New Year Countdown Begins

TODAY is a GIFT

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift

“Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find ''tomorrow'' on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday's defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, ''If I had my life to live over again. ''Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day.Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course?Each of us has such a bank. It's name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose.It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day.If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against "tomorrow."You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!The clock is running!! Make the most of today.

• To realise the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade.


• To realise the value of one month, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.


• To realise the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.


• To realise the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.


• To realise the value of one minute, ask a person who just missed a train.


• To realise the value of one second, ask someone who just avoided an accident.


• To realise the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won a silver medal at the olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with. And remember time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why its called the present.

1 NOT 1 Marketting Ideas

1. Don’t use site-wide links. They are highly deprecated in the latest algorithm changes, and may even lead you to a penalization of your website’s SERPs. As a measure of precaution, I recommend a maximum of one site-wide (no matter the number of pages) for every 40 to 50 unique links from 40 to 50 unique domains.
2. Use the title and meta description tags as wise as possible. They are your best choice of avoiding supplemental pages. Try to make each page with it’s own unique title and description, and never repeat more than 20-25% of the title and description tags content on different pages. Use a limited number of characters (8-10) in the title tag, and put the most important of them, relevant to each page, at the beginning.
3. Read my previous post on 14 search marketing questions, asked by Digitalpoint members.
   Try to use H tags (1,2,3 etc) at the top-most possible location in the pages of your website, in the source order, and NOT visual order.
4. Don’t be a Copycat. Don’t write news or posts just to have something for the big Google. Nowadays, duplicate-content filters are continuously evolving and even if you gain something on the short term you will loose it later. Try to be innovative.
5. Use a pen and paper. Always have an agenda and a pen around. Note down every crazy idea you think of … Most of us have truly great subjects to write about, but during the day we forget, busy with other issues. I always note my ideas. At the end of a day, I am amazed to see a 20 subjects list to write about, versus 1 or two that I can come up with at writing time.
6. Suggest “related websites” in your website’s Alexa information page. That will bring some traffic. If you want that early search engine boost, don’t just buy a new domain and invest $10K on the website design and development. You are better off buying a 5 year domain and investing $5K on the website. Age matters a lot and it will matter good years from now on.
7. If you own a website that contains 80% Google and you are always on the lookout for new content/news to write about, please and I mean PLEASE read Ionut’s Google System. He’s still a student at a University in Bucharest (I live in Bucharest, so I have to meet him soon) and he can write all those stuff about it. Imagine him 10 years from now. He’s great on finding every bit of information, bug, unreleased service or any other thing about Google.
8. Try to build other websites that revolve around your primary niche. Use them to better market and infuse brand and traffic into your primary website. I’m not talking about building scraper websites. Build quality content ones, and invest money and time and work hours in them. But in the end, just make them a vehicle that you will use to better market your primary website.
9. Use Google’s, Yahoo’s and MSN’s(that’s the Moreover ping server which will ping MSN) sitemap services. Not only that it will provide you with invaluable server and website data, but it will get your pages in their index faster.
10. If your website is in DMOZ, and Google and MSN (Live.com) show the DMOZ title and description, and that doesn’t work for you (most of the time, the DMOZ information for your website sucks) just bypass it and use your own ones. MSN and Google both support this function.
11. Don’t ignore Google’s, Yahoo’s, Live’s and Ask’s image search functions. Most of the times, you can get a higher traffic from the image search engines then from the usual search, especially if you have a content rich website. Just a reminder for you: use the title attribute on links that surround the images, and use the ALT attribute on the image tags themselves. Also, always remember to rename your images with relevant descriptive words (a maximum of 4 words works best).
12. Have a look at the websites I read (Bloglines), and subscribe to their feeds. Read them regularly.
13. Advertising and Affiliate Marketing
14. If you use the Adsense, YPN! or adCenter contextual ads on your website, try to optimize them. Don’t just insert them in your website and leave them. Work with them, change the position, the ad layout, the colors, the content around them. And remember, that at least for Adsense, the ad that’s placed in the highest position possible in the source’s order, will yield the highest income per click.
15. Use affiliate programs once your website has started to receive some quality traffic. Depending on your niche, affiliate programs are a much better way to convert your traffic, then all the other advertising methods like contextual networks, banners, links etc. Commision Junction is a good way to start your research.
16. Effectively lead your readers to your MDA (Most Desired Action). That may be a newsletter box, a banner, an Adsense etc. Place your MDA right below comments, or in the left/right sidebars, or in the header. Experiment. Analyze. React.
17. Build an affiliate system for the services products you are offering. Let others do the PR and sales job for you.
18. RSS & Newsletter Marketing
    Don’t trust yourself only in RSS feeds. A lot of users are “old-school” and prefer e-mail newsletters. Always offer this option.
19. Another good newsletter tactic is to offer a periodical e-mail digest with the top stories in a certain period. A week, a month etc. Maybe some of your visitors missed a few interesting posts/articles.
20. Research Robin Good’s Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites (Part 2 and Part 3 available too) and market your RSS feed in all those websites. Don’t know what an RSS feed is ? (if you don’t, you’re either a moron, or you should fire someone).
    Not only submit your RSS feed to different RSS aggregators, but learn to market it.
21. Analytics Marketing Techniques
    Pay attention to your website’s statistics. Install a good analytics tool like IndexTools or Google Analytics. Not only the absolute numbers and statistics (like total users/total visits) count. Try to go deeper and analyze the navigation patterns, entry/exit rates and pages, the new /returning visitors ratio etc.
22. Continuously monitor your server stats, referrers and logs, and try to respond to links and articles that reference your website. That shows dedication and it’s another way to market your website indirectly.
23. Survey your visitors (you need a free user account to read this article). Learn what your audience and demographics are. Strive to improve your readership towards your website’s business goal. Constantly re-survey.
24. Research your market and always be up to date with your competitors. What their prices are, where do visitors go, is the site designed for success ? Look for things like quality code and content, internal/external linking, keyword density in content and links, pages indexed, Google Pagerank, quality titles, headers, site layout and design, conversion process, site load time, dedicated host, what new services they develop and announce etc.
    Learn to increase your leads .
25. Trial and error Trial and measure: raise awareness of your products and services, convert a visitor into a registered user and/or paying customer, persuade exiting customers to make further business, developing loyalty.
26. Brand and Visibility Marketing
    When commenting a post or story in another website don’t spam: “OMG that’s uber cool”, “Nice post” or something like that. Instead, try to make your comments in a professional way, show what you liked/disliked/agreed/etc, cite other sources, give examples, bring pertinent arguments etc. Remember, comments are an important part of a post/article. Over 60% of the readers will also read the comments.
