Deciphering ‘Collective Failure’ : Men who let us down
[Since the government is not not interested in an investigation to catch the culprits of 'collective failure' that lead to the Mumbai attacks, and since there is no influential minority leader at the center who could urge the government for such an investigation, F.A.C.T. has decided to conduct transparent investigations, using whatever resources it has at its disposal. To begin with we are looking at the Disaster Management and the people who are responsible for it.]
Part 1 : Disaster (Disastrous) Management in India
Number of terrorist incidents in India between 1970-2004 : 4108
Number of known terrorist organizations identified during this period : 56
Number of deaths due to terrorist attacks : 12539
Average number of Indians dying due to terrorist activities : 360/year
(Source : START, University of Maryland)
Let us now see India’s preparedness for a terrorist attack (which is supposed to be a common and regular disaster as per the simple statistics) in its financial capital, Mumbai:
- 26-Nov-2008 : Ten terrorists from Pakistan enter Mumbai, and start massacring people. Suddenly the Mumbai police realize that they do not have quality bullet proof jackets to protect themselves. Result, some of its men pay with their life, for this criminal negligence. Men responsible get away, under the excuse of ‘Collective Failure’.
- The Mumbai police also realize to their surprise, that .303 Rifles of WWII are now out of fashion. After loosing enough officers, they send SOS to NSG commandos and wait patiently. It seems that only terrorists are in a hurry, NSG arrives after 10 hours. Again, nobody in the administration held accountable. Everyone gets away.
- Finally another SOS is sent to marine commandos who fortunately were stationed very close to the action scene. But thanks to the ego clashes and archaic beaurocratic customs, it takes two and half hours to get approval and for them to arrive. The incident forgotton, everyone gets away.
- The firemen who turned out to be the saviors of the day, rescuing more than five hundred people, are not given bullet proof jackets and are directly exposed to fire from terrorists. Now, Fire men’s request for bullet proof jackets is also under consideration. Chance of getting that is doubtful, as the firemen haven’t received sophisticated firefighting equipment they had requestested couple of years back, still.
- It seems the National Security Advisor is the one who should have headed the operations. But neither NSA nor any other high ranking official from the administration scene anywhere in the vicinity. But one politician, Mr.Narendra Modi turns up from nowhere. Other politicians do show up, but only after the conclusion of the operation.
- It takes 3 hours for the Taj administration to come up with the building plan, this even after the management had been previously alerted by the police about a possible terror attack.
- It comes to light that, one of the previously captured terrorist already had told the investigators about the recce conducted at Taj, CST by himself. But no action was taken to strengthen the security. Nobody is held accountable this goof up. It is again termed as collective failure.
- One of the cabinet minister from the ‘minority’ community, urges the government for an inquiry into the death of a police officer killed by the terrorists, purely for his personal interests. The home minister personally issues a statement in the parliament, clarifying that, the government has conducted the inquiry and found nothing suspicious. Surprisingly, none of the members of parliament find it worth demanding an investigation into the failure of intelligence agencies, lack of disaster management preparedness even after repeated terrorists attacks across the nation.
- Everyone praises the brave NSG commondos, but the questions such as “Why it took 250, supposed to be highly trained and India’s best, 60 hours to gun down 10 terrorists?”, “Why the tools and weapons used by NSG commondos looked so old fashioned, just like the .303s in the hand of Mumbai policemen?”, “is it true that both MARCOs and NSG had to fight without night vision equipment?” etc were considered unpatriotic questions. Political parties were asked to show their support by not raising any serious questions.
- The administration does not do anything to control the irresponsible media. The NSG head has to make repeated appeals to the media himself. Even after a month, government does not seem to be interested in this issue at all, as it might hamper their PR with the media, and their ire might expose their failures.
After the incident, Ratan Tata expressed his total displeasure at the lack of Disaster Management Infrastructure and told the world that he will rather arrange for the security of the hotel himself, rather than depending on the government.
So, how does our Emergency Response Infrastructure looks compared to country like US? What are the chances of our survival, if the terrorists strike again, just like it happened again and again in various cities across India in 2008? Assume that India is hit by Nuclear missiles from Pakistan or an earth quake or another tsunami or another flood, who should we look for guidance? Is there really something called disaster management team in India, who can guide the nation?
