The Mumbai terror wasn’t really a focus here…at all. But the Hindu Times is reporting that the whole lethal debacle could have been averted if the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) recommendations to the Coast Guard were heeded. Those recommendations included outfitting Indian fishing boats with a GPS-equipped alarm system that would reveal the craft’s coordinates during an emergency.
Recall that the whole Mumbai horror which resulted in the demise of at least 138 lives began with the hijacking of M V Kuber, a fishing trawler, by the offending terrorists. Because they accessed India’s coastline this way, the ISRO says that if India’s Coast Guard would have been receptive to their initial warnings the latter would’ve been able to intercept the terrorists before they reached the coast, averting the entire crisis.
Yet another case study in the relevance of GPS and location.
(Image Credit: ynet)