Pulling militancy out by its roots not only requires making hard administrative decisions, such as those Hasina has already begun, but also building consensus among politicians and civil society to free the country from the militant menace. To do this, she should have discussions with concerned citizens and groups who are affected by militancy and are working on the issue, while also using the media effectively to make people aware of the negative societal impact.

In addition, it is necessary for the ruling Awami League to create an environment in which the general public is not swayed by militant ideologies. Hardliners have gained ground among the impoverished population in rural areas, where government infrastructure and basic services are not adequate, by supporting mosques, hospitals and religious educational institutions. -- Chinmoy Mutsuddi

What about the Taliban? What is their thinking? President Karzai is banking heavily on the possibility that the Taliban, accepting him as a genuine interlocutor, will respond to his overtures. These are early stages, with everything up in the air, different possibilities being floated but nothing definite on the table as a genuine starting point.

For Pakistan the danger is obvious. We are caught in a bind. The more our American friends flounder, the greater will be their frustration, and the greater their readiness to take out their anger on us by accusing us of a double-faced policy: hunting with them but also in touch with the Taliban. Every failure begets the need for scapegoats and we shouldn't be surprised if we are blamed for the US's own failures of judgment and resolve. -- Ayaz Amir

The time has come for the silent majority to break its silence and speak out loud against the blatant atrocities of the Taliban. “Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible and demanding it at gunpoint” —Christopher Hitchens.

The aforementioned rationale is not shared by many here who are staunch advocates of making peace with the demons. Every now and then a violent act claims several cherished lives. As we mourn the lost ones and seek refuge in the burial rituals, a sense of vulnerability and frustration keeps on mounting and most start losing hope in the political system, in the faith and, more importantly, in civilisation. It is absolutely deceitful of the apologists and supporters of the Taliban to now suggest that the Taliban should not be given a taste of their own medicine. Why were these torchbearers of people’s rights tight-lipped when innocent men, women and children were being slaughtered, beheaded and flogged? These sympathisers shed no tears when self-righteous zealots torched down thousands of schools for those institutions were a symbol of modernity and free will.

The Taliban apologists continue to claim that the Taliban are not terrible creatures and that we should try to ‘understand’ them and address their ‘demands’. They, however, forget to address the inconvenient truth that we did so in Swat and it backfired. Operation Rah-e-Rast demonstrated that if all the Taliban within Swat are not dealt with with an iron hand, we would be sowing the seeds for their return in even greater numbers. The tactic of holding peace talks/negotiations have failed on numerous occasions and such strategies only serve as short-term appeasement exercises for the militants. The Laal Masjid saga is a perfect example in this regard. The state did not react persuasively when they illegally occupied a children’s library and then assumed the role of morality police by detaining foreign nationals. This appeasement led to an unavoidable showdown for which many would rightly blame the state. -- Ammar Zafarullah

Finally, in 1966, the Miranda decision established a universal standard, requiring people in police custody to be read their rights before being questioned. Under most circumstances, failure to comply with this rule would lead to a suppression of the confession. However, contrary to common belief, the Miranda warning doesn’t confer rights; it simply reminds arrestees of the rights already granted to them by the Constitution....

But resolving immediate emergencies is about as far as we should go in delaying the Miranda reading or creating exceptions to it. To open non-emergency exceptions, like the one proposed by the Obama administration, would be to go down a road toward the eventual nullification of the constitutional protection against self-incrimination. The Miranda rule enables us to protect a fundamental right without forcing the courts to allow the legitimacy of every confession to be proven before it is allowed into evidence. To compromise the rule would be counterproductive to the freedom we enjoy — a freedom that terrorists would like nothing better than to destroy. -- Sol Wachtler

Islamabad reacted with anger to media accounts of Headley's claims about the ISI. But the case of the Kanpur spy suggests that a great part of the truth about Mumbai is either unknown to, or is being hidden from, Pakistan's civilian government...