27. Try to associate your name or your website’s name/brand with the big boys on your niche.
28. Regularly comment their articles (don’t spam) and from time to time make reviews of their post on your blog/website.
29. Starting your website from scratch, always sucks. Seek out other websites/companies in your industry and try to establish a relationship with them. Try a mutual partnership and/or services recommendations. Don’t try to e-mail/fax your direct competitors.
30. Brand and paint your employee’s uniforms and your company’s cars with your logo and website address. This is especially useful if you have a lot of cars. It’s mass-branding and it will get people, thus future clients in your local area accustomed and comfortable with your logo, website and business.
31. Put your website address, on every possible internal piece of paper or communication device, including, but being limited to business cards, letterheads, invoices, newspaper and/or other print ads, yellow pages advertisements, receipts etc.
32. Always identify yourself with your visitors, especially if you own a publishing website/weblog. Always have your editor name written for articles and it’s best to have a profile too. A picture, a contact method.
33. Social Media Marketing
    If you ever want to write something that will end up on any of Digg’s, Reddit’s, Netscape’s, Newsvine’s (etc) frontpage, write about how to get on their frontpage, about Firefox, Wordpress or Apple/Mac. No matter what you write about those, people love them and you WILL get on the frontpage, unless it’s un utterly stupid article.
34. Pay close attention to Stumbleupon. It’s a great alternative social network. Install their toolbar, and if you write a good post, submit it in their system. Be faithful and fairplay with the other members, help each other, and add friends to your account. Ask other members to review you if they liked what you stumbled upon. StumbleUpon traffic had the highest converting ratio (at least for me), in comparison to Delicious, Digg or Reddit users, which seem to be RSS and AD blind.
35. Whenever you have the belief that digging your articles will yield you an increased CTR on your Adsense ads, RSS subscriptions, comments or any other kind of added benefit to your website, you are wrong. I can sustain Davak’s post 80%, except the Alexa part. Digg users do use the Alexa toolbar or plugins that count as the Alexa toolbar. But you won’t notice any increased CTR’s, comments or clicks, no matter the traffic gained from a Digg.
36. Reward helpful and valuable users by promoting their work on your homepage, or develop a rating system. Invest 5 minutes of your time to send a quick email or note telling them you appreciate their help.
37. At least once per year, ask your visitors what do they think about your website’s content. What would they want to read more ? What new facilities should you offer them ? 10 reasons to survey your visitors.
38. Be humble. Don’t forget where you started from, even if you are a professional in your field. No one can be an authority in a certain category if others don’t link to/recommend/interview/blog about.
39. Link Baiting, Link Building and Research
    Write controversial content that will self-generate links and discussions/comments. Pick on well-known people, criticize loved websites or brands.
40. When starting your website, try to gather a few links from already established and trustworthy websites. Stop trying to get your link on websites that are 2 months old like yours. Pay a directory submission in Yahoo!, BOTW, Webxperience!, Skaffe or other well known directories. Paying for a directory submission almost guarantees you a faster response time. DMOZ is an excellent way to start but you can’t get your way in fast and with money, so it’s best to “submit-and-forget-about-it”.
41. Build links slowly, to avoid the sandbox. Slowly can mean 5-10 gained backlinks per month. When you research websites for IBL’s possibilities, don’t be fooled about high PR pages.
42. What you need is Trust, not a high Pagerank. How can you tell if a website is an authority website or not ? Just find 5 titles of 5 articles on that website and search those phrases in Google. If the website appears on the first page, then it’s a quality website. After that inspect some of it’s backlinks, and try to see if the website is involved in dubious link schemes or has IBLs from irrelevant and spam websites. If it doesn’t, you’re OK to go.
43. Remember, what you need is Trust, and traffic. Not Pagerank.
    A good link building strategy is to comment or participate in discussions or content on other websites in your industry. It’s not enough to have good articles/content. The world has to know about them. Make connections/relations with other jounalists/bloggers/entreprenours in your niche, comment their articles, and links will come by themselves, with time.
44. Create posts/articles that help your visitors and attract natural links. “5 tips to …”, “25 easy ways to make …. better” type of articles are the best you can write.
45. Write stories/articles in the most highly-ranked websites of your industry and link to your website from the article. I am not talking about article directories, but industry websites that accept content contributions from members. (like ThreadWatch or WebproNews, for example)
46. Are you in any good relations with an US faculty/university ? Kindly ask them if you can contribute with something, and request a link from their websites. .edu and .gov links are supposed to carry a little more weight and authority then regular links. An excellent post in SEOmoz on ten ways to earn an .edu link .
47. Do you write in forums ? Always put your link in your signature, and try to write a few attractive words too, to increase the likelihood of clicks on your links. Many forums like Digitalpoint or V7N, have a latest blog post function. If you have a feed, always use that functions (tip: it works with any feed, not just blogs).
48. My best advice for gathering a LOT of easy links is to create and release free templates for any wide-spread, free CMS system out there. Wordpress, PHP Link Directory, Joomla, Mambo, Typo66, Drupal, etc. You are not a designer ? Hire one to build you some templates. What’s the benefit ? That small “template by X” in the footer of the template, that will reside in all the websites that use it. The more functional and beautiful the template is, the more people will use it. Colleen, from Kalina Web Designs as well as Chris from Pearsonified come highly recommended by me and others. It’s not worthwhile to tell you that I too have a design company. We’re too expensive for your ass ;)
49. If you are interested about Pagerank rather then relevancy, whenever you submit to directories or other websites that accept links, try to search the most relevant page with the highest PR, and submit to that. Keep the relevancy pretty high on your list though, otherwise they will reject your website for sure. I would and will.
50. Viral marketing, word of mouth, tell a friend schemes can get your server on fire in hours. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. I guess this Threadwatch article about a Mini-Cooper AD will tell you more.
51. Ask friends or colleagues in your industry, to review your business website. If you have high profile friends, then you are sure to bring a high traffic and increased authority impact to your website.
52. Build a funny 404 page that will make your visitors laugh a bit and maybe will attract some links.
53. Don’t overlook linkbaiting: Organize a contest, adding a competitive element to it and offering a prize, post a very cool and funny post (usually a video or a cartoon or something that everyone would understand visually), ideally related to your industry etc.
54. Take a 6 months/1 year college class and get a personal page on the university’s .edu domain. Prices are usually cheap
55. Corporate & e-Commerce Marketing
    Issue press releases for your website. No matter the field, a well written press release can not only improve your marketing strategy and gain a few inbound links and link bait from other websites, but can lead to journalists that will cite your company in their offline/online magazine as well as in online news websites like Google News and Yahoo! News.
56. If you have a company or product presentation website, try to provide multilingual pages. Helps for ranking in different localized search engines and user experience.
57. If you have local conferences or shows, that relate to your industry attend to them. Go yourself, or send an employee. Make business connections, friends, discuss daily issues, socialize. You wouldn’t imagine how much that will help you on the long run.
58. If you sell products or services on your website, regularly offer discounts or promotional coupons. That will not only increase sales and visibility but will attract links and stories, especially if you are a well known company. Issue a press release each and every time you offer that discount. Journalists and news search engines like Google News usually pick up the press release if it’s written correctly.
