By the Editor: Siddharth Sehgal

I was returning from office when they aired a conversation of a lady whose fiancée was among the victims of the San Bernardino attack last year, where a couple inspired by ISIS ideology shot dead 14 people and injured other 22. Her voice gave me a glimpse of her pain that she was going through. I can only imagine what families and loved ones feel when their dear ones are taken away from them. The 26/11 will be one such tragedy for our country.

 The recent attach at Nagarota, the attack at Uri and many incidents like these just rubs the salt on the wounds of the Indian people. We know that the main obstacle in any major or large scale operation that we might want to mount against Pakistan is their nuclear capability. I am not worried about China because they will not risk war for a country that’s going down the sink hole with each passing year. And until we have an answer for their nuclear weapons this proxy war and attacks will continue. So what do we do, sit and wait until Pakistan collapses on its own weight, no, not at all, why we keep forgetting that we have some of the best minds in the world.  Indian students every year go oversees to study in some of the best universities in America, UK, Australia and all over the world, they train in some of the most advanced labs and have access to latest technology in almost every sphere of science. Even in our country we have lot of talented people we can tap into for defense research.

 Our government should focus on recruiting among this talent pool. Cut the red tape, offer them incentives and put resources into increasing our research and development infrastructure. I think if we put our minds and resources into it, we can find a way to counter the nuclear weapon of our enemies; it’ll take five years at best to at least achieve something substantial. On a second thought, the way immigration policies are going to change in the West, after the Right wing comes into power, we’ll see an upsurge of people coming back home anyways. So why not mobilize now.

 Don’t be delusional that Pakistanis want a peaceful solution to our differences, I have written this before and I’ll write here again, they don’t hate us for our political views; they hate us for who we are. And make no mistake if someone thinks that Pakistan is a fantastic country with fantastic people should consider the fact that the guy who carried out a knife attack on OSU campus in Columbus, OH a few days ago, a student of Somali origin, is suspected to have been radicalized after spending time in Pakistan.

 We don’t need to be aggressors. Peace, mutual understanding and cooperation with our fellow human beings should be the core of our foreign policy but we need to have the means to defend ourselves against all forms of aggressions, it’s our moral and patriotic duty to ensure that.