Last week, the former Indian diplomat, Chinmaya Gharekhan, called on the government to test Pakistan's commitment to act against anti-India terrorists by using “quantifiable criteria which can be spelt out.” Pakistan's willingness to fill the gaping holes in its investigation will clearly be key to these criteria. Early this year, Mumbai authorities quietly buried the bodies of the nine Lashkar jihadists, who were killed during the attacks, after months of waiting for Pakistan to reclaim them. Eighteen months after the carnage, the FIA has identified just three of those men: Mohammad Altaf, Imran Babar, and Nasir Ahmad. Nothing could better illustrate Pakistan's disinclination to discover the truth about Mumbai. -- Praveen Swami

Yes, a country to which the United States is giving full support and billions of dollars in aid is doing little or nothing against those responsible for the September 11 attacks and for the killing of about 3,000 Americans. But the Obama Administration doesn’t believe in getting tough or putting pressure on those countries actually giving America trouble. Ah, maybe it does understand. After all, if it really regarded Pakistan as an ally, instead of a hostile state, it wouldn’t be treating it so well! -- Barry Rubin

The public trial and provision of legal defence for Qassab enhanced the reputation and credibility of the Indian judicial system and further disclosed to our eternal pride that there were victims and bereaved who were prepared to forgive him. But the overwhelming popular indignation and feeling of revenge is quite understandable, and is to be expected. It is also an unacknow-ledged tribute to the Indian system that Pakistanis want Indian judicial officials to give evidence in the in-camera Pakistani trial of the LeT handlers for the Mumbai attack. The contrast between the mature Indian democracy and the incipient Pakistani system could not have been better brought out, with the open trial in India and the closed trial in Pakistan…..

The image of Qassab with his AK-47 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus will haunt for a long time to come. 26/11 in the longer run may have a more significant impact on our security thinking than the 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999 wars with Pakistan. -- K. Subrahmanyam

Back in 2008 Boyle made an astute joke on BBC’s Radio 4 programme Political Animal. "I've been studying Israeli army martial arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well … that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew."

In fact, no one can describe the barbarism and collective sadism performed by the Jewish State more accurately. –- Gilad Atzmon

The victims' relatives' feelings are understandable, but Hemant Karkare's wife Kavita also said that Qassab should be hanged in public. How can you condemn the savagery of Kasab and his nine associates by recommending medieval practice of hanging of Qassab in public? By giving fair trial to Kasab, India is arguing that it is not a banana republic. Slain police officer Tukaram Omble's relative said on television that Qassab's limbs should be cut into pieces in public and then salt should be applied on. This view is just not Indian….

"Pakistan should get the message clear unlike the 1993 serial Mumbai blasts that divided the Indian society; the 2008 terror attack has united India. Hopefully, the times are changing.  Hindus and Muslims -- urban and rural India, rich and poor and middle class -- all felt strongly for those 166 families whose relatives were killed by the attack by 10 Pakistani terrorists. Irrespective of the legal weaknesses or strengths of Judge Madan Tahilyani's verdict, generally, Indians would be happy that the trial took place with a speed that is not common in India and he has delivered a sound judgment. -- Sheela Bhatt

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, terrorism and guerrilla warfare started occupying global centre stage. And while this was a game changer, the Western world relegated it to a Third World or West Asia problem.

The 9/11 attacks changed that dramatically. The much vaunted two-ocean defence assurance (the idea of being guarded by the existence of two oceans on its two sides) that the US had historically banked upon evaporated overnight. Al Qaeda showed that it was possible to strike the world’s sole remaining superpower, just like 10 years earlier the Taliban had shown that they could take on the mighty Soviet Union. And while the US responded with its own and allied military might, it was hobbled by a doctrine that was woefully out of date. Several hundred thousand troops and kilotonnes of bombs later, its enemy was very much alive and kicking. Around seven years after George W. Bush pronounced “Mission Accomplished” in 2003, the world has discovered that when it comes to terrorism, the mission itself has to be redefined. Killing insurgents does not equate to killing insurgency. -- Raghu Raman

