*michael parekh on IT*

ON EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN

ROOT CAUSES

There is an eye-opening story in the New York Times today on the state of education in Pakistan.  It matters to us for a whole host of reasons, not the least of it being that we may bear some responsibility for it.  First the context:

"...the state has forgotten the children here, the mullahs have not. With public education in a shambles, Pakistan’s poorest families have turned to madrasas, or Islamic schools, that feed and house the children while pushing a more militant brand of Islam than was traditional here.

The concentration of madrasas here in southern Punjab has become an urgent concern in the face of Pakistan’s expanding insurgency. The schools offer almost no instruction beyond the memorizing of the Koran, creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy.

In an analysis of the profiles of suicide bombers who have struck in Punjab, the Punjab police said more than two-thirds had attended madrasas."

Bear in mind that the word "Madrasa" used in the piece simply means "School" in Arabic.  It's being used incorrectly here to refer to Islamic schools.
That aside, the piece does make some sobering points:

"President Obama said in a news conference last week that he was “gravely concerned” about the situation in Pakistan, not least because the government did not “seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services: schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people.”

He has asked Congress to more than triple assistance to Pakistan for nonmilitary purposes, including education. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has given Pakistan a total of $680 million in nonmilitary aid, according to the State Department, far lower than the $1 billion a year for the military.

But education has never been a priority here, and even Pakistan’s current plan to double education spending next year might collapse as have past efforts, which were thwarted by sluggish bureaucracies, unstable governments and a lack of commitment by Pakistan’s governing elite to the poor.

“This is a state that never took education seriously,” said Stephen P. Cohen, a Pakistan expert at the Brookings Institution. “I’m very pessimistic about whether the educational system can or will be reformed...”

"...Literacy in Pakistan has grown from barely 20 percent at independence 61 years ago, and the government recently improved the curriculum and reduced its emphasis on Islam.

Failures in Education

But even today, only about half of Pakistanis can read and write, far below the proportion in countries with similar per-capita income, like Vietnam. One in three school-age Pakistani children does not attend school, and of those who do, a third drop out by fifth grade, according to Unesco. Girls’ enrollment is among the lowest in the world, lagging behind Ethiopia and Yemen.

“Education in Pakistan was left to the dogs,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad who is an outspoken critic of the government’s failure to stand up to spreading Islamic militancy."

"This impoverished expanse of rural southern Punjab, where the Taliban have begun making inroads with the help of local militant groups, has one of the highest concentrations of madrasas in the country.

Of the more than 12,000 madrasas registered in Pakistan, about half are in Punjab. Experts estimate the numbers are higher: when the state tried to count them in 2005, a fifth of the areas in this province refused to register.

Though madrasas make up only about 7 percent of primary schools in Pakistan, their influence is amplified by the inadequacy of public education and the innate religiosity of the countryside, where two-thirds of people live.

The public elementary school for boys in this village is the very picture of the generations of neglect that have left many poor Pakistanis feeling abandoned by their government."

And to the point of our bearing some of the blame:

"The phenomenon began in the 1980s, when General Zia gave madrasas money and land in an American-supported policy to help Islamic fighters against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan."

The whole piece is worth reading in it's entirety, since at the minimum, it illustrates the multi-generational nature of this state of affairs.

ON THE NO. 2 CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

The New York Times has a piece reminding us that developing nations also have significant contributions to make when it comes to dealing with global climate change.  It's not just on the shoulders of developed nations. 

The piece takes us thousands of miles away to India, visiting a village with barely any electricity or emission spewing automobiles:

"As women in ragged saris of a thousand hues bake bread and stew lentils in the early evening over fires fueled by twigs and dung, children cough from the dense smoke that fills their homes. Black grime coats the undersides of thatched roofs. At dawn, a brown cloud stretches over the landscape like a diaphanous dirty blanket.

In Kohlua, in central India, with no cars and little electricity, emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, are near zero. But soot — also known as black carbon — from tens of thousands of villages like this one in developing countries is emerging as a major and previously unappreciated source of global climate change.

