October 16, 2003 NEWS LETTER Vol. 021003

Sell clay, and you are selling a commodity. Make it into a pot and you have manufactured a product. But if in the end, you send a designer bowl to the markets, then you have a brand and all the big ticket profits. It has taken it a while, but there is growing evidence that India has internalised this simple reality.

This is the secret of success in world markets: create true value first and then create an illusion of even greater value. India's legendary knowledge edge and its skilled, industrious workers are right now updating the act that said it all first: the Indian rope trick. MORE

Don't Thunk too much

First Friend:

How was your exam?

Second Friend:

It was ok but I couldn't answer past tense of THINK. I thought, thought & finally wrote 'THUNK'.

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen : A Terror Group's Analysis

Institute of Conflict Management, New Delhi

Of the terrorist outfits currently operating in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) is the one of the largest, with a cadre base drawn from indigenous and foreign sources. It is one of the most important terrorist outfits in terms of its effectiveness in perpetrating violence across the State at regular intervals. The HM is one of the 32 outfits proscribed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002.

Formation and Objectives: The HM came into being in the Kashmir Valley in September 1989 with Master Ahsan Dar as its chief. Dar was later arrested by security forces in mid-December 1993. It was reportedly formed as the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), an Islamist organisation. The Jamaat-e-Islami is reported to have set up the Hizb at the behest of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, to counter the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which had advocated complete independence of the State. Many of the early Hizb cadres were former JKLF members.

Leadership, Command Structure and Areas of Operation: Headquartered at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen with an estimated cadre strength of at least 1500, is presently headed by Syed Salahuddin. The patron of HM in PoK is Ghulam Nabi Nausheri.

Internal Dynamics: The HM came into the spotlight when it’s Salar-e-Ala or ‘chief commander’, Abdul Majeed Dar, made a conditional offer of cease-fire to the Indian Government at a press conference in Srinagar on July 24, 2000. The endorsement of this offer by the group's supremo Syed Salahuddin followed in an Islamabad press conference on July 25. On August 3, 2000, a high-level official team of the Government of India visited Srinagar and conducted a meeting with Dar and his associates at the Nehru Guest House. However, on August 8, 2000, Syed Salahuddin 'withdrew' the cease-fire at a press conference in Islamabad, reportedly under pressure from the other terrorist groups and their handlers in Pakistan.

Links: The HM is closely linked to the Jamaat-e-Islami, both in the Kashmir Valley and in Pakistan. Overseas, it is allegedly backed by Ghulam Nabi Fai's Kashmir American Council and Ayub Thakur's World Kashmir Freedom Movement in the USA. Early in its history, the Hizb had established contacts with Afghan Mujahideen groups such as Hizb-e-Islami, under which some of its cadre is alleged to have received arms training. MORE

The small cavern

Written By: Abbhirami Rajagopal

Rumbling clouds, teeming rain
I sat on the river bank, sad and alone
The river was swollen and its flow intense
On this side of the village painted
With an eerie silence of darkness
I sat alone- the silence fidgeting me

Editor & Composer: Saurabh Jain

Develop Empower and Synergize India, College Park, MD 20742, USA