Congress wins three states, BJP retains two

The Congress Party is back in power in Rajasthan and Mizoram and retained Delhi; while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been able to hold Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The emerging results to Assembly polls show a 3:2 split in favour of Congress, providing a much-needed boost to the Congress-led UPA just ahead of general elections due in April-May 2009.

Congress headed for a hatrick today in Delhi, bagging 42 seats, leaving its rival BJP way behind with 23 seats.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and five of her cabinet colleagues were among the successful candidates of Congress in the keenly contested electoral battle for the 70-member House.

In Mizoram, the Congress was back in power after a decade when it got a majority routing the ruling Mizo National Front.

The party secured 21 of the 23 seats for which results have been declared in a House of 40. Two-time Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla won from both Serchhip and South Tuipui seats.

BJP can draw some satisfaction by retaining two states -- Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

In Madhya Pradesh, BJP got an absolute majority winning 122 seats and leading in 14 contituencies in the 230-member assembly.

The Congress has won on 53 seats and is leading in 21. Others have got 16 and are leading in four constituencies.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has won the Budhni seat, defeating his nearest Congress rival Mahesh Rajput by a margin of nearly 40,000 votes.

In Rajasthan, the Congress is bracing up to form the next government. Of the results and trends available for all the 200 seats the Congress has won 88 and is leading in 7.

The Party is, however, falling short of the half way mark. It will have to depend on the support of some independents to form the Government.

BJP has bagged 67 and is leading in 12 seats. Others have got 18 seats and are leading in 8.

Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje has won the Jhalarapatan seat while Congress's chief ministerial candidate Ashok Gehlot won from Sardarpura seat.

Tata, Mahindra to pass tax cut to customers

Vehicle makers Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra will pass on a 4 percent reduction in central value-added tax to customers, they said on Sunday.

The government announced an across-the-board cut in the ad valorem cenvat (central value added tax) rate on all products other than petroleum and products where the rate was already less than 4 percent.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, maker of utility vehicles and tractors, would pass on the reduction across all its products, said Pawan Goenka, its president of automotive business.

"In fact for our high-end models we will try and see if we can do better than 4 percent," Goenka said on CNBC TV 18.

Earlier India's top vehicle maker Tata Motors Ltd said it would pass the excise reduction in central value-added tax on to its customers.

"Tata Motors will pass on to customers the benefit that will come in through the cut in cenvat. This is across products -- passenger and commercial vehicles," the company said in a statement. The details were still being worked out, it added.

Separately, top car maker Maruti Suzuki Ltd's chief said on television the reduction in cenvat would lead to a reduction in car prices by 4 percent.

"So far as I understand it, it will be applicable on all products, and it should be applicable to automobile manufacturers, too," Chairman R.C. Bhargava told CNBC TV18.

"It will be passed on to the customers."

India's automobile sector has been hit by the global and local liquidity crunch, rising interest rates and a slowing economy.

Maruti's November car sales fell 24.4 percent from a year ago, Tata's vehicle sales were down 30 percent, and Mahindra & Mahindra's fell 39 percent.

10 queries Advani poses to government on Mumbai terror

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) senior leader L.K. Advani has posed 10 pointed questions to the Manmohan Singh government in the light of the terrorist strike in Mumbai.

Advani's newly launched website has listed the 10 questions under the title 'Questions government must answer':

(1) Why did the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government not implement the recommendations of various committees on internal security?

(2) What efforts did the UPA government make with the rulers in Islamabad to secure the extradition of Karachi-based mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind of the 1993 serial blasts?

(3) How did the terrorists smuggle large quantities of weapons and ammunitions into Mumbai despite enough intelligence with the government of an imminent terror strike?

(4) Why did the government not take effective preventive action despite ample warnings from numerous intelligence sources over several months that terrorist strikes in Mumbai were imminent?

(5) Is it intelligence failure or colossal government failure that has resulted in the carnage and destruction in Mumbai?

(6) How many cases of terrorist attacks in India since 2004 have been fully investigated? How many guilty persons have been convicted?

(7) After repealing POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act), why are the sundry Congress leaders now talking about tough anti-terror legislation?

(8) Why has the UPA government not acted upon the death sentence of Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament on Dec 13, 2001, even after the Supreme Court upheld it?

(9) The home minister and defence minister made specific (mention) in parliament and other forums about terror threats from sea routes, but didn't act upon the information. Are they consultant to the government or ones running the government?