While carbon dioxide may be the No. 1 contributor to rising global temperatures, scientists say, black carbon has emerged as an important No. 2, with recent studies estimating that it is responsible for 18 percent of the planet’s warming, compared with 40 percent for carbon dioxide. Decreasing black carbon emissions would be a relatively cheap way to significantly rein in global warming — especially in the short term, climate experts say. Replacing primitive cooking stoves with modern versions that emit far less soot could provide a much-needed stopgap, while nations struggle with the more difficult task of enacting programs and developing technologies to curb carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.

In fact, reducing black carbon is one of a number of relatively quick and simple climate fixes using existing technologies — often called “low hanging fruit” — that scientists say should be plucked immediately to avert the worst projected consequences of global warming."

What's surprising about all this is the next bit:

"But the awareness of black carbon’s role in climate change has come so recently that it was not even mentioned as a warming agent in the 2007 summary report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that pronounced the evidence for global warming to be “unequivocal.” Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of environmental engineering at Stanford, said that the fact that black carbon was not included in international climate efforts was “bizarre,” but “partly reflects how new the idea is.” The United Nations is trying to figure out how to include black carbon in climate change programs, as is the federal government."

The piece is worth reading in it's entirety, if only to understand better what the whole global village can and must do to deal with this problem together.

ON A FOCUS ON ASIA

NEW BEGINNINGS

The Economist introduces a new column on Asia this week in an article titled "In the Shade of the Banyan Tree", with this background:

"SOME 165 years, 161 years and 114 years since its correspondents first filed reports respectively from Calcutta, Shanghai and Yokohama, The Economist this week launches a column on Asian affairs. We have taken a while, but is this not, after all, to be the Asian century? We think probably so..."

"the search for an Asian identity is growing. It forms the backdrop to the annual East Asia Summit, held this year in Thailand from April 10th, grouping the ten South-East Asian countries with not just their partners in China, Japan and South Korea but India, Australia and New Zealand as well. The powerful impulse for co-operation is materialism based on rapid economic development..."

Looks like the Economist will have a lot of material to work with for the new column.

Why the Banyan Tree? The piece goes on to explain:

"A dearth of pan-Asian images speaks volumes, but the banyan tree serves better than most, for it or similar trees are found somewhere in most Asian countries. The banyan spans Asia’s spirituality and its entrepreneurialism. The Bodhi tree, under which Buddha attained enlightenment, was a banyan by another name. Gujarati merchants conducted business under it, and the Portuguese lent their name, banyan, to the tree. It stuck."

"...An ancient connection exists between public business and the banyan tree, as between its huge overarching shade and its deep intertwining roots. In South-East Asia, and Java in particular, the shade was a place of learning and a site where rulers vowed justice. Those are Asian values to which Banyan will happily subscribe." 

As an Indian born kid, I remember going through a phase of sketching one Banyan tree after another.

So it seems appropriate as a title for this new experiment.  Here's to reading much more about Asia underneath this Banyan Tree.

ON TAKING A STAND

SAYING NO

Thomas Friedman has yet another notable op-ed from his current trip to India. 

In a piece titled "No way, no how, not here", he writes about India's muslim community collectivly refusing to allow the burial of the 9 assailants in the Mumbai attacks on November 26th, 2008, in the main Muslim cemetery in Mumbai.  That multi-day attack took the lives of 173 people and injured over 300.  This excerpt from the piece in particular stood out:

""Indian Muslims are proud of being both Indian and Muslim, and the Mumbai terrorism was a war against both India and Islam," explained M.J. Akbar, the Indian-Muslim editor of Covert, an Indian investigative journal. "Terrorism has no place in Islamic doctrine.

The Koranic term for the killing of innocents is 'fasad.' Terrorists are fasadis, not jihadis. In a beautiful verse, the Koran says that the killing of an innocent is akin to slaying the whole community. Since the ... terrorists were neither Indian nor true Muslims, they had no right to an Islamic burial in an Indian Muslim cemetery."

He goes on to put this in a broader context:

"To be sure, Mumbai's Muslims are a vulnerable minority in a predominantly Hindu country. Nevertheless, their in-your-face defiance of the Islamist terrorists stands out.