This is what F.A.C.T. found when it tried to find the answers.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has two disaster management divisions:
Disaster Management – I : which looks after the disaster preparedness, and response
Disaster Management – II : which looks after the legislation, policies
Here is the link to the National Disaster Management(NDM) of Indian Government. The pathetic condition of the website, which is supposed to be the primary information dissemination point for these information to the public, reflects respect recieved by disaster management among the administration. The site which is supposed to serve as the guide to its citizens and responsible government employees, today looks more like a notice board for various conference announcements and some archaic guides for building earth quake resistance buildings.
As per the Disaster Management Report (2004) (the same statistics again quoted in the 2008 annual report of the Home ministry), published on the website, here are some shocking statistics:
About 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to floods; about 8% of the total area is prone to cyclones and 68% of the area is susceptible to drought. In the decade 1990-2000, an average of about 4344 people lost their lives and about 30 million people were affected by disasters every year.
India has a National Disaster Management Framework which is supposed to guide its disaster management planning. If you are curious, you can view it here. The 10 page document looks more like a ToDo list of the department than a guideline for the nation to follow. No clear cut guidelines, goals, no specifics about from when does the infrastructure is expected to be operational, or list individuals who will be responsible, their roles and responsibilities.
To our surprise, we found that there are ample committees that are formed to look after various aspects of disaster management. Most of the time these are non-dedicated bureaucrats or politicians, who do not find enough time to perform the primary activities themself. Anyway, here are some of ‘high’ powered (almost dysfunctional) commitees :
National Crisis Management Committee
Empowered Group of Ministers on Disaster Management
Crisis Management Group
Task Force on Drought Management
Many of these details are more than 7 years old. The responsibilities of the teams, it seems are ‘national secret’ and citizens are barred from knowing the details such as how the government plans to rescue them in the event of a flood or earthquake. Now it is left to your wild imagination, how the politicians and bureaucrats meeting and brainstorming about disaster mitigation plans, disaster preparation and response.
Interested in knowing more about Disaster Management Plans? Visit here. Try to find the disaster management plans in the event of a flood, tsunami, chemical disaster, earth quake or nuclear attack. Only one disaster management plan is published, which is this. The Disaster Prevention and Mitigation page serves more as definition for buzz words and the list of projects that, it looks, never went beyond the formation of committees .
Indian government in 1992-93 started a Natural Disaster Management Program, with the focus of disaster preparedness, mitigation, community awareness. And here is the list of money that is spent on this.
| Year | Allocation (in Lakhs) | Expenditure (in Lakhs) | Percentage |
| 1992-93 | 20.00 | 17.00 | 85% |
| 1993-94 | 110.00 | 23.00 | 20.91% |
| 1994-95 | 110.00 | 48.00 | 43.64% |
| 1995-96 | 200.00 | 120.00 | 60% |
| 1996-97 | 200.00 | 123.00 | 61.5% |
| 1997-98 | 220.00 | 191.00 | 86.82% |
| 1998-99 | 210.00 | 189.00 | 90% |
| 1999-00 | 325.00 | 316.08 | 97% |
| 2000-2001 | 500.00 | 69.95 | 13.390% |
One should read the achievements listed under this project. Really disappointing. No doubt so many of us get killed every year thanks to the non-existent disaster management.
It seems Mumbai attack has finally opened the eyes of the disaster management team. Finally a sane officer makes presentation to remind the department of their basic duty.
In 2005, in response to the great tsunami of 2004, National Disaster Management Authority was consituted. It looks like the committee was created in such a haste that, is still housed in a hotel owned by Air-India, rather than a government office. The only detail about how the NDMA is expected to interact with other agencies during a disaster is shown in this chart. Anyways the motto of the NDMA is
To build a safer and disaster resilient India by developing a holistic, pro-active, multi-disaster and technology-driven strategy for disaster management through collective efforts of all Government Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations.
Here are the results of NDMA. A rescue force called National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) sanctioned. We initially thought, this is a nice idea, a dedicated trained to force to carry our rescue efforts. But a closer look revealed that these are nothing but couple of battalions borrowed from CISF, BSF etc, during the time of disaster and renamed as NDRF. So there is nothing new, it is the same poor army chaps, but just a fancy new name. NDMA also constituted National Disaster Mitigation Resource Centres (NDMRC), in 9 locations, which are supposed have some relief stores. But nobody really knows how many are functional as of today, provided they were created in the first place.