(10) This very sea route was used to smuggle explosives for the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993, which killed over 250 innocent people. Were those blasts not warning enough?

Tackle your problems, don't blame Pakistan: LeT chief to India

India should focus on its internal problems instead of accusing Pakistan of complicity in the Mumbai terror attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has said, while his deputy has blamed an Indian intelligence agency for the terror bombing of a Peshawar blast that killed more than two dozen people.

Addressing a gathering of thousands of people, including hundreds of women, during Friday prayers at Lahore's Jamia Masjid, Saeed said India was indulging in politics of accusations and was blaming Pakistan to hide its internal problems, a posting Sunday on the website of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, as the LeT is now known, read.

'He said there are several ongoing separatist movements in India which were begun in reaction to the excesses of Hindu Brahmins, especially the denial of peaceful co-existence to Muslims. Yet, he said, no power in the world cares what atrocities are committed against Muslims,' the posting read.

According to Saeed, US Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen 'were quick to exert pressure on Pakistan after the Mumbai events, yet why don't they exert pressure on India to safeguard the rights of its minorities?'

'Where was the American Secretary of State when the Babri Masjid was martyred and when thousands of innocent Muslims were slaughtered in Gujarat?' he asked.

In a separate web positing, Saeed's deputy Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki said India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) external intelligence agency was behind the Peshawar blast.

'He blamed Indian consulates in Afghanistan as being behind the planning and execution of incidents of terrorism inside Pakistan,' the posting read.

In an interview to IANS in Islamabad Saturday, Makki said that 'we don't kill people', even as he accused India of using Pakistan 'like a punching bag' in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks that killed 172 people.

'We don't kill people. Our mission is to spread the word of Islam and Allah's message on earth. And we are not Lashkar-e-Taiba, we are Jamaat-ul Dawah,' Makki said.

India - as well as US experts - say the LeT is one of the principal suspects for the Mumbai terror strikes.

The US government's Excluded Parties List System names the LeT as one of the alternate identities of the Jamaat-ul Dawah.

India faced 4,100 terror attacks from 1970 to 2004

India faced more than 4,100 terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2004, accounting for more than 12,000 fatalities, according to the Global Terrorism Database.

The database is maintained by the University of Maryland and the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

START's Terrorist Organisation Profiles (TOPs) collection has information on 56 groups known to have engaged in terrorism in India, including the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

About 12,540 terrorist-related fatalities in India between 1970 and 2004 - an average of almost 360 fatalities per year from terrorism in India. These fatalities peaked in 1991 and 1992, when 1,184 and 1,132 individuals (respectively) were killed in such incidents, a University of Maryland statement said.

These figures are on the lower side as official figures in India put the toll at around 70,000 deaths.

Terrorists in India have employed a variety of attack types over time, 38.7 percent of terrorist events were facility attacks, 29.7 percent were bombings (in which the intent was to destroy a specific facility), and 25.5 percent were assassinations. Last week's terror attacks in Mumbai, which left at least 183 dead, would be classified as a series of coordinated facility attacks.

FOCUS - Mumbai attacks a wake-up call for hotel security

The terror attacks in Mumbai last week have been a chilling reminder to India's hotels to step up investments in security and surveillance systems, experts say.

Indian hotels spend a mere 3 percent of the project cost on building management systems, including security. That is less than half the spending in China and United States where 7-8 percent of the project cost is on security alone.

"So far the security was more for surveillance, general monitoring. They have to be intrusive," said Pramoud Rao, managing director, Zicom Electronic Security Systems.

Last week, armed Islamist militants attacked the Taj Mahal Palace and the Trident-Oberoi - two of Mumbai's best known luxury hotels - and other landmarks in a 60-hour frenzy, killing 171 people, many at the hotels, where scores were held hostage.

For security, hotels in India, largely rely on cameras with playback on site. Some have metal detectors and fewer still use scanners for small bags while cars were perfunctorily checked, leaving gaping holes in security, experts said.

Multiple checks including complete car scans, guests' identification requests, all-luggage scans and action-sensor cameras fed offsite can help plug these gaps, they said.

The industry's security "must be beefed up," P.R.S. Oberoi, Chairman of EIH Ltd owner of the Trident-Oberoi told a press meet on Saturday. "I think all hotels are vulnerable."

"None of us are competent to really know what we need, so we are going to get security experts for what to do. We are not security experts."