59. Offer a Privacy Policy (think about how much information is on the Internet; your credit card, your home addresses, your personal letters by email. etc.), a FAQ section, a Help section or any other functionality that will bring your website closer to your visitors, increasing authority, trust and re-visit rates.
60. No matter your writing skill, read a few pointers about how to write a professional press release (excellent 21 pages e-book on the new rules of PR - local mirror) and try releasing a free press release at PressBox, Free Press Release, PrLeap, i-Newswire, 24/7 Press Release, PR.com, PR Free or ClickPress. After you’ll see the benefits, hire a professional press release writing service and do it by the book at PrWeb, PrNewsWire and/ore other global, more authoritative PR distribution services.
61. Read the PccPolo 101 marketing tips (local mirror) and the United States Small Business Administration 100+ Marketing Ideas.
62. Your customers are always right!
    Thou shalt remember that not only Google has a Bible: The 10 Commandments of Marketing (you need a free user account to read this article).
63. Personalize your company’s cars license plates
    Optimize your website’s shopping cart and watch how your average order size increase and your cart abandonment rate decrease.
64. Blog Marketing
65. Do you have a company or corporate website ? Build a blog for yourself. Blogs are a common way of internal company communication as well as a good source of PR. Clients and possible clients feel close and can interact with your team, online.
66. Do you blog ? Pimp your blog with social bookmarking tools, a Feedburner account with the FeedCount option activated to show your RSS subscribers.
67. If you have a blog (but not only a blog) take full advantage of Technorati. Technorati offers you the chance to submit 20 tags relevant to your blog, when you create your account, and start to claim each blog/website. Don’t let that stop you.
68. Use Technorati tags, tailored for each post individually. Technorati pages rank extremely well, and it’s a great source of traffic, so it’s best to use it to your advantage. Watch how PrWeb uses Technorati tags in every press release, to it’s advantage. The advantage is that your specific article will show up in searches of each of those tags.
69. Whenever you write a post on your blog, or an article in your publishing website, or a press release, try to think search too. Research with Overture and Wordtracker (if you have an account), what are the best words to use in your title. They tend to help a lot, because the title usually is used in the meta description and URL too. That will boost your page a little in the SERPs.
70. Plan your blog’s start. When starting a new blog, it’s important to realize that every detail counts. Don’t start with a default theme and ‘hello world’ - like posts and then ask for links. Try to start with 2-3 good written subjects. Always plan ahead and write today, tomorrow’s post.
71. Always link from your blog. Link to as many quality websites as possible. Don’t be afraid to “spread your PR thin” or some other BS like that. Link to good posts of people, link to good newspaper articles, and most importantly, link to relatively unknown blogs/websites that feature a good original story. In most cases that will yield you some free PR. Most other websites (like PrWeb or blogs etc) have trackback plugins so they’ll feature your story in their comments.
72. Read Quadzilla’s 9 rules about blogging (disregard rule #10) and Seth Godin’s how to get traffic for your blog post.
73. Have a blog ? Always ping update services. Here are the Update services I use for this blog (For Wordpress, they are located in Options/Writing/Update Services):
    http://rpc.pingomatic.com/http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2/http://pingqueue.com/rpc/http://ping.feedburner.comhttp://www.bloglines.com/pinghttp://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2 I use the Bloglines, Technorati and Google Blogs pings to update those services immediately and not wait for services like Pingomatic to notify them hourly.
74. Design, Content, Accessibility and Usability Marketing
75. The quality of the layout and design matters. Don’t release an ugly, badly design website. I would rather wait to do a much better design and release the website afterwards. The same situation for websites that are already online. Got an ugly design ? Redesign the website. It’s proven that a new, more beautiful and accessible design for a website strongly increases the likelihood of bookmarking, re-visiting, and subscribes to the feed and newsletters.
76. Write with the user in mind. A BAD post example is like writing a long citation of another blog-post/authority site, and actually writing no opinion of your own.
77. Try to add your own analysis and views of the subject. No matter how many other websites blogged or wrote about a story, they will never write the same post as yours, with the same pro’s and con’s.
78. Spell check your content. There’s no other big mistake for a publishing site than users criticizing the misspells. Take those extra 2 minutes to check the spelling errors in Word or even Google.
79. Try to get your readers to comment and to involve themselves with the subject at hand. Uses phrases like “I’d like to know what you think?” / “I’m waiting your suggestions about …” etc.
80. If you can’t write good stories, don’t. Hire an experienced publisher to do the writing for you. John Scott hired Peter Da Vanzo to blog for V7N’s blog. Not because John can’t, but because he’s not the writing geek and because he wanted a professional blog. That does the job well for him and that can do the job well for you too.
81. If you have a website where people can pay online for products, make the job easy. Put a BIG button or text, use multiple processors like 2CO, Paypal etc. Don’t hide the payment link in some footer or sidebar space. Make it visible. If you don’t have your own shopping cart, then let the visitor know that he will be redirected to a 3rd party website, to complete the payment process.
82. Make sure the website is consistent in look, feel and design. Nothing is more disturbing to a visitor/customer than feeling as if they have just gone to another website. Keep colors and themes constant throughout the site. And yes, this is a marketing tool too. You DO want your visitors to come back right ?
83. If you have a content website, try to keep your posting frequency regular. If you decide to post 1 post per day, then post 1 post per day, every day, every week, 365 days/year. So what if it’s Christmas ? Just don’t make your posting habit irregular. Today 1 post, tomorrow 5 posts, 1 week no posts etc. That disturbs visitors and that will hurt your RSS subscribers and newsletter subscribers numbers.
84. If you just invested a lot of cash for a beautiful Web 2.0 design and layout (Web 2.0 hotties and how to design Web 2.0 style), why not make the best of it ? Make sure that it’s a valid XHTML and CSS layout and submit it to the hottest CSS galleries around the world like CSS Beauty, CSS Import, CSS Remix or CSS Vault.
85. Always personalize your e-mail responses, newsletters, invitations and any other material that ends up at your existing or possible future clients. Never send a bulk message. Most of the current clients get offended by such messages and the future possible clients will just ignore them.
86. Send out a “thank you” email to all existing customers and alert them about your plans for the next year.
87. Add interactivity to your website. Visitors need to have a communication highway one way or another. If you still haven’t included a commenting system, a forum, a blog or other interactivity systems to your website, do it now. Always ask questions from your readers and try to involve them in your world.
88. Create an (extensive) glossary of terms in your industry, like Aaron did for his industry: search engine marketing. That will set you apart and will make you an authority website in your niche.
89. Create powerful anti-spam blocks for your website. No-one will trust your authority if your website is full of spam. Use a Captcha module, or a math module, asking visitors to identify a string or to do a mathematical calculation before their comment gets approved. According to Akismet, 93% of (blog) comments are spam. Loren Baker’s Search Engine Journal got hit with 850.000 spam comments since he installed Akismet (thanks for the info Loren).
90. Put the accent on visitor experience not traffic. Traffic is useless if you can’t convert it into paying customers. A visitor experience optimized website with 500 visits/day can bring you twice the income then an un-optimized one with 10.000 visits/day.
    Only 90 ? I want you guys to continue with the last 11.
    Have a great week-end.

