Rediff has a slide show of photos released by the Indian Navy of the INS Tabar's engagement with Somali pirates on November 11. They show both the destruction of the pirates' mothership (above) and the helicopter action to defend the MV Jag Arnav, a merchant vessel owned by Mumbai-based Great Eastern Shipping Company (below).
The piece also reports that India is sending the INS Mysore, a Delhi-class destroyer, to replace the Tabar in region. The destroyer is larger and more heavily armed than the Tabar, which is a frigate.
Also, Salon carries a story from Der Spiegel about the possibility of security firms like Blackwater sending mercenaries to defend commercial shipping in the region.
The Indian sailors aboard the MV Stolt Valor, the Japanese-owned chemical tanker, who were released on November 16, have returned home to India. The Washington Post has the story of their two-month ordeal and notes that their release was due in part to the captain's wife's publicity campaign:
In the past few weeks, the wife of the vessel's captain, Seema Goyal, ran a relentless campaign to free the crew. On Monday, congratulatory messages praising her efforts poured in and were splashed on television screens all day.
The jubilant captain of the Stolt Valor spoke to his wife on the phone, and their conversation was broadcast live.
"Who do you want to see first?" a beaming Goyal asked her husband. "Me? Or the children?"
"I love you; I would like to see you first," answered the captain, Prabhat Goyal. "I had your photograph with me all the time."
Captain Goyal told the full story of his capture and detention to Mumbai's DNA.
