Now Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik tells us that under Pakistani law providing voice samples is illegal.
In the event, it is clear that no relief may be expected from Pakistan in dealing with terrorism. This is partly because of an absence of will. But there is another reason: Pakistan is busy placating terrorist gangs to avoid facing their wrath. As such, it is unlikely that our anti-terrorism goals can be met by talking to Islamabad. While this holds, talks between the two nations run the risk of being viewed as a venture of exaggerated expectations in spite of the overused rhetoric about making talks “uninterrupted and uninterruptible”, which the young Pakistan foreign minister reiterated in New Delhi. The end result in the recent conversation was that the atmosphere was cordial but there was no result.
On the eve of the talks Ms Khar met a clutch of Kashmiri separatist leaders at the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi, reviving the empty tactics reminiscent of Pervez Musharraf’s early days in office when he was a leader out to make a mark. The gesture might have held some meaning if she had also met mainstream Kashmir politicians, but that would have meant recognising the sanctity of India’s Election Commission, as the rest of the world does. Let us have talks by all means provided they cut the thicket which blocks progress on the terrorism question, which in turn also blocks consideration of the Kashmir question, confidence-building measures for trans-LoC trade notwithstanding.

Disturbing message from Mumbai

Time to restructure intelligence set-up
by T.V. Rajeswar

After the July 13 serial bomb blasts people of Mumbai are asking: Why again and again, and how long are we to suffer? Mumbai had suffered the most serious terrorist attack by Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives under the direction of Pakistan’s ISI on November 26, 2008. And so far no one has been punished in Pakistan.
ISI operative David Headley and American-Canadian Tahawwur Husain Rana have given detailed accounts of the ISI operations relating to Mumbai. One of the jihadis who constituted the attacking team in Mumbai on 26/11, Ajmal Kasab, was captured alive. The Indian security authorities, Pakistan and the US are aware of the complete account which Kasab narrated during his trial in a Mumbai court. Sentenced to death, he is now in a high security prison awaiting further judicial procedures.
The Pakistani culprits who are being prosecuted there for their role in the 26/11 killings are having an easy time. There is hardly any progress in the case. A series of folders have been handed over to Pakistan but to no avail. In the initial stage, the Pakistan Foreign Secretary blithely characterised the dossiers as literature from India. Former Pakistan Foreign Minister Rahman Malik had promised cooperation. The excuse for the delay in the disposal of the case is the unhelpful attitude of the Pakistani judiciary.
Earlier Mumbai suffered major serial bomb blasts in 1993 which were characterised as a revenge attack on India after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. These blasts were suspected to have been organised and executed by Dawood Ibrahim, who had taken shelter in Karachi under the protection of Pakistan Then there were serial train blasts in 2003 and again bomb blasts in 2006.
The latest terrorist attack in Mumbai has a strange story to tell. The Home Minister as well as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra stated that there was no question of intelligence failure since there were no intelligence inputs.  It is a strange logic, but the fact remains that there were no advance warnings to the Mumbai Police or the Maharashtra state about the likelihood of bomb blasts by terrorist elements in Mumbai around July 13.This is the crux of the problem, the complete absence of intelligence inputs about the possibility of a terrorist attack in Mumbai.
The Maharashtra Chief Minister spoke of his government’s proposal to instal a large number of CCTV cameras in the metropolis. Several CCTV cameras, which are already installed, had yielded some footage and the police chief heading the ATS has promised to release the sketch of one of the suspects.
While all these may lead to the arrest of the suspected terrorists sooner or later, the most important issue is about fine-tuning the state machinery for the collection of advance intelligence before the incident occurs. Mr Ram Pradhan, who headed an enquiry team after the 26/11 attacks, has rightly emphasised the need for intensifying the role of the beat constable who walks around the streets and lanes, meeting people of different strata. Intelligence inputs have to emanate from these constables. Traditionally, the police and intelligence officers build up their sources among the various communities so as to collect the required information about suspects and their activities.  
After the latest bomb blasts, the Maharashtra security authorities have not zeroed in on any specific suspect as yet. There is a wide range of suspects belonging to the Indian Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the HUJI of Bangladesh. Security personnel have been sent to interrogate a well-known bomb maker, now in an Ajmer jail, and some suspects from Azamgarh in UP.  Suspects from Kerala, Gujarat, Jharkhand, etc, are all earmarked for enquiry and interrogation.
This is, to put it mildly, a wild goose chase.  This is the biggest weakness of the Indian security set-up as of today.  The national grid of intelligence and counter-terrorism about which the Home Minister has spoken extensively is yet to come into being.
An outraged Lord Meghnad Desai from London commented, “Here we go again; first 26/11 and now 13/7. Mumbaikars will have to fall back on their famed ability to cope with adversity without any help from the authorities.” Of course, we know who committed these atrocities, but we will not do anything about this. Polite notes will be sent to Pakistan by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Home Ministry. Alas, the reality is that Pakistan can quasi-officially perpetrate these atrocities as the whole saga of Headley and Rana proved in a Chicago court. On the Indian side, the effectiveness in fighting these actions is still not there. Why is the Indian State so soft?  
Nothing seems to have improved since 26/11. How many more must die before India comes to realise that human lives matter more than anything else?  In the case of the 26/11 blasts, the Headley/Rana trial has given ample evidence to establish who are behind these terrorist atrocities.  Headley had a free run of the country and no agency in India spotted him till the Americans nabbed him.
This may happen again. Some Lashkar or jihadi group enjoying Pakistan’s financial support may attack India again.
This painful message having serious dimensions has been conveyed by the Mumbai serial blasts. Can India be sure of preventing such attacks in any of its metropolitan cities again? Can anyone in the security set-up, either at the national level or at the state level, assert and answer, “Yes, India can.” 
The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Intelligence Bureau may consider convening a special conference of intelligence authorities from all the states and discuss the dire need for building a preventive intelligence machinery from the grassroots level. This is necessary to ensure that such attacks do not happen again and that those who are conspiring are arrested in good time before the mischief is committed.  This is a tall expectation, but not impossible.
Merely blaming the Karachi Project of Pakistan — whereby men of the Indian Mujahideen and other jihadist terrorists are given shelter in Karachi —cannot help. David Headley has given considerable details about Karachi gangsters. He has actually spoken of two distinct competing jihadi groups targeting India, and both are headquartered in Karachi. Moreover, the Lashkar chief, Hafiz Saeed, has spoken of launching an all-out war in Kashmir, attacking the Bhakra Nangal dam project and other such targets. But the Pakistani authorities have refused to react to these utterances.
Notwithstanding the latest meetings between the Foreign Secretaries and the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan, there is no possibility of any progress in the matter of resolving the issue of cross-border terror originating from Pakistan.  
India has to set its own house in order by restructuring the intelligence-gathering mechanism to ensure that terrorist attacks like those experienced in Mumbai are prevented to the extent possible.
The writer, a former Governor of UP and West Bengal, is a retired chief of the Intelligence Bureau.

