Rebel violence in Indian Kashmir has fallen to its lowest level since an insurgency began nearly two decades ago.

But the central government has banned pre-paid mobile connections in the strife-torn state, leaving nearly three million subscribers disconnected over security concerns.

The ban, which comes days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered fresh talks with Kashmiris, has annoyed local residents while troops deployed in the state are also distressed over getting disconnected from their families.

The ban also put around 20,000 youths in danger of finding themselves without a job.

Is the ban justified at a time when rebel violence is at its lowest and New Delhi is trying to win the hearts and minds of Kashmiris?

The ban follows reports that neither vendors nor service providers carry out thorough identity checks on buyers when issuing a connection.

Until five years ago, intelligence officials resisted attempts by the central government to lift a ban on mobile phone services in the region, fearing they could aid militants in planning attacks.

New Delhi allowed mobile phone services in Kashmir in 2003, eight years after the rest of India, now the world’s fastest-growing market for cellular services.

But security forces say troops have eliminated many militants in Kashmir by tracking their mobile phones and tapping conversations.

The government of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, said it would take up the issue of banning pre-paid connections with New Delhi to ensure that genuine users do not suffer and security is also not compromised.

“It is not a positive development,” a state government spokesman said.

Will the ban on pre-paid mobile phone connections in Kashmir further alienate people?

The war of words between the billionaire Ambani brothers took an unexpected turn when younger sibling Anil offered an olive branch to elder brother Mukesh in a bid to resolve a feud over the split of the Reliance business empire in 2005.

The widespread coverage the Indian media has given to the squabble between the brothers has led to a debate on social networking sites such as Twitter, with some accusing news organisations of playing host to a reality show or soap opera that stars the Ambani family to boost ratings.

Prominent columnist Vir Sanghvi wrote through his Twitter account virsanghvi: “Do you think some network should plan a reality show on the Ambani battle? Or are they doing it already on the news?”

But the battle between the billionaire Ambani brothers is not a manufactured product for mass entertainment, as it involves two of the world’s wealthiest men and could pose a stumbling block to India’s goal of achieving energy security.

The siblings have been involved in several disputes since the family business was split in 2005 following the death of their father, Dhirubhai Ambani, a legendary Indian business tycoon who built Reliance from scratch.

The latest of these disputes is over a deal for Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to sell gas to Anil Ambani’s Reliance Natural Resources at below-market rates as agreed in the 2005 family settlement, brokered by their mother Kokilaben.

The dispute has drawn in the government, which claims it is the rightful owner of the gas. The government can also decide who can buy gas and at what price, but it has been accused by Anil Ambani of supporting Reliance Industries.

India’s highest court has not excluded the government from the dispute between the Ambanis’ firms, and will hear the case on Oct. 20.

India, Asia’s third-largest oil consumer and which imports two-thirds of its crude oil, is hoping to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and become a new frontier for oil and gas exploration.

The Indian exploration and production sector will need $40 billion in investments by 2012, the Investment Commission of India estimates, while consultancy KPMG expects the Indian energy sector will require between $120 and $150 billion over 2007 to 2011 as Asia’s third-largest economy expands.

However, India’s latest auction of oil and gas exploration blocks evoked a tepid response, with the government indicating the Ambani dispute may have put off investors.

Now, with the stakes being so high, surely the media cannot be blamed for helping its audience navigate through the twists and turns of the maze that is the Ambani tussle?

There was a television ad some time back where a village leader played by Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan cutely decrees that feuding villagers would be known by their mobile numbers rather than names denoting caste or community.

It’s an idea that no longer seems far-fetched.

This week, the finance minister allocated 1200 million rupees to  the Unique Identification Authority of India, headed by former Infosys chief Nandan Nilekani.

The project provides a unique identity number, something like the U.S. social security number, to India’s billion-plus citizens.

It involves setting up a database with the identification details of citizens.

“It also uses an advanced technology like biometrics on a scale which has not been used anywhere in the world,” said Nilekani.

The biometric details will make identification foolproof.

Multi-purpose National Identity Cards have already been issued to a million citizens under a test scheme in some districts.

These will be combined with the unique identification number scheme.

Once implemented, the project is expected to help the government identify beneficiaries of various welfare schemes and help security agencies.

It will also link the database to the election commission and the income tax department.

“The Unique ID number, the number, not the card, is going to be the unifying attribute of all these cards. In other words, you may have four to five cards from different sources but all of them will have the same unique ID of yours that will act as a unifier,” Nilekani said.

However, there are misgivings about the project.

Tavleen Singh, writing for the Indian Express says the project may just add “to the massive infrastructure of our bureaucracy.”

“The BPL (below poverty line) folks that I know in Mumbai and Delhi do not have birth certificates, identity cards or any proof of nationality. Even if they did, they have no means of knowing how to access the benefits that accrue to them. Will a national identity card make their lives less difficult?”

“And, besides how will the card work in villages that do not have adequate supplies of electricity leave alone computers?” she asks.

Columnist Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar writes — “If the implementers have no interest in service delivery, can a smart card outsmart them?”

It’s an appealing idea to be able to put down a number instead of filling details in a form on one’s father, mother, locality and surname and be immediately slotted.

But having practically lived as a stateless citizen in my own country for a while (no voter id, no ration card, no permanent address, a bank account but on the office address) I am all for letting the state know that I exist, occasionally outside my office in my unofficial capacity as well.

But will everyone trust the government or the bureaucracy with all their details available at the click of a button?

Misuse of voters list to target communities during riots has been alleged. Data can leak.

Who for instance will or can have access to someone’s fingerprints on a biometric database?

In a situation where the government in general has less information about people than more, this question seems a forced one.

But with the first set of numbers to be issued by late 2010, this issue would need to be resolved.

