A report on the 5th Atlas Meet - Delhi

The 5th Atlas Meet in Delhi took place on Saturday, 28th November. It was much like the previous one - a small, cosy gathering of familiar faces. In attendance were Poonam, Vikram and Arun.

The discussion touched upon topics from the last meeting, but the hot new issue was the Mumbai attacks of last year. The first anniversary of the attacks had just gone by two days before we met. All agreed that even after one year, the government had done nothing much to secure our borders or our cities, and another carnage was just as likely.

One point of view was that we should have become like a fortress by now, with a fenced border and heavily patrolled coastline. But the other view was that a country like ours is too vast a space to fortify. Therefore, the only effective response to such attacks is to go after the states that sponsor terror, and strike at the root of the problem.

That being said, it was agreed that India was presently in no economic or military state to do so - specially given the encirclement of it that China has accomplished through several client states. That leaves only Uncle Sam with the wherewithal to do something. But, given the developments of the past eight years, it lacks the will to do much.

Sadly, the conclusion reached was that there was no option for us in India but to sit tight, lick our wounds, try and grow strong, and wait for the equation to change over the next fifteen to twenty years.

As the group moved to the cafeteria, and to the ever-present tea and Samosas, the talk veered towards ways of sustaining the Atlas Meet initiative. A suggestion, put forward by Arun, was that we could look at shifting the Meets to the 3rd Friday of the month, as Saturdays (specially 4th Saturdays) were invariably a holiday and many do not want to make the journey into town when they have other family commitments.

On that note, the meeting was concluded.