November 2008 Mumbai attacks

The November 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks across Mumbai, India's financial capital and largest city. The attacks began on 26 November 2008 and ended on 29 November 2008 when Indian security forces, in Operation Black Tornado, regained control of all attack sites. At least 188 people, including at least 30 foreign nationals, were killed and at least 293 were injured in the attacks.

Eight of the attacks took place at sites in South Mumbai proper: the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Oberoi Trident, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, Leopold Cafe, Cama Hospital, the Orthodox Jewish-owned Nariman House, the Metro Adlabs Cinema, and the Mumbai Police headquarters. There was also an explosion at the Mazagaon docks in Mumbai's port area. A possible tenth incident involved a taxi blast at Vile Parle near the airport, but it is uncertain whether this was connected to the other nine attacks.

By the early morning of 28 November, all sites except for the Taj Mahal Palace had been secured by police and security forces. Action by India's National Security Guards on 29 November resulted in the conclusion of the Taj Mahal Palace encounter, ending all fighting in the attacks.

Initially, a previously unknown organization called the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility. Later, Azam Amir Kasav, the single terrorist who was captured alive, disclosed that the attackers were members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamic terrorist group. However, no official attribution of responsibility has been made by the Indian Government. The attacks drew widespread condemnation across the world.

Locations

Oberoi Trident at Nariman Point, and °′″N °′″E / ., .0
Taj Mahal Palace & Tower near the Gateway of India; °′″N °0′00″E / ., .

Leopold Café, a popular tourist restaurant in Colaba; °′0″N °′″E / ., .

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station; °′″N °0′″E / .0, . (express train terminus), °′″N °0′0″E / .0, . (suburban terminus)

Lane behind the Times of India building. incidents including a hospital staff worker killed in his home, °′″N °0′0″E / ., . and the ATS chief along with top cops killed near St. Xavier's College °′″N °′″E / ., ..

Cama and Albless Hospital; °′″N °′″E / ., .
Nariman House (Chabad House) Jewish center; °′″N °′0″E / ., .

Metro Cinema °′″N °′″E / ., .; and
Mazagaon docks in Mumbai's port area,[citation needed] and
Vile Parle near the airport

After two days of gunfire and explosions, the attack was incorrectly reported to have ceased as of the early morning of November in Mumbai. The fires were out and soldiers were leading hostages and holed-up guests to safety and removing bodies of those killed in the attacks. Nariman House and the Oberoi Trident were cleared of hostages by Indian commandos. Six hostages were killed at the Jewish center. Later news reports indicated that there were still two or three terrorists in the Taj, with explosions heard and gunfire exchanged. Fires were also reported as having been caused at the ground floor of the Taj with plumes of smoke arising from the first floor. Severe damage has been reported to the Taj, with a dome, and parts of the Heritage Wing of the Taj reported to have been destroyed. National Security Guards action resulted in the conclusion of the Taj encounter, with three terrorists reported killed.

Perpetrators

A previously unknown organization identifying itself as the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility by e-mail sent to news organizations. The email, sent from a Russia-based email address, originated in Pakistan. However, the affiliations of the attackers have not been confirmed. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said the attacks probably involved people from outside of India. According to police reports, the one terrorist who was captured alive disclosed that the attackers belonged to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist group, which may have severe consequences for India–Pakistan relations. However, Pakistan denied supporting any terrorist organization, and considers all terrorists as having no religion at all. The Indian Mujahideen terrorist group had also threatened in September 00 to carry out bombings at sites in Mumbai. According to some news reports, a terrorist holding hostages at the Oberoi told an Indian TV channel that they wanted all 'Mujahideen' in Indian prisons released before they released their hostages. He also indicated that there were seven terrorists holding hostages at that location. Other reports indicate that this demand was made through a hostage at the Mumbai Chabad House, in a call to the Israeli embassy in New Delhi. Experts have conflicting views as to whether Al Qaeda played a role in the attacks.

Indo-Pakistani Relations

The attacks have damaged India's already strained relationship with Pakistan. India handed over two demarches to Pakistan—one was submitted at the Foreign Office in Islamabad by Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs also summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik on December 00 to lodge a formal protest over Pakistan's failure to curb terrorism emanating from its soil. According to the Indian External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, India in the demarches to Pakistan, asked for the arrest and handover of those 0 persons including gangster, Dawood Ibrahim, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, terrorist leader Maulana Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitives of Indian law. The external affairs minister has also stated that India will await Pakistan’s response. He has not ruled out the option of military strikes against terrorist camps in Pakistan.

Chronology

First event was detailed at : pm IST on November : a boat carrying around ten terrorists with several large bags docked at Macchimar Nagar, Mumbai's Cuffe Parade neighborhood, where six of the men disembarked and the rest continued sailing along the shore. When local residents asked about their occupation, the group responded that they were students. At : pm another such incident played out in Colaba, when Urdu-speaking men in inflatable speedboats came ashore. They reportedly told local Marathi-speaking fishermen to mind their business before they split up and headed two different ways; the fishermen's subsequent report to police received little response. The attacks began around : pm, when two terrorists armed with AK- rifles entered the passenger hall of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station, opened fire and threw grenades, killing at least ten people. Two terrorists held fifteen hostages, including seven foreigners, in the Taj Mahal hotel.

CNN reported at pm that the hostage situation at the Taj had been resolved and quoted the police chief of Maharashtra state as saying that all hostages were freed; however, it was later learned that there were still hostages in the hotel. Forty people were being held as hostages in the Oberoi Trident hotel. Six blasts were reported to have taken place at the Taj hotel and one at the Oberoi Trident. The Taj Mahal Hotel was reported to be completely under government control at : am and Indian commandos killed two gunmen inside Oberoi hotel and took control of the building.

Both hotels were on fire and were surrounded by Rapid Action Force and Army personnel. About Army commandos and National Security Guards (NSG) commandos and ~ MARCOS commandos were sent to the spot. Reports emerged of terrorists receiving live feeds broadcast by television stations; feeds to the hotels were subsequently blocked. All terrorists were out of the Taj hotel, and police and firefighters were working to rescue the estimated people trapped inside. Low-intensity blasts were reported in Vile Parle and a grenade attack in Santa Cruz. Two blasts were reported in the Nepean Sea Road area of south Mumbai. Local Mumbai Suburban Railway trains on the Western Railway were running, whereas those of the Central Railway were suspended. More blasts were reported at the Oberoi as the siege continued. Meanwhile, police seized a boat filled with arms and explosives anchored at Mazgaon dock off Mumbai harbour.
A number of European Parliament Committee on International Trade delegates were staying in the Taj Mahal hotel when it was attacked. British Conservative MEP Sajjad Karim (who was in the lobby when gunmen initially opened fire there) and German Social Democrat MEP Erika Mann were last heard of hiding in different parts of the building. Also reported present was Spanish MEP Ignasi Guardans, who was barricaded in a hotel room. Another British Conservative MEP, Syed Kamall, reports that he along with several other MEPs left the hotel and went to a nearby restaurant shortly before the attack. Kamall also reported that Polish MEP Jan Masiel was thought to have been sleeping in his hotel room when the attacks occurred. He did not leave his room for a long time, but he finally managed to safely leave the hotel. Kamall and Guardans report that a Hungarian MEP's assistant was shot.
Also caught up in the shooting were the President of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, while checking in at the Oberoi Trident, and Indian MP N. N. Krishnadas of Kerala, while having dinner at a restaurant in the Taj hotel.

The New York Times reported that terrorists held several hostages at the Mumbai Chabad House (also known as Nariman House) in Colaba, owned by Chabad Lubavitch. It was reported in the early morning of November that Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka Holtzberg were killed with other hostages inside the house. Times Online reports about Sir Gulam Noon - MBE's experience on how he escaped the bombed Taj Mahal Hotel.

