"A flashlight with an LED bulb for illumination or to signal for help; a hand-held water purifier in case the water isn’t potable; a portable radio; and a cellphone or a Blackberry with international service."

These are the essential items that the Association of Corporate Travel Executives advises business travelers to pack when they sojourn into global hot spots like post-attacks Mumbai. As The Practical Traveler reports for the New York Times, several guests trapped in the Taj hotel during last month's siege were able to relay word of their whereabouts to the Indian police via text message on a trusty mobile connection. Now, the international hotel industry is moving to reinforce guest security with stepped-up staff training and use of technology, like color-coded alerts at the Marriott line of hotels.

So who might stand to profit in the new South Asian security economy? The Wall Street Journal reports that the makers of door frame and hand-held metal detectors, high-speed armored sea vessels, smart cards, and providers of sniffer dogs and closed circuit televisions could be sitting pretty in the new year. Revenues from India's private security business alone could rise from 220 billion rupees this year to 500 billion rupees in 2012. Among those anxious to not miss out are security firms from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and South Korea, whose products are projected to enter India in large numbers in coming years.

The Mumbai attacks took place within the context of a long struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir - an element often overlooked by US news reports. So our sources this week include Times Now, India; South Asia Newsline, India; Dawn TV, Pakistan; and Press TV, Iran.
 
- Global Pulse -

This week, Global Pulse will examine the roots of the Mumbai terror attacks in the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir.

As more details emerge from South Asia, we discover that the nine Mumbai gunmen were Pakistani men in their 20s with ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba guerilla group, which Indian government officials claim has helped wage a proxy war for Pakistan in Kashmir.

But Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, writing in a New York Times Op-Ed yesterday, tries to shift the world's attention away from Kashmir and towards his country's border with Afghanistan, where he argues the true source of global terror lies. By focusing on the Pakistani army's fight against al-Qaeda, Zardari attempts to elicit sympathy for his government's role in combating global terror attacks.

Meanwhile in India this week, the ruling Congress Party won an unexpected victory in 3 of 5 state elections, including in Delhi. The results may mean that the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been unsuccessful in claiming the government was ill-prepared to prevent last month's attacks.