Every citizen is a stakeholder in today's terror-scenario, just as the police have no time to relax or take lightly the threats that are just too many. We have been crusading with the "Friends of Police" concept (a platform for such concerned and involved citizen stake-holders). The FoP has however not caught the imagination of police leaderships countrywide as it should though ironically it is the only available international blueprint for community policing. To quote another experienced police officer from Delhi Shri Maxwell Pereira,"The reluctance perhaps, because it is another's brainchild. They would do well though to realise that FoP is none other than formal nomenclature to an age old concept of basic community involved policing that empowers the individual to be part of the overall policing in which he has a stake where he can be the eyes and ears of the system and share the 'Intelligence' privy to him without suspicion of the others involved." The recent Mumbai blasts reinforce the conviction that the war against crime, social injustice, terror, et al is not a leader's war but a peoples' war. The need to mobilise vast masses of citizens and all stakeholders is the only permanent deterrent. I realized this as a young police officer after surviving with severe injuries the world's first Human Bomb that killed the former Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur and thereafter conceptualised the concept of Friends of Police, Factor X - a proactive thought process. More »

Something cracked inside all of us on the 26th of November 2008. We were grieving, we were horrifed, but we were all very, very angry. Rage that we have repeatedly been betrayed by a system that is meant to guarantee the physical security of every Indian. In the last few years, it has been apparent that no place is safe any longer...places of worship, markets, even hospitals, now hotels: the terrorist has struck with increasing audacity. Rich and poor, Hindu and Muslim, north Indian and south Indian, no one has been spared. With every attack, there is debate, there are platitudes, there is hand-wringing. What the Indian citizen is looking for is action and answers, action that is constructive and will make it that much more difficult for the merchants of terror to operate. Then whether it be Malegaon or Mumbai, Ajmer or Ahmedabad, there is a need for unity of purpose. Terror is a national challenge, not a partisan project. At the IBN18 network, we feel it is necessary to use the power of the media and take the initiative to involve citizens in the search for answers. We want each and every one of our viewers to be citizen journalists who will offer their solutions, solutions that we will take to the people's representatives. We are angry, but let this not be impotent rage for once. Let's act now, before it is too late. Become a citizen against terror.

People forget. It is in our nature. Even epochal events tend to fade with the passing of time. Years later, the details get fuzzy, the sequences get mixed-up and re-imagining the horror does not evoke the same sharp feelings of grief and anger. We move on. That is human nature.
But moving on this time round isn’t going to be easy. The brutality of the Mumbai attacks has left us, above all, deeply vulnerable. It has exposed the rottenness in our system; our intelligence agencies, our police force, our political leaders and even our media. And that is why the appropriate response to this terror attack isn’t sadness or outrage – it’s simply to usher in intelligent reform.
We need to secure our country. And we need to do it now. As a nation, we are sensing this – just look at the endless candle vigils, the large shows of solidarity and the signing of various petitions. But we need to do more. We need to rise over the ineptitude of our system and fix lasting solutions. That’s where this initiative from the Hindustan Times and CNN-IBN comes in. We are giving you an opportunity to get involved – because only you have a direct stake in the future of this country.
Seize it. Write in telling us how you would like to solve the terror challenges we face today. Don’t lose this chance. Only when each of us applies ourselves, will solutions flow – and transformation begin. We need to make sure that the kind of terror that November 26th brought into our homes and our lives must not ever be repeated.
Only then would we have truly moved on.