Maharashtra state home secretary Bipin Shrimali later announced that the police killed four gunmen when they attempted to flee in cars in two separate incidents, and state home minister R. R. Patil has said that nine suspects were also arrested.

The army was reported to have secured one of the hotels, and eight hostages have been freed at the Jewish outreach group. On November The Times of India reported that the battle for Mumbai has ended after hours of operation by Indian security forces. The final operation at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel was completed at : am on November. The security forces rescued people in Oberoi, in Taj and families of people in Nariman House. A total of people were reported to be killed by the terrorists.

Date	Estimated Time(+0530 UTC)	Event
Nov 21	evening	Ten terrorists leave Karachi, Pakistan in a boat & travel for thirty-eight hours, remaining undetected by the Indian Navy. [73][74]
Nov 22		Each of the 10 men is given 6 to 7 magazines of 30 rounds each plus 400 rounds not loaded in magazines, 8 hand grenades, one AK-47 assault rifle, an automatic loading revolver, credit cards and a supply of dried fruit.[73] [75]
Nov 22		A separate group checks in to the Taj Hotel with arms and ammunition.[73]
Nov 23		The terrorists hijack an Indian trawler, the Kuber, killing four fishermen and ordering the captain to sail to India.[73]
Nov 26		They reach within four nautical miles (7 kilometres) of Mumbai and kill the captain. They then proceed to board three inflatable speedboats and reach Colaba jetty at dusk.[73]
Nov 26		The ten men get off at Badhwar Park, Cuffe Parade, three blocks away from Nariman House.[73]
Nov 26		Four of the men enter the Taj Mahal Hotel, two enter the Oberoi Trident, two enter Nariman House, and the other two men, Azam and Ismail, take a taxi to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.[73]

At the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel

11:00 PM	Terrorists enter Taj hotel.[76]
Nov 27	12:00 AM	Mumbai police surround the hotel.[76]
Nov 27	01:00 AM	Massive blast in the central dome, fire in the building.[76]
Nov 27	02:30 AM	Army soldiers arrive in two trucks and enter the front lobby. Fire spreads across the top floor.[76]
Nov 27	03:00 AM	Fire engines arrive. Shooting is heard inside lobby and heritage building.[76]
Nov 27	4:00 AM	Firemen rescue people with ladders.[76] More than 200 people evacuated.
Nov 27	4:30 AM	Terrorists reported to move from central dome to new tower.[76]
Nov 27	5:00 AM	Commandos and Bomb squad arrive. Police step up pressure.[76]
Nov 27	5:30 AM	Fire brought under control but terrorists holed up in new tower with 100 to 150 hostages.[76]
Nov 27	6:30 AM	Security forces say they are ready for encounter.[76]
Nov 27	8:00 AM	People are brought out of the lobby.[76]
Nov 27	8:30 AM	Another 50 people brought out of Chambers Club.[76]
Nov 27	9:00 AM	More rounds of firing, many more people reported to be still inside.[76]

Date	Estimated Time(+0530 UTC)	Event
Nov 26	11:00 PM	Terrorists enter Taj hotel.[76]
Nov 27	12:00 AM	Mumbai police surround the hotel.[76]
Nov 27	01:00 AM	Massive blast in the central dome, fire in the building.[76]
Nov 27	02:30 AM	Army soldiers arrive in two trucks and enter the front lobby. Fire spreads across the top floor.[76]
Nov 27	03:00 AM	Fire engines arrive. Shooting is heard inside lobby and heritage building.[76]
Nov 27	4:00 AM	Firemen rescue people with ladders.[76] More than 200 people evacuated.
Nov 27	4:30 AM	Terrorists reported to move from central dome to new tower.[76]
Nov 27	5:00 AM	Commandos and Bomb squad arrive. Police step up pressure.[76]
Nov 27	5:30 AM	Fire brought under control but terrorists holed up in new tower with 100 to 150 hostages.[76]
Nov 27	6:30 AM	Security forces say they are ready for encounter.[76]
Nov 27	8:00 AM	People are brought out of the lobby.[76]
Nov 27	8:30 AM	Another 50 people brought out of Chambers Club.[76]
Nov 27	9:00 AM	More rounds of firing, many more people reported to be still inside.[76]
Nov 27	10:30 AM	Gun battle reported from inside hotel.
Nov 27	12 Noon	50 people evacuated.
Nov 27	4:30 PM	Terrorists set fire to a room on the 4th floor
Nov 27	7:20 PM	More NSG commandos arrive, enter hotel.
Nov 27	11:00 PM	Operations continue.
Nov 27	2:53 PM	Six bodies recovered.
Nov 27–28	2:53 PM – 3:59	Ten grenade explosions.
Nov 28	3:00 PM	Marine commandos recover explosives from Taj.
Nov 28	4.00 PM	12 to 15 bodies recovered from the Taj by naval commandos.
Nov 28	7:30 PM	Fresh explosions and gun shots at Taj Hotel.
Nov 28	8:30 PM	Report that one terrorist remains at the Taj.
Nov 29	3:40 AM – 4:10 AM	Reports of five explosions at the Taj.
Nov 29	5:05 AM	Revised estimate of one terrorist remaining.
Nov 29	07:30 AM	Fire raging on first floor. Black smoke on second floor. Gunshots heard frequently — apparent gun battle.
Nov 29	08:00 AM	Indian commandos state that the Taj Hotel is now under control though they are still conducting room to room searches. People celebrate on the streets.[78]

At the Oberoi Trident

Date	Estimated Time	Event
Nov 27	6 AM	NSG arrives, storms hotel.
Nov 27	8:40 AM	Firing heard, top army, navy officers arrive and take stock.
Nov 27	1:30 PM	Two small explosions. More reinforcements enter building.
Nov 27	3:25 PM	Some foreign hostages rescued.
Nov 27	5:35 PM	Sikh regiment arrives, fierce gun battle.
Nov 27	6 PM	27 hostages exit Air India building, four foreigners taken to hospital.
Nov 27	6:45 PM	Explosion heard. Two NSG guards, 25 army personnel suspected injured. More people rescued, 31 in total.
Nov 27	7:10 PM	1 terrorist arrested.
Nov 27	7:25 PM	Fire breaks out on 4th floor.
Nov 27	11 PM	Operations continue.
Nov 28	10 AM	Many hostages evacuated from the Trident building.
Nov 28	3:00 PM	Commando operations at Oberoi over, 24 bodies recovered.[79] 143 hostages rescued alive. Two terrorists shot dead.[80]

At Nariman House

Date	Estimated Time	Event
Nov 27	7 AM	Police begin evacuating adjacent buildings.
Nov 27	11 AM	Cross firing between terrorists and police; one terrorist injured.
Nov 27	2:45 PM	Terrorists throw grenade into nearby lane; no casualties.
Nov 27	5:30 PM	NSG commandos arrive, naval helicopter takes aerial survey.
Nov 27	11 PM	Operations continue.
Nov 27	12 PM	9 hostages are rescued from first floor.
Nov 28	7:30 AM	NSG commandos are airdropped onto Nariman house.[81]
Nov 28	7:30 PM	Commandos find all 6 hostages including Rabbi and his wife killed by the terrorists.
Nov 28	8:30 PM	NSG commandos declare operations over, 2 terrorists killed.