The scholars of today seem to have realised, though belatedly, that Ibn Taimiya’s fatwa had been a source of inspiration for the extremist, radical and sectarian schools of thought in the Muslim world and had given birth to Al Qaeda,Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al Shahab and other terrorist organisations all over the world causing death, destruction and slaughter of  innocent people in the name of Jihad. The acts of violence have not only killed non-combatants among the Muslims and non-Muslims but have also damaged the  image of Islam as a religion of peace because even during a war, Islam is against  assaulting or harming non-combatants, women, children, the elderly and unarmed  persons. The so-called jihad had its political consequences as well. It did the Islamic world more harm than good.-- Sohail Arshad

Photo: Islamic scholar Habib Ali of Egypt

One important political development in the subcontinent went largely unnoticed by the political analysts in January. Just two days before Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to India, an important minister in her cabinet Syed Ashraful Islam shocked India by disclosing the fact that the former BNP-Jamaat Regime had arranged a clandestine meeting between the former Pakistan president Perwez Musharrarf and the top leader and founder of ULFA, Anup Chetia while he was languishing in a Dhaka jail. Bangladesh’s external intelligence agency, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) had played an active role in arranging the meeting as a section of the DGFI officials was hand in glove with the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. -- Sohail Arshad

Photo: PM of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina

The call for a balanced approach to life in our highly terror-prone world came at a seminar on Terrorism and the response of composite culture organised by urdutahzeen.net on Sunday at Mumbai’s Taj Palace Hotel, the site of 26/11 massacre just over a year ago.

Dr Ajai Sahni, the last speaker of the first session, gave his strategic view of the India’s place not just vis-à-vis its neighbours like Pakistan but in the global context. If India fails against terrorism, the whole world will fail.” He called for a credible and effective response to the barbarians who are threatening our society and civilization and plainly questioned the wisdom of continuing the dialogue with Pakistan, the “enabler of terrorism.”

 “We are living in glass houses and there is no need to demolish any mosque or temple because God belongs to all whether we call him Ram or Rahim. The Gita and Quran have the same message,” said the opening speaker, Dr. P.S. Pasricha, former DGP, Mumbai, and Maharastra.

Organized by Urdutahzeeb.net of London based NRI Ajit Singh, the event was marked by highly emotional, thought provoking and divergent opinions both from the invited panel of speakers and the floor.

Islamic commentator and editor of New Age Islam website Sultlan Shahin called for soul searching and introspection by the Muslim community both in India and abroad to counter terrorism and notions of narrow Islamic superiority and separatism.

Photo: Shabana Azmi, film actor and victim of media distortions, gave a forceful answer to those who questioned her identity as a Muslim and an Indian

This once again underlines the fact that mindless cruelty to animals is an early indication of future criminality. In their paper ‘From Animal Cruelty to Serial Murder: Applying the Graduation Hypothesis’, in The International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (47.1), Jeremy Wright and Christopher Hensley write, “Since the late-1970s, the FBI has considered animal cruelty to be a possible indicator of future serial murder. The FBI documented the connection between cruelty to animals and serial murder following a study of 35 imprisoned serial murderers. The convicted murderers were asked questions regarding their childhood cruelty to animals. More than half of the serial murderers admitted to hurting or torturing animals as children or adolescents.” -- Hiranmay Karlekar

The contours of this nefarious joint venture were fairly simple, as an intelligence official puts it, "Use disaffected Indian youth to carry out terror strikes using locally available bomb material. The objectives of the project were twofold: strike terror in the Indian heartland without raising suspicions of Pakistan's involvement."

In intelligence jargon, this is called a plausibly deniable operation. Unlike the 26/11 Mumbai attacks which left behind damning evidence of Pakistani involvement--Pakistani national Ajmal Amir Kasab--this operation would use only Indian nationals. They were recruited by Lashkar spotters either in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh and indoctrinated using propaganda videos showing the Babri Masjid demolition and Gujarat riots. -- Sandeep Unnithan