India remembers the Mumbai attacks one year ago today

“Today, India will mourn the carnage executed by Lashkar-e-Taiba,” says the editorial of The Hindu, one of India’s biggest selling papers. Have lessons been learnt in the past year? The paper doesn’t think enough has been done to prevent a repeat attack.

“Mumbai police have acquired new weapons but woefully lack training…While cities from NY to Singapore have carried out full-scale field exercises, not one Indian city has carried out comparable rehearsals.”

As for Pakistan where Lashar-e-Taiba is based, the paper is skeptical as to whether enough has been done to clamp down on terrorism.

“The offices of Lashkar and groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad continue to function and their propaganda magazines, so critical to recruitment, are still being published,” the paper notes.

The Times of India is more philosophical and wonders whether or the Mumbai attacks should be commemorated in the way that 9/11 has been in the United States.

“Arguably the Indian perspective on negative events such as 26/11 is different from the rest of the world. The West has a long tradition of observing negative anniversaries.

The paper points to the “lest we forget” philosophy attacked to commemorating events such as the Holocast. In India the attitude is more “lest we remember”. India likes to believe its past has been one of peaceful co-existence even if it’s palpably untrue, says the paper. This perplexes Europeans steeped in traditions of recording events.

The Times of India concludes that it would be more useful for the government to remember the lessons of what happened last year than to officially commemorate “26/11”.

Other stories in today’s international papers:

The Irish Times
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The Washington Post
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The Huffington Post
More photos of the cheeky gatecrashers – this time with Vice-President Joe Biden

New York Daily News
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Los Angeles Times
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Teheran Times
(Terrible!) Thanksgiving jokes