Terrorists

Azam Amir Kasav and Abu Ismail Dera Ismail Khan attacked the railway terminus, a police vehicle in Cama Hospital, the Metro cinema, Vidhan Bhavan, and Girgaum Chowpatty. Four terrorists were in the Taj Hotel, two in the Oberoi Hotel, and two in Nariman House: Abu Ali, Fahad, Omar, Shoaib, Umer, Abu Akasha, Abdul Rahman (Bara), and Abdul Rahman. One terrorist was killed and Kasav was arrested near the pedestrian bridge at Girgaum Chowpatty °′0″N °′″E., .0 by a team from the Gamdevi police station.

According to the chief minister of Maharashtra state, Vilasrao Deshmukh, up to gunmen took part in the attacks. Reporters have estimated between 0 and terrorists. They looked young, in their early twenties, and wore T-shirts, black shirts, and jeans. The Guardian has reported that they seemed "cool and composed" and "in no hurry". Some witnesses have even said that they smiled and looked happy as they shot their victims. Initially, some reports claimed that there were Britons among the terrorists. However, Indian police have stated that they have no evidence to directly confirm this and they are currently investigating the British documents that the terrorists allegedly carried. The terrorists had planned the attack several months ahead of time, setting up "control rooms" in the two luxury hotels that were targeted. They knew some areas well enough to "vanish" and reappear after security forces had left. A terrorist killed at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel had on him a Mauritian identity card along with seven different credit cards, including one issued by Citibank, which may indicate that he was not Indian.
To sustain their energy and stay awake for 0 hours, police says that they found syringes on the scene of the attacks, and that blood tests on the terrorists indicate that they consumed cocaine and LSD during the attacks. There were also indications that they had consumed steroids.

A previously unknown organization identifying itself as the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility by email sent to news organizations. The New York Times has stated that international security experts "drew a blank on" the Deccan Mujahideen group, with one analyst labeling it a "front name". In September, the Indian Mujahideen had warned of future attacks. Their message said that “you are already on our hit-list and this time very, very seriously.” According to a witness, the gunmen were looking for American and British passport holders and left others alone, such as a man claiming to be Italian. However, some later reports indicate that this was not necessarily the case in general, with the attackers' aim being to kill whoever they could. The Independent has reported that "the attackers were young South Asian men speaking Hindi or Urdu, suggesting they are probably members of an Indian terrorist group rather than foreigners". Sky News has reported that one of the terrorists shouted, "Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?" and spoke in Urdu with what was described as a Kashmiri accent.

Initially, some media reports had attributed these terrorist attacks to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamic terrorist group. Lashkar-e-Taiba denies any involvement. The group has rarely stated that they were responsible for any attack since the Pakistani government banned them in 00. According to police investigators, the one captured terrorist confessed to being a Lashkar-e-Taiba member and a resident of Pakistan's Punjab area.These allegations could have severe consequences for India–Pakistan relations. To halt the developing improvement of relations between Pakistan and India may have been part of the motivation for the attack. A Pakistani news portal 'The News' claims that White House has said that there is no evidence of any Pakistani involvement in the attack. US intelligence sources are now saying that there is mounting evidence that Lashkar-e-Taiba is behind the attacks. The Times Of India reported that intelligence agencies have disclosed tell-tale evidence that the terrorist had Pakistani connections.
If Lashkar-e-Taiba is involved and if the attack primarily targeted Westerners, then the attack may have a connection to al Qaeda since this would be the first time when that group has targeted Westerners specifically. The Guardian has called speculation about al Qaeda "immediate, simplistic — and probably misleading". A St Andrews University professor quoted by The Telegraph argues that "Al-Qaeda set the blueprint for terrorist operations and now we see different people, different groups in different parts of the world, copying it." On November, senior Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri released a videotaped message that did not mention the ongoing Mumbai attacks. This omission has led The Los Angeles Times to speculate that the group did not have a role.

According to some Indian news reports, Indian intelligence agencies believed that attackers came by sea to Mumbai from the Pakistani port of Karachi on the ship MV Alpha. This led the Indian Navy and coast guard to begin searching ships off India's western coast. The reports that MV Alpha was involved were later dismissed after a search of the ship by the Indian Navy found no evidence of involvement, though the investigation of the ship continues. The Times of India reported that the Indian Coast Guard seized a fishing boat from Porbandar that was reported hijacked on November. It is suspected that it was used by the terrorists to get to the coast at Colaba. The captain of the boat was found dead and several crew members are missing.

A satellite phone recovered from two dead terrorists reportedly showed calls made to Karachi, Pakistan before and after the attacks commenced. Also, Major General Hooda who ran the anti-terror operations has said that "In the message intercepted by us when the terrorists were interacting between Nariman House and the Taj Hotel, we found that they spoke in Punjabi language. They were trying to pretend to be from Hyderabad". Alleged terrorists Sahadullah Babbar and Imran Babbar called Indian news channel India TV and spoke to the correspondents claiming to be from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh while speaking in Urdu with a Peshawari/Pashto accent.

According to a Times of India story, the terrorists were motivated by religious zeal and specifically released a Turkish couple who said they were Muslims. Another report by The Hindustan Times claims that over 0 of the victims of the terrorist attack were Muslims. The Mumbai Police had received information that some six or seven days ago, the terrorists had made a dry run. They suspect that some local people could have been involved in the attacks. An organization representing Baluchis in the U.S. has said that it suspects Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim played roles in the attacks. However, many security experts doubt that current members of the ISI were involved. The Guardian has also listed Dawood Ibrahim and other organized crime figures connected to Indian terrorists as key suspects. A few Pakistani commentators have suggested that Indian domestic terrorism was behind the attacks. It quoted a security expert as saying "The latest attack on Mumbai has the stamp of Dawood Ibrahim... Definitely the people who hit Mumbai were a mixture of local guys who know the city very well, and trained, hardcore fighters who came by sea." According to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R. R. Patil, they had plans to kill ,000 people.
CNN quoting a U.S. counterterrorism official reports that the United States warned the Indian government about a potential maritime attack against Mumbai at least a month before last week's massacre in the country's financial capital left nearly 0 dead.
According to a former U.S. official from the Department of Defense who spoke with The New York Times, former ISI and Pakistani army officers took part in the training of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai.

Confession of a captured terrorist

One of the terrorists, -year-old Azam Amir Kasav, was caught at Girgaum Chowpatty Naka in Mumbai trying to escape in a car and taken to the Nair hospital. According to preliminary investigations by intelligence agencies, Azam is from Faridkot in Pakistan (near Multan, not to be confused with a town of the same name found in India ) and had received arms training in Pakistan. Ammunition, a satellite phone and a layout plan of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was recovered from him. He has provided many clues to the investigation agencies and has reportedly described how they arrived at Mumbai from Karachi via Porbandar. He has reportedly said that he and other terrorists had received revolvers, AK-s, ammunition and dried fruit, from their coordinator. Azam reportedly told the police that they wanted to replicate the Marriott hotel attack in Islamabad, and reduce the Taj Hotel to rubble, replicating the September attacks in India. Kasab also told Indian police that the terrorists targeted Nariman House, where the Chabad center was located, because it was frequented by Israelis, who were targeted to "avenge atrocities on Palestinians."

