At times up to 50 people have been involved in live, instant chat in the Livestation chat room for the Indian 24×7 TV news channel, CNN IBN, during the coverage of the attacks in Mumbai.

Comments from the CNN IBN viewers in the chat room were fed through to the channel’s journalists:

Rab an Indian living in New Jersey, USA: “This shows that we need to stop the crap in Iraq, and focus on the real stuff in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

MJC, Atlanta, USA: India & Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. I’m just concerned that actions like this might cause someone to decide to make the ultimate choice. I hope they’re not going to respond like the U.S. did after 9/11. Haven’t we had enough unilateral action in the World?

Jan Lorenz, Quezon City, the Philippines: what kind of demand these terroist ask for? That’s what is surprising about this news. their demand is still unclear. they may not have any demand at all, and just went there to spread terror.

Jarod, Hainan Province, China: I hope to get more information about the terrorist group from CNN IBN, thank you.

Jan Lorenz, Quezon City, Philippines: It’s really surprising how as little as 25 terrorists are able to create this chaos. I salute the indian police and military force for swiftly attending to the situation. may God bless them.

Abhay Patil LA, USA.: I am an Indian from South Mumbai, living in Los Angles. I grew up in all these areas constantly under terror. My family is safe, I have been able to get in touch with them. However I havent been able to get in touch with all my friends around the area. So I hope all of them are doing fine, since cell phone lines are not going through, I have emailed them. I turned to CNN IBN because it is a reputed news resource and a reliable network for information on the crisis.

Pinkrose, Maldives : India is one of our closest friends and a neighbour. People at Maldives are very concerned about this issue and are watching this live coverage closely. Thanks to Livestation and CNN IBN.

Abhay Patil, LA, USA: "I hope this huge incident is not pushed under the carpet under the pretext of ‘Spirit of Mumbai’ as the previous terror incidents have and this time atleast the authorities take definitive action. There is no reason to cheer – “How Mumbai is getting used to these incidents”. We need to work along with Pakistan to remove terrorism which is affecting both countries, rather than just pointing fingers at each other. It is a problem which is affecting south east asia on a huge extent regularly and each time on a much bigger scale"

Aare, Riga, Latvia: As I understand India does not have intelligence organization dealing with terrorism, hopefully the will from now. Commandos did not have night vision equipment, hopefully they will.

Clearly, there is a need for channels such as CNN IBN, not only to stream live, but to also engage with the audience in a way that gets instant comments from around the world.