December 11th, 2008

Voices Against Terror: A Petition to Bring Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah to Justice for the 11/26 Mumbai Terror Attack

Welcome to Gauravonomics Blog! Subscribe to my feed now and you'll never miss a single post!

A terrorist attack, like 9/11 in New York or 11/26 in Mumbai, doesn’t only kill innocent people; it also kills the innocence in people.

Mumbai 11/26 Terror Attack Taj Mahal Hotel Burning

I don’t think of myself as particularly political or patriotic and, in three years of blogging, I haven’t written even one post that is political in nature. My first tendency is to shy away from emotionally charged political discussions and , in reality, from all political discussions. In fact, my disinterest in politics was the primary reason why I stopped reading the newspaper and watching the television.

However, I have been obsessed with news about the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack over the last two weeks.

Initially, almost to distract myself from following the real, hard, heart-wrenching news about the attack, I immersed myself in tracking the role of citizen journalism in 11/26.

Then, frustrated by my focus on what increasingly seemed to be a trivial aspect of the tragedy, I toyed with the idea of using social media to channelize the energy of India’s youth to find constructive solutions to India’s many problems. I even spent an evening to put up a test site for IndiaTalks, using Drupal and Drigg –

IndiaTalks hopes to channelize the energy of India’s youth to find constructive solutions to India’s many problems. At IndiaTalks, you can vote or comment on ideas submitted by others or submit your own ideas. The most popular ideas are highlighted on the front page.

I think IndiaTalks is an idea that is relevant to the Indian online community. With the high involvement of the online community post the Mumbai terror attack, and the upcoming elections, such a community website may get good traction in India.

However, I’m too tied up in my various projects — including MobiChange — to devote any time to IndiaTalks, and that’s an idea that will have to stay on the backburner for now. (Still, if one of you, or someone you know, wants to run with the idea, I would be happy to help).

Even as I stopped myself from starting another significant workstream, I can hardly stop myself from obsessively tracking the news on the Mumbai terror attack. So, instead of surprising the readers of my blog with posts like this, I have started Voices Against Terror —

Late on November 26, 2008, India was shaken by a series of terrorist attacks across ten prominent locations in Mumbai, India’s cultural and financial capital.

The ten terrorists, linked to Islamic terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, managed to hold Mumbai hostage for more than 60 hours and killed 174 people, including several foreign nationals.

The international community has condemned the attack and pledged its support to help India fight terrorism.

Still, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and its parent organization Jamaat-ud-Dawah, operate freely in Pakistan.

Voices Against Terror is a petition to the international community to help India bring Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah to justice.

We hope to achieve this through diplomacy and advocacy by helping build international consensus, including consensus in Pakistan, against terrorism and terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah.

We would request you to join the Voices Against Terror Cause on Facebook to support the petition. We would also request you to invite your friends from India, Pakistan and elsewhere to join the cause and support the petition.

Voices Against Terror is also an open group blog to track international opinion against terrorism and terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawah.

We would encourage you to register to post on Voices Against Terror, but request you to first read the posting guidelines before you write a blog post or a comment.

Here are three things you can do to support voices against terror –

1. Join the Voices Against Terror Cause on Facebook.

2. Subscribe to Voices Against Terror Blog in a feed reader or by by email.

3. Register to post on the Voices Against Terror Blog (but do read the posting guidelines first).

Finally, do spread the word around, and do forgive my obsession with what happened in Mumbai on 11/26.

If you liked this post, you should check out some other posts like this:

December 11th, 2008 | Posted in Default | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , |

  • @Vivek: There's no point in saying "no" to a CNN or a BBC interview when it comes along, even if they want the same stock quotes from you and there's no point in not putting it up on your blog. Yes, the endless stream of interviews quickly became both tiring and boring, even for me. The last two weeks have been a blur and I'm glad that they are over, except that I'm still too obsessed with what happened in Mumbai to go back to life as usual. (By the way, the next time you are pissed at me for something I wrote on the blog, write a one line email to me. If friends like you get angry at me and unsubscribe from my blog, I'll be left with half a dozen readers, and, worse, half a dozen friends).
  • Hey..
    This post is exactly what i was looking for ..
    Infact the reason i almost unsubscribed was the fact that everyday i had a email saying XYZ person was interviewed and had shared things on his blog.and this goes beyond this blog. And the fact that almost all the interviews were on the same track discussing same issues made it look more pathetic.It was getting repetitive and redundant for me as a reader.
    Being a fan of ur blog , i wasnt really expecting only interviews.
    But then when u have a huge fan following , i guess a overdose at times can be distracting.
    No doubt, that a blog is a personal affair and we have no right what so ever, but then sharing the same thing , Dont u get bored..
  • I just have one thing to say when I read the headlines in the press and see the live coverage in the media on these terror attacks - we Mumbaikars and the nation as a whole have become numb to these atrocities... My heart goes out to the innocent victims of this senseless violence. In the largest democracy, we are so inept that we cannot elect politicians who are less regional and more Indian, who put the country and its people before their individual gain. How many times will we hearr, after every terror strike, that the Center and the State had prior information on the attacks but did NOTHING about it... it is a shameful that the terrorists who attacked our parliament and were caught and convicted to the death sentence by the highest court in the country are still alive just because the politicians want to appease a certain community. One can just hope and pray that good sense prevails and we wake up to realise that enough is enough!
blog comments powered by Disqus