Mumbai Joint Police Commissioner of Crime Rakesh Maria said, information came out from his interview with Kasab that he is from the Faridkot village in the Okara district of Pakistan's Punjab province. He is the son of Mohammed Amir Kasab.
It is reported that Azam told the police that he and his associate, Ismail Khan, were the ones who shot Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte. According to the police, Kasav entered the Taj posing as a student from Mauritius and had planted explosives in the room.

Azam also revealed that he and his associate stayed in Room 0 in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel where they stored ammunition and had many visitors. They had booked the room for four days using fake Mauritian identities. ATS sources indicate that blood and urine tests on Azam showed that the terrorist was heavily drugged while committing the acts of terror.

On November, Kasav named his colleagues as Abu Ali, Fahad, Omar, Shoaib, Umer, Abu Akasha, Abu Ismail Dera Ismail Khan, Abdul Rahman (Bara), and Abdul Rahman. He said that they planned to mostly kill indiscriminately while singling out white foreign tourists, and Jews and sparing Muslims whenever possible. He also said that he had expected to get away with the assault. Two more names are available: Imran and Shahdullah (or Shadullah) Babar (or Babbar) mentioned above. They called an Indian TV station from mobile phones making demands and justifying their attacks, and gave their names as such. It is unclear if these names are the real names to nicknames mentioned above, or that the information emerging is still incomplete.

Times of India reported that, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the terrorist arrested by Mumbai Police, has told his interrogators that their plan was to get off the dinghy near the fishing village at Badhwar Park, Cuffe Parade, at dusk and strike all targets except Nariman House between pm and pm. However, the landing was delayed and they reached at . pm.

‘‘They knew that the crowds at CST would be thickest at .0 pm and their bullets would cause the greatest harm,’’ said an Indian officer on condition of anonymity. Kasab told interrogators that Cama hospital and Metro cinema were not in their plan which was to take hostages at CST and return to base by hijacking a boat off the Gateway of India.
Kasav is also reported to have told police that the group received help from local Mumbai residents, but this has not been confirmed.

Kasab admitted that he and his accomplice, Abu Ismail Khan, had put explosives in the cab that exploded in Wadi Bunder. Investigating police official said the terrorists spent the last three months in Pakistan training and planning their strike.

On December 00, Indian authorities defused a bomb in Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station—one of the first locations targeted in last week's terrorist siege. Location of the bomb was provided by Kasab during investigation.

Reactions

In a televised address, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India will “go after” individuals and organizations behind the terrorist attacks, which were “well-planned with external linkages.”[00] In addition, he said: "The well-planned and very orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic by choosing high-profile targets and indiscriminately killing innocent foreigners," Singh said in a televised address to the nation. Leader of the opposition L K Advani has asked the people of India to stay united during this time of emergency.

The Mumbai attacks have elicited a strong response from leaders around the world, largely expressing condemnation for the acts of terrorism and condolences for the relatives of those killed. The Congress government reportedly refused an offer of assistance from Israeli intelligence to investigate the attacks. Several Western countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, France and Canada, have advised their citizens to defer travel to Mumbai in the short term (– hours).

Criticism of politicians and resignations

Indians criticised their political leaders after the attacks, saying their bickering and ineptness was at least partly responsible. The Times of India commented on its front page that “Our politicians fiddle as innocents die". The anger against the political class in wake of the Mumbai terror attack boiled over with slain NSG commando Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's father literally shooing away Kerala chief minister V S Achuthanandan".
On 0 November the Minister for Home Affairs Shivraj Patil resigned, taking moral responsibility for the security lapse. National Security Advisor MK Narayanan also offered to resign on the same day, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not accept his resignation. There were rumors that the chief minister of Maharashtra may also resign but it is still not confirmed. After the resignation of Shivraj Patil on 0 November 00, P. Chidambaram was made the Union Minister for Home Affairs, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took over the Finance Ministry from the latter. A day after Shivraj Patil stepped down from his position he was replaced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who in turn was replaced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The list of political casualties in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks expanded with the resignation offer by Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. The ruling Congress party was in consultations with alliance partner NCP before it can decide on the new nominee for the top post in the state. Deshmukh will stay on until a replacement is announced.

On December the Deputy CM of Maharastra R. R. Patil resigned, when National Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar asked him to tender his resignation. Patil was under tremendous pressure to resign after commenting that the Mumbai terror strikes were "minor incidents." Patil quit his post after National Congress Party (NCP) and Union Agriculture Minister Chief Sharad Pawar asked him to tender his resignation.

Criticism of the anti-terrorist operation

The NSG commandos based in Mehram Nagar, Palam Airport, Delhi took 0 hours to reach the terrorists. There were 0 hours of delay after the notice of the attack until the NSG troop reached the places attacked. They were ready at am but had to wait for hours, until : am for an aircraft to arrive from Chandigarh, when the policy is that a plane be at Palam permanently. The NSG commandos landed at Mumbai Airport at : am, but had to wait hour for the Bombay Police to arrange a BEST bus for them. They reached the Taj Mahal hotel and the Oberoi Trident hotel at am, but were not given detailed maps of the hotels. No effort was made to capture the terrorists alive that would have helped glean more information about the plot[citation needed], and only one terrorist was captured. Also NSG commandos did not have non-lethal weapons to incapacitate terrorists, nor did they use robots to gather intelligence inside the buildings.

Nationalism among the Indian public

The attack has put challenges for the Congress-led Indian government ahead of general elections, and also to persuade Pakistan to act against terrorists. Many general public want some kind of clear response to the attack that killed people, from identifying and punishing the masterminds to trade sanctions against Pakistan, or passing firm anti-terrorism laws within India.

Indian Muslim Council refuses to bury terrorists

An Indian Muslim organization, the Indian Muslim Council, has refused to bury the nine killed terrorists involved in the attack, and is sending messages to other organizations in India to refrain from burying them. The Muslim Council of India decided not to allow burial of the bodies of the nine terrorists killed during the Mumbai siege in the Marine Lines Bada Qabrastan (cemetery). The council said it was trying to send a message to all cemeteries in India that none of the bodies should be buried on Indian soil. BBC News reported, "Indian Muslims say they do not want the gunmen killed by the security forces during the attacks in Mumbai to be buried in Muslim graveyards."

Demand for guns in private hands

The war on Mumbai has left the corporate sector of India angry; vulnerable sectors want to be armed. A meeting convened by the Karnataka government with industry heads led to strong suggestions from industry demanding automatic weapons for internal security or a general right to bear arms.

Tribute to victims by Naxalites

Naxalites, who are raging a bitter insurgency in parts of India, gave a gun salute to the victims of Mumbai attack. The Times of India noted that this gesture marked a significant shift in their policy of sympathizing with the "jehadis as victims of the Indian state".

International support for investigations

President of the United States George W. Bush told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that American agencies will "throw their weight" behind India's investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks and demonstrate a "shared commitment" to combat terrorism.
The United States sent a team of agents from its own Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to assist in the probe into the Mumbai attacks and American President George W. Bush pledged "full support" to India in its efforts to unearth the plot behind the deadly terror strikes. While a group of FBI agents were en route to India, a second group of investigators was on alert to join the first team if necessary.