It stands out against a dismal landscape of predominantly Sunni Muslim suicide murderers who have attacked civilians in mosques and markets - from Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan - but who have been treated by mainstream Arab media, like Al Jazeera, or by extremist Islamist spiritual leaders and Web sites, as "martyrs" whose actions deserve praise.

Extolling or excusing suicide militants as "martyrs" has only led to this awful phenomenon - where young Muslim men and women are recruited to kill themselves and others - spreading wider and wider.

What began in a targeted way in Lebanon and Israel has now proliferated to become an almost weekly occurrence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is a threat to any open society because when people turn themselves into bombs, they can't be deterred, and the measures needed to interdict them require suspecting and searching everyone at any public event. And they are a particular threat to Muslim communities. You can't build a healthy society on the back of suicide-bombers, whose sole objective is to wreak havoc by exclusively and indiscriminately killing as many civilians as possible.

If suicide-murder is deemed legitimate by a community when attacking its "enemies" abroad, it will eventually be used as a tactic against "enemies" at home, and that is exactly what has happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The only effective way to stop this trend is for "the village" - the Muslim community itself - to say "no more." When a culture and a faith community delegitimizes this kind of behavior, openly, loudly and consistently, it is more important than metal detectors or extra police. Religion and culture are the most important sources of restraint in a society.

That's why India's Muslims, who are the second-largest Muslim community in the world, after Indonesia's, and the one with the deepest democratic tradition, do a great service to Islam by delegitimizing suicide-murderers by refusing to bury their bodies. It won't stop this trend overnight, but it can help over time."

One can but hope, but it is a start worth noting for now.

* Image source.

ON OLD NEW IDEA FOR CRISIS

SECRET SAUCE

Surprise, surprise, the market didn't seem to like the plan of action rolled out by our new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today, and the re-assuring statements made by our Fed chairman in Congress.  As the WSJ notes:

"The strength stocks showed last week vanished on Tuesday after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did little to slake traders' thirst for details on the U.S.'s plans to aid ailing financial institutions.

Investors also shrugged off the Senate's approval of an $838 billion fiscal stimulus package and testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who assured lawmakers that 95% of the Fed's nearly $2 trillion balance sheet is "gold-plated secure."

Reading through these news reports, just feels like more of the same old debate we've been having for months now, as we wait for the water torture of the inevitable to end sometime soon.  The media-circus optimized "debates" around pork and political agendas masked as "stimulus", all tucked into an unprecedented trillion dollar plus blank check, are disconcerting to most citizens from either side of the aisle.  And this is especially true if you're an investor, large or small, public or private, U.S. or foreign.

If you compare this bear market to the last three big ones of the last century (see chart), we seem to be a about where we were in the '73-'74, and '00-'02 bears, but only half-way down as compared with the Big ones of '29-'32.  It's really tough to say whether this is the bottom, or it's still a lot further down.

The frustrating thing for the markets, is not hearing any new "stimulus" solutions, and seeing more and more being added to the tax-payer's tab.  Which of course should make us extremely uncomfortable as citizens and parents.

So even out-of-the box solutions like the one proposed by Thomas Friedman in a tongue-of-cheek sort of way in a piece titled "The Open-Door Bailout", is a bit of fresh air*:

"Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper.
“We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them..."

While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best:
“Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”

Obviously this idea seems a non-starter in the current anti-immigration environment in this country, not to mention non-intuitive in the face of one of the worst recessions in recent memory.
I've been noodling along these lines for some time now. 
And something as seemingly crazy as this, changes a lot of the global rules, and just might work. 
Food for thought.
* Image source.

ON PAKISTAN AND MEXICO

GROWING FROM WITHIN

The New York Times has an eye-opening article outlining how the Taliban is making substantial inroads into mainstream Pakistan, specifically in the region of Swat, a region the size of Delaware.  Here's an excerpt:

"International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.

Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, a Delaware-size chunk of territory with 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within reach of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.

After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.

With the increasing consolidation of their power, the Taliban have taken a sizable bite out of the nation. And they are enforcing a strict interpretation of Islam with cruelty, bringing public beheadings, assassinations, social and cultural repression and persecution of women to what was once an independent, relatively secular region, dotted with ski resorts and fruit orchards and known for its dancing girls."