Is Nilekani by uniting “databases in disconnected silos“, going to be our Harold Bluetooth, the eponymous Viking warrior after whose unifying efforts the  wireless technology is named, or a Big Brother?

It’s just not cricket.

Ducking for cover as bullets replaced bouncers… players evacuated in a military helicopter that lands right next to a 22-yard pitch… the same strip at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium that saw Thilan Samaraweera score a double century the previous evening.

Samaraweera was hit on his leg during an audacious attack by armed militants on a convoy taking his team to the venue, an attack that left six cricketers injured and more than half-a-dozen Pakistani security personnel killed.

The world of cricket will never be the same again.

More worrying is the fate of Pakistani cricket. Tours to Pakistan were already a trickle with teams like Australia refusing to travel.

The matches against Sri Lanka came after more than a year of near pariah status. And even this tour was hastily arranged after India pulled out post-26/11.

After months of shadow boxing and pulled punches, the ICC had to suspend international cricket in Pakistan.

Tuesday’s attack also raised serious doubts about Pakistan’s chances of co-hosting the 2011 cricket world cup.

Authorities were already considering five alternate venues for the Champions Trophy.

The cricketing fraternity has expressed solidarity with both the Pakistani and Sri Lankan players. They were both shocked and saddened.

They also say the game must go on, but where?

When will Pakistan get to host an international cricket match again?

Some like former fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz are worried that other cricketing nations might even refuse to invite Pakistan over fears of the threat of terror trailing the team all the way to their doorsteps.

It will indeed be sad if international cricket is denied to Pakistan, not just to the players but to the public too.

It’s a game that has many a time been a metaphor for peace between India and Pakistan. The sport has been held hostage for that very reason too.

But diplomacy is a game played in the corridors of power, an arena far removed from the subcontinental dustbowls and narrow bylanes that has unearthed many a gem that has embellished the game of cricket.

What are the words that spring to mind when you talk about Pakistani cricketers?

Talented, temperamental, explosive and, more than anything else, unpredictable.

Hanif Mohammed, Mushtaq Mohammed, Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul Haq, Mohammed Yousuf, Younis Khan — the list is impressive and rather long.

What makes these players churn out performances which swing from the sublime to the ridiculous to supreme craft remains one of the mysteries of the world of cricket.

Unlike England or Australia or even India, many who represented Pakistan on the world stage emerged despite the system in a country which today is bereft of a proper domestic cricket calender.

Today, the question is whether that mystique will be lost to the world, if not forever, at least for the foreseeable future.

And will the country itself be pushed into further isolation?

The peacetime activities of an armed force have a bearing on its wartime capabilities and its relations with the civil society.

Although it has been the stated government policy for at least a decade to use the defence forces as sparingly as possible the Indian army has been continually engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast.

“Excessive and continuous involvement of the Army for internal security is not good, neither for the Army nor for the nation,” former army chief Ved Prakash Malik said four years ago.

“Most of the states have neglected their armed police,” he said.

When the al Qaeda recently threatened India with more Mumbai-like attacks, the first response came from Defence Minister A.K. Antony.

“Our army is ready to face any threat from anywhere,” he said.

Internal security is the responsibility of the Home ministry and the police force.

“There is an increasing trend to rely on the army for internal security,” strategic affairs expert Jasjeet Singh told Reuters.

“We have got into the habit that the moment there is the slightest disturbance the administrator picks up the phone and calls for the army.”

Defence analyst Gurmeet Kanwal said “such operations undoubtedly stretch the army’s budget and affect its modernisation programme.”

They also interfere with the training of the armed forces for conventional warfare, he said.

Was it then the defence minister’s remit to respond to that threat?

The army’s apolitical stance makes it something of an exception in South Asia.

However, concerns had been raised after the Malegaon blasts case where a serving army officer has been charge sheeted.

Does the army’s involvement in internal security duties make it vulnerable to politicisation?

Singh thinks that Malegaon is an aberration but “what is aberration today in twenty years will be regular.”

He suggests reforming the training and recruitment of police so it can tackle internal security challenges on its own.

Police being a state subject under the Indian constitution, personnel are recruited locally and therefore are more sensitive to local sentiments.  This makes the police more conducive to handling internal security duties provided it has the capacity.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah favours the strategy of letting the local police maintain law and order in the state.

Should that be a nationwide initiative?

Just returned from the Oberoi where hundreds are still inside - Indians, foreigners, cooks and cleaners. London in 2005, Mumbai trains 2006.

Each time I follow the same movements - learn what, locate where, retrieve family, check team, do phoners, make frantic calls with London desks.

And then reflect… strangely I was in both hotels just hours before Wednesday’s attacks.

Heavy security at the Taj in place since Islamabad Marriot bombing had just been lifted. As I entered to pick up a cake at 6 p.m., I pushed my way around a metal detector. I was in a hurry, the security guard gave me a knowing glance.

At 6:30 p.m. I was at the Oberoi - I walked in for a haircut (I have a thing for the hotel’s traditional barber shop). In the lobby two heavily decorated Maharashtra police officers chatting. One carrying a wooden baton with shiny metal tips. How odd it looked - what would it be used for I wondered… a marching band?

As I waited for an elevator down to the shop, I listened in on three French women chatting about shopping - the barber shop was its usual calm - one of the quietest places in the city - and just 15 minutes in and out.

As I made my way home through Mumbai’s insane traffic I could feel my blood pressure rising… it happens every day.

Never mind. As this tragedy unfolds there is an image in my mind - the lobby of the Oberoi - bustling with foreign business people, tourists, and even police. Now that polished white marble floor is host to a different world.

Until now this has been about the “rest of India” - bicycle bombs in bustling vegetable markets, cinemas, attacks on trains. Now the nightmare on television screens is real.