‘Betrayed’: In Jammu, Growing regret over support for Scrapping of Article 370

With the new land laws, and the fear of backlash when it comes to organising protests, many among those who celebrated the felling of Article 370 are reconsidering their stance. Muhammad Raafi On August 5, 2019, Rahul Sharma, a resident of Kathua, was ecstatic. He and his friends distributed sweets to celebrate the scrapping of Articles 370 and 35A of the constitution that granted a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. As most parts of the Jammu division erupted in celebration, Sharma, who then called himself…

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Start talks with Pakistan, Open cross-border roads: Mehbooba Mufti

Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Monday asserted that the dialogue with Pakistan and the stakeholders within J&K and opening of cross-border roads to bring the divided parts together can bring peace and everlasting solution to the Kashmir problem. BJP to meet same electoral fate as TrumpWhen oppression increases, it soon vanishes too. Today is their (BJP’s) time and tomorrow, our time will come. The same thing will happen to them (BJP) what happened to Trump (who lost the US presidential election last week). – Mehbooba Mufti, PDP Chief…

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Kashmiri’s Roshni Act and its top beneficiaries

Kashmir’s top political families, IAS officers in CAG’s Roshni list. Ex-FM, Ex-PSC chairman, actor Feroz Khan’s sister, poet Aga Shahid Ali figure among beneficiaries of scrapped Act. The Kashmir political, bureaucratic and business elite’s who’s who figure among the so-called beneficiaries of the Roshni Act of 2001 who had acquired proprietary rights over the State land occupied by them illegally from time to time. The Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001, commonly known as the Roshni Act, has now been declared as unconstitutional…

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What will Joe Biden’s win mean for Human Rights in the Kashmir, A Big Question?

Delighted that ‘Islamophobic’ Donald Trump will soon leave the Oval Office, Kashmiris hope that the US will bring pressure to bear on India’s Modi government against crackdowns in the Valley. On Sunday morning, veteran Kashmiri journalist Yusuf Jameel heard a scrap dealer shout an unusual cry outside his home in Srinagar: “Ab ki baar, Trump gov khaar (This time, Trump is wrecked).” The slogan, which imaginatively rhymed with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election catchphrase for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was intended as a pun to convey the defeat of Donald…

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