After the attacks, hotels in India's financial hub, including The Four Seasons, Hyatt, and the Marriott are stepping up security at their properties, they said.

TAKING GUARD

"If it is going to be an icon, they are forced to spend more on security," said B. Muthukumaran, chief consultant on security practice, Gemini Communications Ltd, referring to the 105-year-old Taj property.

"A three or a two-star hotel, which is not so prominent, there has to be security. It need not be as highly sophisticated," he added.

India's electronic securities market is expected to grow 23 percent annually till 2012. The market in India, home to a billion people that has seen repeated terror attacks, was at just 11.5 billion rupees in 2007, a Frost & Sullivan report showed.

The global market is worth $48 billion, it added.

But the challenge is second-guessing an attacker's mind, said Chender Baljee, chairman of Royal Orchid Hotels, which runs 11 hotels across India.

"You really have to think ahead of what terrorists are thinking, trying to find a gaping hole in the security system is a real challenge," he said.

While nothing could have actually stopped the militants from attacking, security systems can control the extent of damage, said Zicom's Rao. "No security system in the world can stop somebody from doing anything," he said.

"But if my bag is screened, if I am checked and screened, I can do minimum damage, not maximum damage, so... the damage of whatever I am planning will be of much lesser intensity."

Will Mumbai terror attacks change Bollywood fundamentally?

As Mumbai tries to recover from the terror attacks that shook and shocked the city, speculation is rife whether these strikes would effect fundamental changes in the portrayal of violence in films and other media.

Cinema halls have been symbolically shut, film releases deferred, live shows cancelled and England' cricket tour truncated. But will the slowdown in showbiz be the only reaction or would tinsel-town denizens take a leaf out of Hollywood's book and take stock of the social purpose of entertainment?

When the twin towers of ther World Trade Center fell in the Big Apple, Hollywood had made a conscious decision to stop and think before letting anything insensitive or offensive go on the marquee. Films depicting violence were dropped or rewritten, actors like Bruce Willis declared they would not do violent films and demand for movies with family values shot up.

It is widely known that post 9/11, Hollywood executives met with White House advisor Karl Rove to discuss ways by which the media system might in some sense serve what amounts to a propaganda agenda. The initial - and persistent - skittishness of Hollywood to have any perceived connections with 9/11 seems to have fallen into place immediately following the siege. On Sep 12, 2001, the intended Oct 5 release date of an Arnold Schwarzenegger thriller called 'Collateral Damage' was postponed, and the film's promotional campaign was altered to remove this slogan: 'The War Hits Home!'.

At around this same time, a trailer for Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man' was withdrawn in the light of its depiction of the World Trade Center as a landmark.

Though by now it is no great revelation to say the changes brought about by 9/11 in the world of mainstream films did not last too long but the terrorist attacks of Sep 11, 2001 seem to have to date traumatised the artistic and show-business sectors into a near silence.

Columnist Michael H. Price observes that the first major-studio movie to deal semi-directly with 9/11 was New Yorker Spike Lee's '25th Hour' (2003), a crime melodrama that opens with a view of the Ground Zero setting. It was as late as 2005 when Danny Leiner's 'The Great New Wonderful' depicted 9/11's impact on those not connected to the immediate attacks.

After 'The Great New Wonderful', Paul Greengrass' 'United 93' came that dealt with the thwarted hijacking of that day that prepared mass audience to the overtly sentimentalised tribute that Oliver Stone pays with 'World Trade Center'. All in all, Hollywood producers are till date treading cautiously with respect to 9/11.

Though Hollywood is rarely a good example to follow, but an increasing number of Indian audiences are feeling that it is time for our filmmakers to pay heed to warnings by social commentators against glamourisation of violent and socially deviant behaviour in films and by extension, in other media.

The argument that exploitative violence in entertainment media does not generate more violence holds true, but on the other hand social commentators say that such depiction increases negativity in society.

According to a media study, 'Mounting evidence suggests that negative perceptions of women in entertainment can affect women in real life. Research examining onscreen violence toward women finds that emotional desensitisation can occur after viewing as few as two films with sexually degrading and violent themes.

Studies also show that men who view a number of films in which women are portrayed in sexually degrading situations become increasingly less disturbed by violence against women and less sympathetic toward female victims of violence. In addition, films initially found demeaning to women are judged to be less so after prolonged exposure.'

Here is hoping that post the terror attacks in Mumbai, the entertainment industry of India would consider a 'take stock moment'.