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Dr Jose George, professor of politics at Mumbai University, suggests that increasing globalization, and closer ties between India and Western powers, especially the US, could have triggered the Mumbai blasts.

Because, of course, the relationship between America and Western countries and India are increasing, and the economic contact with them are increasing. Somebody’s against that, to stop that, to apply with globalisation.

And Islamic terrorists can be one. They cannot tolerate this increasing close relationship between India and USA, especially after the visit of President Bush, increasing understanding and cooperation between this India. That may turn against them, so that can be one consideration.

And those who are against the multinational corporations, globalisation, privatisation trend also, that can be behind that.

Here’s the full transcript of George’s conversation with Jennifer Macey, of Australia’s AM Radio.

Wikipedia has come up with a comprehensive page on the Mumbai blasts — a compendium of nearly everything you would want to know.

Headlines are tricky things — especially in times like these.

‘New York Panic’, reads this one in Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

When you live, as the poster of this blogpost does, in the middle of Manhattan, next door to Penn Station, you click as fast as your mouse can move.

Turns out to be a routine story, on the extra precautions NY has taken in the aftermath of the Mumbai blasts.

What panic? Which devil’s workshop did the headline originate from?

There is no panic — at least, not in this part of the world. As of 8.30 pm this evening, there was a more visible police presence both at Penn Station and at Port Authority, two of the three major transport terminals in NY city (Grand Central being the third). But the cops are just there, watchful, wary — and the people are going about their business as usual.

There is, though, a great awareness of what took place in Mumbai earlier in the NY day — in Penn Station, in course of a quick five-minute walk-through, this correspondent overheard half a dozen different conversations about the Mumbai serial blasts, which dominated CNN’s news coverage for much of the day.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, ongoing television dramas struggled to figure out ways to deal with the tragedy without seeming to cash in.

The one that cracked the conundrum was West Wing, the Aaron Sorkin-scripted series centered around President Josiah Bartlett and his crack team.

Sorkin postponed the third season’s scheduled curtain-raiser and instead, hastily scripted an instalment titled ‘Issac and Ishamel’ that, through a group of school children visiting the White House, discussed the issue of terrorism.

An exchange between the students and Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is worth recalling, in context of the Mumbai and Srinagar blasts:

GIRL 1: You know a lot about terrorism?

SAM: I dabble.

GIRL 1: What are you struck by most?

SAM: Its 100% failure rate.

GIRL 1: Really?

SAM: Not only do terrorists always fail at what they’re after, they pretty much always succeed in strengthening whatever it is they’re against.

BOY 1: What about the IRA?

SAM: The Brits are still there. The Protestants are still there. Basque extremists have been staging terrorist attacks in Spain for decades with no result. Left Wing Red Brigades from the 60s and 70s, from the Bader-Meinhoff gang in Germany to the Weatherman in the U.S. have tried to take over capitalism. You tell me. How’s capitalism doing?

The entire episode looks at terrorism, from various angles.

From a Guardian article on the Mumbai blasts, this:

The impact was felt across the world. New York tightened security on its train network, with police increasing the number of random bag searches and adding hundreds of extra officers in the subways and on ferries during the evening rush hour. “We take a terror attack in any place in the world, especially one on a public transport system, as a serious warning,” said the mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

….Britain amended its travel advice to India, urging British visitors to exercise “increased vigilance”.

It is the nature of large-scale tragedy that it defeats the attempts of reporters to paint anything like a rounded picture. Where do you begin, where does it end, when do you know you have written enough?

Most times, you try to find images, sound bytes — and hope, by spotlighting the wood, that you can show the whole forest. Cameron Simpson tries, here, for the Herald, UK.

A policeman was shown carrying two white, blood-stained bundles of what appeared to be body parts. Hundreds of dazed passengers walked along the railway tracks.

Randeep Ramesh, writing for the Guardian, also sought the telling image.

One man sat in a metro station with blood streaming down his face. Another was weeping, his face buried in a white handkerchief. People who were unhurt scrambled off trains and streamed down the railway tracks to safety. Shoes, handbags and clothes were left littering the tracks.