RBI has done enough

Now govt’s turn to fight inflation
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It is a double whammy for the middle class. On the one hand, home and auto loans have become dearer due to the RBI’s rate hike (the 11th in 15 months), on the other, high prices, including those of food, are stretching household budgets. The plight of the poor is worse. Since they usually do not have access to bank loans, they borrow from private lenders at hefty interest rates. Unlike the salaried class, their incomes are not inflation-linked. The brunt of costlier corporate loans is also borne by ordinary people. While big companies can weather a financial storm, it is the small and medium firms employing large numbers of people that often buckle under pressure. As their projects are abandoned or delayed for want of affordable capital, growth takes a hit and employment opportunities shrink.

Though what the RBI did on Tuesday came as a shock to the financial markets, which expected a moderate hike of 25 basis points, it is what Governor D. Subbarao said which attracted analysts’ attention more. He asked the government to do what it had been avoiding all these months: contain fiscal deficit (the gap between government income and expenditure) and ensure adequate supplies of items whose prices are rising. What economists call “supply-side bottlenecks” have remained unaddressed for years.
Due to low agricultural productivity, heavy dependence on the monsoon, the absence of cold storages and other infrastructural handicaps, the supply of food items remains erratic and often falls short of demand. The farm sector, which supports a large majority, needs better attention. Bringing in domestic and foreign investment in the supply chain can cut massive food waste. There are factors beyond government control like global oil prices and trouble in the Arab world and the US/European debt problems, which affect the global economic recovery as well as Indian exports. But there are things the government can do like thinking beyond scandals and political survival and focussing on governance and in-house hurdles to faster economic growth.

Countdown to Lokpal

Eradicating corruption will be a tall order \

Thanks to the traction provided by the Anna Hazare agitation, the much-delayed Lokpal Bill is finally on the move, with the Union Cabinet giving its approval to the government version. It is another matter that this version has disappointed Team Anna and another agitation is on the cards. How good or bad the sarkari draft is will be determined only by the ability of the new watchdog to eliminate the omnipresent corruption in the country. It is not a figment of the imagination of the opposition. The man on the street is indeed disgusted with the extent of corruption. He also wants reforms and good governance. Whether it comes through improvement in the functioning of the present institutions or through establishment of new ones is least of his concerns. What he insists on is measurable improvement on the ground.

There are bound to be doubts whether a Lokpal, as envisioned by the government, will be able to fit the bill. But as the Chinese say, the colour of the cat does not matter as long as it catches mice. Given the atmosphere in the country, no political being seems to be upright enough to sincerely want a completely independent investigating body in command. Even the criticism about the CBI being a puppet in the hands of the government is made only while a party or person is in the opposition. The tune changes dramatically once they themselves come to power. It will be educative to see how the Lokpal becomes a bulwark against corruption while the entire political class is ranged against this body.
While it would be meaningless to have a paper tiger at hand, it is equally important to ensure that a Frankenstein is not created which becomes an overarching presence without checks and balances. Nor should the Lokpal imprimatur diminish the powers of the Prime Minister to govern and lead. As far as the aspirations of the public at large are concerned, those are unquantifiable and a fine balance has to be struck between what one section of the public wants and what is the wish list of another section.