Want to have an insight into the functioning of NDMA. You are welcome to see the photo gallery. As usual the ‘brainstorming’ conferences and snaps of ‘regular’ mock drills to keep everyone on their toes! Finally a chart showing the gurus of disaster management. Surprising that none of these people were seen and none of the names were heard on the media during the 3 days siege of Mumbai by terroirts. Aren’t these guys supposed to be there handling the things?
This is not all. We also have a National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), which came into existence as an independent institute under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs in October, 2003. Though should have been the premier institute working on the R&D of the disaster management, it now seems to have reduced to an organization responsible for organizing conferences, so that delegates from across the country can come on a site seeing mission to New Delhi.
 Conferences are better organized than Disaster rescues |
 Tax payers money and life, both at stake! |
Disaster Management in United States of America
Contrary to the pathetic plight of disaster management in India, US has a dedicated agency for emergency preparedness and response. It is called Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. It has nearly 2600 employees (half the number of people who die every year mostly due to disastrous disaster management in India). The department portal, gives out all the information needed by the citizens and various people involved in the disaster management. The current threat advisory for the citizens is displayed at the bottom right hand corner, that shows the overall possibility of a disaster and the state of preparedness expected for the possible disaster (Current level is Yellow).
We were really surprised to see the amount of planning that has gone into the disaster management there. Here are some examples:
Educating Kids about disaster managemet!
Disaster management for professionals!
How to plan ahead for any disaster!
There is also a dedicated website to aid the citizens for keeping themselves prepared for any disaster. You can view it here.
United States even has an elaborate National Response Framework, unlike ours. There is an extensive training program for civilians, employees and various government officials to undertake disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery!!!
Head to head comparison between US (current super power) and India (so called next possible super power):
| United States of America | India | |
|---|---|---|
| Disaster Mangement agency | Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) |
National Disaster Management(NDM), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) |
| Disaster Management Framework | National Response Framework Document (NRF) | National Disaster Management Framework (NDMF) |
| Training for citizens and other stakeholders | Federal Emergency Management Agency training wing (FEMA), |
National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) |
| General awareness | Ready.gov | National Disaster Management (NDM) |
Disaster Management in other countries:
F.A.C.T recommendation for the Indian government to improve disaster management:
We believe the people in NDM, NDMA and their counterparts in Maharashtra state are indirectly responsible the some of the deaths that happened in Mumbai attack. There was clear lack of preparedness which ensured that the death toll increased. What is shocking is that the same thing getting repeated again and again. People are paying with their lives for the criminal negligence on the part of bureaucrats and politicians. It might be in the best interest of the nation to do away with these people, at least if not punished severely. If a poor government bus driver could be suspended for his carelessness for causing the death of a pedestrian, why these officials be spared costing 4344 lives of Indians every year?
As always, F.A.C.T does not believe is just discussing the problem, but believes in finding solutions. In this case too, we recommend the following steps to the Indian government to improve the disaster management capability.
- Relieve the members of National Disaster Management (NDM) from their duties.
- Relieve the members of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) from their responsibilities.
- Revoke all those so called ‘High Power Committee’ to handle disasters.
- Form a National EmergencyResponse Department (NERD) *not* headed by PM, but directly reporting to PM.
- Recruit 2 kids from any of the IITs. Recruit 2 more kids from one of the IIMs. Recruit one of the professors from IISc or IIT.
- Give NERD complete authority execute its plans.
- Give them the objective and one year time frame (increasing the term may not be useful, as they might not be interested in working more than one year with the government, unless the government also wants complete DM plan for handling Nuclear missile attacks on the country and Radio Active disasters due to the core meltdown in nuclear power reactors).
F.A.C.T. promises a 551% improvement in the disaster management capability of the country, and atleast 30% less number of fatalities related to yearly disasters, if the above recommendations are implemented.
“Nationwide Citizen’s Rally for Change” on Saturday – 27th December @ 6pm
[Appeal from F.A.C.T. : Even if we cannot actively participate in many of these initiatives, it is very important for us to be with them as a show of solidarity and encourage. At-least this Saturday, we hope people will think of something more important than just hanging out with friends, going out for a shopping or watching a movie. If your mind is busy finding an excuse, such as, 'these initiatives serve no purpose' or 'these are just waste of my time', ask yourself, 'will you ever do something better than this, ever?']
