Stark Differences Between Public and Private Security in Mumbai One Year After Attacks

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks, The New York Times reports that Mumbai's private sector has done a better job of tightening up security than the government.

The Times does a good job of highlighting concrete examples that show the disparities in security management between the two sectors. First, there's the Taj Mahal Hotel, where the heavily-armed terrorist commandoes holed up and killed most of the approximately 170 victims during their nearly three-day long siege of Mumbai.

These days getting into the lobby of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, one of the hotels that was attacked, is not that different from entering an airport. Everyone passes through metal detectors, and every bag and parcel is X-rayed.

Compare that to Mumbai's public transportation.

At busy train stations, including the one that was attacked last year, metal detectors constantly buzz, yet people walk through them without being stopped for further scrutiny. While officials have installed new luggage-screening equipment there, many visitors are not asked to put their bags through it.

Tomorrow Mumbai will quietly commemorate the start of the Mumbai terror attack, known as 26/11 in India. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh isn't even in the country. He's currently in Washington, DC, finishing up his first state visit of President Barack Obama's presidency and then off to Trinidad and Tobago for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The Taj Mahal Hotel will hold a "low key" ceremony, Australia's The Age reports. Nikhila Palat, the hotel's public relations manager, said, ''It's not a day that we want to highlight. It was a tragic time when we lost guests and staff who were like family to us. We feel that the best way to maintain dignity is to keep it as a small closed event. We want to move on to happier memories.''

♦ Photo of the Taj Mahal Hotel by Trakesht/WikiMediaCommons