The piece goes on to add:

"Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province.

The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill them.

One who stayed on the job was Farooq Khan, a midlevel officer in Mingora, the valley’s largest city, where decapitated bodies of policemen and other victims routinely surface. Last month, he was shopping there when two men on a motorcycle sprayed him with gunfire, killing him in broad daylight.

“He always said, ‘I have to stay here and defend our home,’ ” recalled his brother, Wajid Ali Khan, a Swat native and the province’s minister for environment, as he passed around a cellphone with Farooq’s picture.

In the view of analysts, the growing nightmare in Swat is a capsule of the country’s problems: an ineffectual and unresponsive civilian government, coupled with military and security forces that, in the view of furious residents, have willingly allowed the militants to spread terror deep into Pakistan.

The crisis has become a critical test for the government of the civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, and for a security apparatus whose loyalties, many Pakistanis say, remain in question."

The whole situation is eerily similar to what's going on in Mexico, where drug cartels have effectively terrorized and as a practical matter, taken over several mainstream regions of Mexico, with the loyalties of many in the central government in question.
Both countries were recently highlighted by the Pentagon has being critical countries to watch in 2009, as this report outlines:

"Mexico and Pakistan are at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse," according to a recent report from the U.S. Joint Forces Command..."

"In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico," the report says.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Joint Forces Command said the latest assessment was likely written before the Mumbai attacks which further inflamed tensions in South Asia.

The Joint Operating Environment report, meant to examine worldwide security trends, says Pakistan, in the event of such a rapid collapse, would be susceptible to a "violent and bloody civil and sectarian war" made more dangerous by concerns over the country's nuclear arsenal.

The report says that "perfect storm of uncertainty" by itself might require U.S. engagement."

In both cases, it's unclear what the U.S. can effectively do without exacerbating the situation.  But in both cases it's clear that what happens in these countries matters to both the U.S. and the rest of the world.

ON INDIA WITHIN AND WITHOUT

GLOBAL CATALYSTS

The UK's Guardian addresses the debate that's been developing around the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", and discussed in my post a few days ago:

"After its rapturous reception in Britain and America, knives are being sharpened for Slumdog Millionaire. "Vile," is how Alice Miles described the movie in The Times. "Slumdog Millionaire is poverty porn" that invites the viewer to enjoy the miseries it depicts, she adds.

Even that old iconic Bollywood blusterer, Amitabh Bachchan, has thrown his empty-headed two rupees' worth into the mix. "If Slumdog Millionaire projects India as a third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations," he bellowed. "It's just that the Slumdog Millionaire idea, authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a westerner, gets creative global recognition," he added.

Bachchan is no doubt riled, as many other Bollywood no-talents will be, about the fact that the best film to be made about India in recent times has been made by a white man, Danny Boyle. Just as Spike Lee got hissy with Quentin Tarantino after he proved he could make hipper films about black people than Lee could (Lee ostentatiously criticised Tarantino's use of the word "nigger" while littering his own films with the same language), so many Indians will be upset about a westerner having a better understanding of their country than they do."

The piece goes on to give a rationale for why this state of affairs may have come to pass:

"The bitter truth is, Slumdog Millionaire could only have been made by westerners. The talent exists in India for such movies: much of it, like the brilliant actor Irrfan Khan, contributed to this film. But Bollywood producers, fixated with making flimsy films about the lives of the middle class, will never throw their weight behind such projects. Like Bachchan, they are too blind to what India really is to deal with it. Poor Indians, like those in Slumdog, do not constitute India's "murky underbelly" as Bachchan moronically describes them. They, in fact, are the nation. Over 80% of Indians live on less than $2.50 (£1.70) a day; 40% on less than $1.25. A third of the world's poorest people are Indian, as are 40% of all malnourished children. In Mumbai alone, 2.6 million children live on the street or in slums, and 400,000 work in prostitution. But these people are absent from mainstream Bollywood cinema.

Bachchan's blinkered comments prove how hopelessly blind he and most of Bollywood are to the reality of India and how wholly incapable they are of making films that can address it. Instead, they produce worthless trash like Jaane Tu, Rock On!! and Love Story 2050, full of affluent young Indians desperately, and mostly idiotically, trying to look cool and modern.