"The FBI continues to monitor the situation in Mumbai and the Counterterrorism Division is reviewing all of the information and intelligence available," bureau spokesman Richard Kolko told The Washington Post.

Australia has sent a team of Federal Police to Mumbai. A group of seven officers have arrived to study the terror attack and the modus operandi used by the terrorists.
Britain has sent forensic experts from the intelligence services to Mumbai to help with the investigations on the attacks on India’s financial capital. A Scotland Yard team is also investigating the terror attack.

Israel had offered a forty-strong team of special operation forces and assistance in investigations.Malaysian authorities are investigating reports that Malaysian-issued credit cards were found in the belongings of the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks. Malaysia will also coordinate with Interpol over reports that some of the Mumbai attackers passed themselves off as Malaysian citizens.

Media coverage

The Mumbai attacks highlighted the increasing importance of social media and citizen journalism in the way events are reported. Many people covered the unfolding event on websites like Twitter and Flickr, which are largely clustered under search tags such as "mumbai" and "attack" (to which Twitter adds hashtags). The day after the attacks, the Indian government asked Mumbai citizens to cease updating Twitter with live coverage of police activity. The New York Times and BBC offered live textual coverage online, as did many Indian bloggers; A map of the attacks was set up using Google Maps. The attacks have been dubbed by some journalists as "India's /", a reference to the September , 00, attacks on the United States.

Aftermath

Office-workers at Ballard Estate reacting to rumors of shooting at Victoria Terminus, three minutes away from the Estate
As a result of this incident, all schools and colleges, and most offices were closed. The Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange remained closed on November 00. Shooting of Bollywood films and TV series has also been halted in the city. Many international airlines temporarily discontinued operations to Mumbai in the interest of passenger and crew safety.

The two remaining one-day internationals of the seven match series between the visiting England cricket team and India were cancelled. The visiting team flew home, but may return to continue the test series. However, the venue of the second India-England test match, scheduled on December -, was shifted from Mumbai to Chennai. The inaugural Twenty0 Champions League scheduled from to 0 December, Mumbai being one of the host cities, was postponed.

The attacks have brought into significance the issue of Indian boats and fishermen apprehended by the Pakistan marine agency for entering their waters. Nearly 00 of the boats have reportedly been auctioned, now recognized as a national security issue for India. On Friday Nov , Pakistan released fishermen who were apprehended, as part of confidence building measures with India.

There were threats to blow up ITC Fortune Hotel in Navi Mumbai after Mumbai police received a bomb threat from terrorists. Rumours about further shootings at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus were doing the rounds in Mumbai on November and were widely reported by the news channels. The Railway Police denied these rumours but stopped trains approaching CST.

Recovery

Café Leopold opened its doors to customers just six days after the attacks. The owners want to repair the damaged parts of the Café while retaining some of the damaged pieces as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the attacks.

Security forces handed back control of the Taj Mahal Hotel to the Taj group on December 00 and work on its repairs begun the very same day.. Celebrated artist M.F. Hussain, whose art was destroyed in the attacks, has agreed to replace the paintings with a series that will condemn the attack. Hussain plans this series as a tribute to the staff of the hotel who laid down their lives to save other people.

Control of the Trident has already been handed back to the management and the hotel will resume operations in 0 days while the Oberoi, still in control of security forces will take - months to resume operations.

Nariman House will also reopen soon. but it is not known exactly when. Several young Chabad couples from all over the world have stepped forward to move to Mumbai and continue the movement's work.

Security agencies upgrades

A Cabinet Committee on Security meeting will be held on Tuesday nd December to discuss expanding the National Security Guards (NSG) to cities outside Delhi. The aim is to have permanent presence of NSG anti-terrorist squads in cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata, to avoid wasting precious time traveling from Delhi.

All NSG commandos will now undergo a new module of training to learn how to deal with future anti-siege operations because the Taj terrorists were in a gun battle for hours continuously.

After seeing the disparity between the quality of helmets and bulletproof vests used by NSG commandos and the police, the Police Commissioner of Pune, Satyapal Singh said his police officers need the same quality equipment as used by the NSG to reduce deaths and improve performance.

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on an all party conference declared that legal framework will be strengthened in the battle against terrorism and a federal anti-terrorist intelligence and investigation agency, like the FBI, will be set up soon to co-ordinate actions against terrorism.

Requests for Pakistan's cooperation

At the request of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Ahmad Shuja Pasha, was reported to be coming to India to share intelligence and help the investigation, but later on it was decided by Pakistani authorities that instead of Director General of the ISI, his representative will visit India to help Indian government in the investigations.

India handed over two demarches to Pakistan—one was submitted at the Foreign Office in Islamabad by Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs also summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik on December 00 to lodge a formal protest against Pakistan's inaction against terrorist groups operating within the country.

The Indian foreign ministry released a statement describing the actions it expects Islamabad to take. "It was conveyed to the Pakistan high commissioner that Pakistan's actions needed to match the sentiments expressed by its leadership that it wishes to have a qualitatively new relationship with India," the statement said. "He was informed that the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai was carried out by elements from Pakistan. Government expects that strong action would be taken against those elements, whosoever they may be, responsible for this outrage," it said.

The CNN-IBN reported that India has asked Pakistan to hand over Mumbai Underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim, Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Maulana Masood Azhar for their suspected involvement in the Mumbai terror attack.

Dawood, India’s most wanted criminal, is suspected to have helped the LeT terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November . Azhar, founder of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad, is on India's most wanted list of people it accuses of terrorism. India freed Azhar from prison in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines Flight in .
Times of India, quoting Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee reported “Now, we have in our demarche asked (for) the arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitives of Indian law"
"...there are lists of about 0 persons. (These) lists are sometimes altered and this exercise is going on and we have renewed it in our demarche," Mukherjee said adding India "will await" Pakistan's response in Indian-Arab forum.

In an interview with NDTV Pranab Mukherjee has not ruled out the option of military strikes against terror camps in Pakistan. Mukherjee said that every country has the right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action when necessary. He also said that it has become difficult to continue the peace process with Pakistan in this.

US officials fear that should the firm evidence emerge that the Mumbai terror attacks were planned and directed from within Pakistan, it would certainly escalate tension between the neighbouring countries and could also provoke an Indian military response, even strikes against terrorists, a media report said on Saturday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday urged Pakistan to give its "absolute, total" cooperation in finding those responsible for last week's attacks on Mumbai. Rice will travel to India on Wednesday at the request of President George W. Bush in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the White House said on Sunday. "Secretary Rice's visit to India is a further demonstration of the United States' commitment to stand in solidarity with the people of India as we all work together to hold these extremists accountable," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.

Sovereign nations have the right to protect themselves, US President-elect Barack Obama said, when asked if India could follow the same policy he advocated during his election campaign — of bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan if there was actionable evidence and Islamabad refused to act on it.

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.

What do you want after Mumbai Terror, which is equivalent to 9/11. Please, do write your comments, no matter how distructive or bad it is?