(Source : http://www.changeindia.info/)
Change India (www.changeindia.in), a citizens’ movement to make ‘Educated Civil Society’ relevant and count in matters of policy and polity, is organizing nationwide “Citizens’ Rally for Change” on Saturday, 27th December-2008, exactly one month after 26/11. Read more »
Vision 2020: India will have world’s first Prime Minister operating from inside Jail
A PWD engineer in Uttar Pradesh is lynched to death, by a MLA (Shekhar Tiwari of BSP), for refusing to pay up 25 lakhs (some claim 50 lakhs). The MLA was collecting money for the birthday bash of his party Supremo Mayavati. As per the statements made by the opposition, every member of the ruling party was given a collection target and the total goal set by the party was 1000 crores!
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During the July, 2008 confidence motion, 6 MPs (Ateeq Ahmad [SP], Afzal Ansari [SP], Mohammed Shahabuddin [RJD], Rajesh Ranjan a.k.a Pappu Yadav[RJD], Suajbhan Singh [LJP], Uma Kanth Yadav[BSP]) were brought from Jail on a one day bail to vote in the parliament. Three of them were convicted for murder by the courts! Read more »
“Bumba from Bushongo” test for religions
Considering most of the present day terrorism and violence are due to the claims of one religion being better than the other, we at F.A.C.T, decided to present a simple test for people to judge their own religion. Since the test could be done entirely by the individual himself, there will not be any external malicious forces affecting the outcome. We have decided to name this test in honor of an ancient God, “Bumba from Bushango”.
The only prerequisites of this test are, ‘courage’ and ‘honesty’. Anyone with these two qualities are eligible to take the test. Read more »
United Pakistan Alliance – “For minority votes, we don’t mind doing politics over a martyr’s death”
There is a limit for everything, and this has gone well beyond that!
Using the death of a martyr to do vote bank politics!! Even a robber, rape convict or even a murderer would have hesitated to do so, but not our politicians.
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“Superficially speaking they (terrorists) had no reason to kill Karkare. Whether he (Karkare) was victim of terrorism or terrorism plus something, I do not know”.
-A.R.Antulay Read more »
Is A. R. Antulay a Pakistani mole?
Many bloggers are asking this question these days. On any other day we would have laughed at this very idea and moved on. But not after hearing the sort of suspicious comments repeatedly made by the union minister even after the minister realized that it could cost his political career. Risking ones personal political career to sell some infinitely stupid conspiracy theory, that too at the highest level, even when his own political party runs the country, looks unusually suspicious. Read more »
The brave men from Mumbai Police
Before proceeding further, we think this thought experiment will be relevant.
“You are caught inside a building where terrorists are spraying bullets everywhere killing everyone in their sight. Who do you think, would come to your rescue? Friends? Relatives?”
At least these brave men would have come to save you. Read more »
Pakistan, a failed state… is India too?
Source : Wikipedia.org
| Date | Incident | Fatalities | Injured | Status of case (Arrests made/ Cracked/ Verdict given) |
| March 12, 1993 | Bombay bombings | 257 | verdict given | |
| 1997 | Brahmaputra Mail train bombing | |||
| February 14, 1998 | Coimbatore bombings | 46 | verdict given | |
| October 1, 2001 | Terrorists attack Jammu-Kashmir assembly complex | 35 | ||
| December 13, 2001 | Attack on the parliament complex in New Delhi | 7 | verdict given | |
| 21 December 2002 | Kurnool train crash | 20 | 80 | |
| 10 September 2002 | Rafiganj rail disaster | 130 | ||
| 27 February 2002 | Godhra Train Burning | |||
| September 24, 2002 | Terrorists attack the Akshardham temple in Gujarat | 31 | ||
| March 13, 2003 | A terrorist bomb attack on a commuter train in Mumbai[1] | 11 | ||
| May 14, 2003 | Terrorists attack an army camp near Jammu, killing more than 30, including women and children | 30 | ||
| August 25, 2003 | Simultaneous car bombs in Mumbai | 52 | ||