Slumdog Millionaire is based on the novel, Q&A, by Vikas Swarup. I know Vikas – an Indian diplomat, he loves his country as much as anyone and did it the service of telling its truth with great warmth and humanity. And Danny Boyle's film continues in precisely the same vein. His innovative brilliance, fresh perspective and foreign money was vital. As an outsider, he saw the truth that middle-class Indians are too often inured to: that countless people exist in conditions close to hell yet maintain a breath-taking exuberance, dignity and decency."

It's an important point to keep in mind about India in matters far beyond movies made about India by Indians or foreigners.
India is still a developing country, with only a 2 to 300 million of it's 1.1 billion souls living a middle-class or better life.  Most people in India do not yet have access to clean water.
A couple of days ago my friend Rajesh Jain had a post on his blog wondering when India would be able to get it's own Obama and a government that would pro-actively address the many issues and opportunities ahead for the country.  A comment by one of his readers, Antariksh Patel, hit home:

"Indians who watched the swearing in of Obama or who use technology consist only a fraction of the population. ultimately, its the rural India that's going to decide who’s gonna rule for next 5 yrs, just like last time. and while voting, rural India considers Bijli, Paani, Sadak and also cast and creed. educating them is the only solution to allow them to think beyond petty politics."

Antariskh is referring to electricity, water and roads with his comment on "bijli, paani and sadak", and it'd be a great start to addres those infrastructure issues head-on for India to go the next level.  China has long started to do this and is accelerating efforts with it's recent commitment to infrastructure spending to address the global downturn.
India's politicians, be they Obamaesque or not, have an opportunity to really step up to the plate as well. 
But in the meantime, Indians will do what they did with the India outsourcing miracle (Satyam notwithstanding).  They created global opportunities for themselves not because of their government, but despite them. 
Coming back to Indian movies, "Slumdog Millionaire" is just an example of a movie about India getting global recognition not just because of the Bollywood establishment, but despite them. 

ON AMERICA REAFFIRMED

WE'RE HERE

Well, history came and went.  We have our 44th new President, Barack Hussein Obama, welcomed by over two million Americans in person and millions more around the world. 

The pageantry, pomp and circumstance were fun to watch, even with the backdrop of a stock market sliding another 5% and a panoply of problems big and bigger to deal with going forward. 

His inaugural speech seemed just right for the times, focusing more on the nation than himself, as the New York Times notes here:

"It was, in many ways, exactly what one might have expected from a man who propelled himself to the highest office in the land by denouncing where an excess of ideological zeal has taken the nation.

But what was surprising about the speech was how much Mr. Obama dwelled on America’s choices at this moment in history, rather than the momentousness of his ascension to the presidency."

As a first generation American from somewhere else, the words that hit home for me in particular were the following:

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.

And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."

I know from personal experience there is no other nation that welcomes foreigners with an open a heart and a generosity of opportunities, and it is something that makes us unique at our core. 

It is one of our greatest enduring strengths as a nation long-term, even though the political mood on immigration may wax and wane in the short-term.

And in particular it's going to be one of the critical drivers to our growth going forward, leading others to follow by example. 

It was a good day to remember.

We now return to our regularly scheduled crises.

ON A DIFFERENT BOLLYWOOD REACTION

GLASS HALF EMPTY
Slumdog Millionaire had been on my list of movies to watch before sweeping four Golden Globes a few days ago (best director, picture, screenplay and score). 
Here's a review from the LA Times if you're not familiar with the movie.
One of Bollywood's biggest stars, Amitabh Bachchan has an unexpected take on the awards.  Here's an excerpt from the UK's Guardian:

"Slumdog Millionaire may have been thrown bouquets by western critics and audiences, but brickbats are flying in its direction in India.

Although the film was a big winner at Sunday's Golden Globes and is seen as a frontrunner for the Oscars, Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood's top actor and perhaps one of the most famous faces in the world, has voiced bitter comments about the movie's portrayal of India.

Writing on his blog, Bachchan said that "if SM projects India as [a] third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations."

