An Indian official says the death toll in last week’s Mumbai attacks is expected to stand at 171 and that all bodies have been accounted for.

In an isolated spiritual community in Virginia, 13-year-old Naomi Scherr was an especially adventurous kid, dyeing her hair purple, then shades of blue and teal. She adored the music of rockers Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance and usually had headphones on.

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell says the terrorist group U.S. intelligence believes carried out last week’s attack in Mumbai is the same one that attacked Mumbai trains in 2006.

The gunmen who attacked Mumbai set out by boat from the Pakistani port of Karachi, then later hijacked an Indian fishing trawler that carried them toward this financial capital on their suicide mission, a top police official said Tuesday.

Taliban fighters battling Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border volunteered Tuesday to fight alongside the army if war breaks out with traditional foe India over the Mumbai attacks.

In other words, Stop blaming the politicians . Namrata Goswami, Associate Fellow at IDSA quoted in rediff: ...A start…can be made if we stop blindly condemning politicians or, at least, suggesting that they are solely responsible for the problem. “That is bad analysis, to suggest the Mumbai attacks are solely attributable to bad politics. And bad analysis produces [...]

Following my earlier post, I would like to initiate the first of a series of conference calls on “Ideas for Political Reform and Governance in India” tomorrow (2nd Dec) at 530pm IST. The single point agenda is: What can you and me do to help fight terrorism in India? The call will be via Skype. My skype name [...]

As some of you have must have discovered already, NationalInterest.in - the superb collection of blogs that deal with Indian national interest is temporarily down. Please click on this link to visit their temporary home http://indiannationalinterest.wordpress.com/  .

Dear Friends, It is my pleasure to publish this first guest post by Supratim Basu aka “Patriot”. Supratim has been an avid reader and commentator on this blog. He is also involved with me and others (including Sanjeev Sabhlok) on the Freedom Team of India. I am sure you will find his views stimulating and [...]

I was alerted to this article earlier yesterday. It raises some hard (and disturbing) questions about the purpose and the context of US President-Elect Obama’s visit to Pakistan in the early 80s. Some excerpts from India Wake Up: Why did Obama go to Pakistan in 1981? by Brian Baldwin: What was Obama’s fascination with Pakistan [...]

The widely-held notion of the USA as the land of opportunity could not have received a better boost than the election of the first African-American President. His march from relatively humble origins to the most powerful office in the world has been nothing short of spectacular. Grit, determination and an unrelenting focus as the ultimate harbingers of his success -- in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles -- should inspire many across the world. Beyond the rhetoric, and the demographic details that psephologists have painstakingly worked out, the result has a simple yet powerful…

For over forty years after independence, the aviation industry in India was a virtual state monopoly - both Air India and Indian Airlines are 100% government owned companies. When the liberalization process started in 1991 and an open skies policy was announced, Jet Airways was among the first to commence operations. Other players entered the fray but could not develop a sustainable business model due to high entry barriers and regulations on routes. The low-cost airline model was also tried with the advent of Air Deccan. The vision of its founder was to enable every Indian to fly. A laudable…

What does six months mean in the life of a company? A lot, if one goes by what has happened at Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG. In February-March this year, these were the very firms that youngsters graduating from top-notch Indian B-Schools were yearning to make a career with. Today, they are scurrying for alternate opportunities and are willing to settle for 50% of the salaries they had once expected they could earn. By coincidence or design, three different TV channels in India have aired, in the last 48 hours, lead stories with similar titles…

The controversy surrounding Vogue India's portrayal of luxury goods being "used" by ordinary people represents a dilemma that will neither go away any time soon -- nor does it have a simple solution. Consider the following marketing challenges facing an array of industries: The government of India (one wonders whether governments do not have anything better to do) is up in arms about a commercial for Axe deodorant. The deodorant is supposed to be chocolate-flavored and the video clip shows a man apparently covered in chocolate being chased by a handful of young ladies. The message conveyed is…

Even in the best of times, organizations pay only lip service to skills enhancement. Instead, replicating a task repeatedly is perceived as the way to increase productivity and efficiency. Since growth is treated as a given based on the number of years one has been in a job, employees are given new and sometimes fanciful designations in the hope that such palliatives will indeed motivate them. Inevitably then, people tend to rise to their level of incompetence. Thus, it should not come as a surprise to find brilliant programmers becoming team leaders or project managers who cannot deliver on…