| August 15, 2004 | Bomb explodes in Assam, killing 16 people, mostly school children | 16 | ||
| 2005 | Jaunpur train bombing | 13 | ||
| July 5, 2005 | Shri Ram Janmabhoomi attack in Ayodhya | 0 | ||
| October 29, 2005 | Three powerful serial blasts in New Delhi at different places just two days before Hindu festival Deepawali[2] | 70 | ||
| March 7, 2006 | Three synchronized terrorist attacks in Varanasi in Shri Sankatmochan Mandir and Varanasi Cantonment Railway Station | 21 | ||
| July 11, 2006 | Series of 7 train bombing during the evening rush hour in Mumbai | 209 | ||
| September 8, 2006 | Series of bomb blasts in the vicinity of a mosque in Malegaon, Maharashtra | 37 | 125 | |
| 18 February 2007 | Samjhauta Express bombings | 68 | ||
| May 18, 2007 | At least 13 people were killed, including 4 killed by the Indian police in the rioting that followed, in the bombing at Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad that took place during the Friday prayers | 13 | ||
| August 25, 2007 | Two blasts in Hyderabad’s Lumbini park and a restaurant | 42 | ||
| October 11, 2007 | One blast at a shrine of a Sufi Muslim saint in the town of Ajmer[3] | 3 | ||
| October 14, 2007 | One blast in a movie theater in the town of Ludhiana on the Muslim holy day of Eid ul-Fitr[4] | 6 | ||
| November 24, 2007 | A series of near-simultaneous explosions at courthouse complexes in the cities of Lucknow, Varanasi, and Faizabad[5] | 16 | ||
| May 13, 2008 | 9 bomb blasts along 6 areas in Jaipur | 63 | ||
| July 25, 2008 | 8 low intensity bomb blasts in Bangalore | 2 | 20 | arrests made |
| July 26, 2008 | 17 serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad | 29 | 110 | arrests made |
| September 13, 2008 | 5 bomb blasts in Delhi markets | 21 | 110 | |
| September 27, 2008 | Bombings at Mehrauli area 2 bomb blasts in Delhi flower market | 1 | 17 | |
| September 29, 2008 | 10 killed and 80 injured in bombings in Maharashtra and Gujarat bomb blasts | 10 | ||
| September 29, 2008 | 7 killed in bike blasts in Malegaon. | 7 | ||
| October 1, 2008 | Agartala bombing | 4 | 100 | |
| October 21, 2008 | Imphal bomb blast | 17 | 40 | |
| October 30, 2008 | Assam bomb blast | 77 | 300 | |
| November 26, 2008 | Coordinated attack in Mumbai[6][7] | 171 | 239 |
The millionaires of Government of Karnataka
The names and assets of officials raided by Lok Ayukta:
Devaraj, Assistant Engineer, BBMP, 1.61 Crores
S R Patellapa, Assistant Director, Agriculture, 1.28 Crores
C M Chandre Gowda, AEE, KIADB, Mysore, 3 Crores
C Srinivasan, conservator of forest, Mysore, 1.55 Crores
S C Jayachandra, Chief Engineer (Hemavathi project), Gorur, 84.53 lakhs
Veeregowda, Village Pancahayat Secretary, Rajanukunte, Yelahanka, Rs 94.11 lakhs
Chandrashekhar Venkanna Chowhan, AEE, Almatti, 77.42 lakhs.
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Do you know some more millionaires in the Government of Karnataka? Add their names to the database here.
A.R.Antulay – It’s time to apologize to the nation and resign
God! How can this happen again!!
Most of us have not even completely forgotton how the shameless Achuthanandan barged into the house of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan even after his father asking him not to visit, and passing on unthinkably cheap comments against the martyr’s father. Now we have a Union Minister, displaying a new low!
To quote Anthulay, “We may need a separate inquiry to find out how his [Karkare's] end came. Karkare found that there are non-Muslims involved in the acts terrorism during his investigations in some cases. Any person going to the roots of terror has always been the target.”
He added, “Superficially speaking they (terrorists) had no reason to kill Karkare. Whether he (Karkare) was victim of terrorism or terrorism plus something, I do not know”.
Mr.A.R.Anthulay, you have done an unpardonable mistake. Choosing to do politics over the death of a martyr and using it for communal purposes!!
You better apologize to the nation and quit.
No. We will never forgive you.
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Note : We have decided to put A.R.Anthulay as the first entry into F.A.C.T’s National Shamelist of Politicians and Bureaurocrats involved in corrupt practices.
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