There has been some debate about the "Indian-ness" of the movie. Slumdog Millionaire was directed by the British film-maker Danny Boyle, best known for the noir comedy of Trainspotting. The film is based on a novel, Q&A, by the Indian writer and diplomat Vikas Swarup, and adapted by Simon Beaufoy, the British screenwriter of The Full Monty.

Bachchan added that an Indian director making a western-style film might not meet with the attention lavished on Slumdog Millionaire: "It's just that the SM idea, authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a westerner, gets creative globe recognition. The other would perhaps not."

It's an interesting point, but in general, a big win for this movie seems to be a big win for Bollywood down the road.

ON DIRECTING THE MUMBAI ATTACKS

REMOTE CONTROL

Imagine if we had the transcript of the 9/11 hijackers talking to their bosses in another country, WHILE conducting their attacks.  That seems to be what the Indian government seems to have in the case of the Mumbai attacks a few weeks ago.  As the Long War Journal reports:

"The Pakistan-based handlers of the Mumbai terrorists ordered the murders of civilians over the phone and cheered after hearing the gunfire, according to the dossier of evidence India provided to the Pakistani government.

The documents, obtained by the Indian newspaper The Hindu, provides a cold, calculating, and chilling look at the masterminds behind the late November military-style assault on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai. More than 170 people were killed and hundreds wounded during the 60 hour terror spree that shut down the city. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group allied with al Qaeda and supported by powerful elements within Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency and the military, carried out the attack.

Six Pakistani handlers monitored the news coverage from Mumbai and kept in constant touch with the terrorists holed up in Nariman House and the Taj Mahal and Trident hotels during the three day siege. The handlers are identified as Zarar, Kafa, Wassi, Jundal, Buzurg, and “Major General.”

What's interesting here is that the "Major General" could be the former head of Pakistan's premier intelligence service, the ISI, as the piece explains:

"A senior US military intelligence official familiar with the dossier said that the "Major General" is indeed Hamid Gul, the retired former chief of the ISI. "It's Gul," the official told The Long War Journal. "This is why the US is trying to get him on the UN list of terrorists." In December 2008 the US attempted to get Hamid Gul and other former military and intelligence officials added to the UN list of designated terrorists but has so far been rebuffed."

Also eye-opening are what the handlers communicated to their operatives:

"The Pakistan-based handlers provided real-time intelligence and directed the terrorists to killed specific hostages.

The exchange between Mumbai terrorists Fahadullah and Abdul Rehman operating at the Trident Hotel and their Pakistani handlers provides a terrifying look at the minds of the masterminds behind the attack. The exchange shows they planned and executed the attack for maximum media coverage, ordered the murder of hostages, and cheered after the murders were carried out.

“Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11,” one unidentified handler said. “One senior police official has been killed,” referring to the chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad killed in an earlier gunfight.

“We are on the10th/11th floor,” Abdul Rehman responded. “We have five hostages.”

“Everything is being recorded by the media,” the handler identified as Kafa told Rehman. “Inflict the maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don’t be taken alive.”

“Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims,” the other handler told Rehman and Fahadullah. “Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.”

“We have three foreigners, including women,” Fahadullah said. “From Singapore and China.”

“Kill them,” the handler said.

According to the dossier, Abdul Rehman and Fahadullah are recorded ordering all of the hostages except for two Muslims to stand in line. The terrorists then shot and killed the hostages.

The handlers are heard cheering in the background. Kafa then orders the Trident-based terrorists to “find the way to go downstairs.”

In another exchange, also during the early morning of November 27, one of the terrorists operating from the Taj informed his handler that senior Indian political leaders were in the hotel. The handler excitedly orders the terrorist to find them.

“There are three ministers and one secretary of the cabinet in your hotel. We don’t know in which room,” a handler said.

“Oh! That is good news,” a terrorist responded.

“It is the icing on the cake! Find those 3-4 persons and then get whatever you want from India,” the handler said.

“Pray that we find them,” the terrorist responded."

The full piece is worth reading.  Also worth perusing is the full dossier obtained by The Hindu newspaper.  The New York Times also has a piece on this dossier.