Year: 2015

Resistance to antibiotics growing in Kashmir, say medicos

Editor

Taking antibiotics for “slight ailments” in Kashmir is leading to a dangerous scenario where resistance to these drugs is fast growing among people, experts have warned.  Although antibiotics are prescription drugs, these are sold over-the-counter in Kashmir with no monitoring and adherence to the Drug Act that mandates that these be sold only with a prescription. “We have reported resistance to not just gram positive bacteria but also gram negative. We are sometimes left with no choice but to use the antibiotics that were considered toxic. Very soon, we will…

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Hizb militants laid to rest amid azadi slogans

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• Thousands attend funeral prayers in Bijbehara • Pakistani flag hoisted at CM’s ancestral house  • Day-long clashes between youth and cops Thousands of people attended the funeral prayers of three Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Bijbehara town of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district amid shutdown. The militants were killed in a gunfight with forces at Aishmuqam on Monday. After the burial of militants, violent clashes erupted in the town and continued throughout the day and angry youth hoisted Pakistani flag at Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s ancestral house. Adil Shiekh, son…

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Kashmir to reel under darkness

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Metered areas to have 3 hr power cuts, non-metered areas more: Drabu ‘T&D losses responsible for power cuts’  Kashmir will continue to face the power crisis this winter, the government said Tuesday. “There are no financial constraints but the issue is Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses,” Minister for Finance, Haseeb Drabu said after reopening of the Kitab Ghar at M A Road in Lal Chowk, here. Against the demand of 1600 MWs of electricity in Kashmir, Power Development Department is presently supplying only 1200 MWs of electricity. “With a deficit…

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Police suspect Kashmir youth of IS links

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A business administration graduate from Kashmir is suspected of affiliation with the Islamic State militant group based in Syria and Iraq, a secret police note which described him as having an “ardent extremist ideology” has revealed. The note is the first official confirmation that police intelligence suspect Adil Fayaz Waida, a resident of Srinagar, of having links with the middle-eastern militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which declared a caliphate last year. The police note titled “Kashmiri youth affiliated with ISIS” discusses “reports” that Waida of Srinagar’s…

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Protesters hoist Pak flag on Mufti’s ancestral house

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Youth mourning the killing of three Hizbul Mujahideen militants hoisted a Pakistani flag on Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s ancestral house in Bijbehara town of Anantnag district today. Hundreds of youth, women and children participated in the funeral procession of the slain militants, two of whom belonged to main Bijbehara town. The militants were killed during a brief gunfight with security forces in the Siligam area of Anantnag district on Monday afternoon. While the bodies of the two militants were being carried for the funeral prayers today, some of the…

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Partial shutdown in Valley against militant killings

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A partial shutdown was today observed in the Kashmir region against the killing of threemilitants in a gunfighton Monday. Most of the markets remained open andtraffic remained unaffected in most of the districts in the Valley, includingin Srinagar. The hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference headed by Syed Ali Geelani had on Monday evening called for a shutdown today to protest the killing of the militants. Three militants, all residents of southKashmir’s Bijbehara area, were killed in a gunfight with the Army and the police on Monday in Siligam village…

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Fissures in coalition come out in open

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Dy CM boycotts meet over ‘transgression’ by FinMin Fissures in the PDP-BJP coalition once again came to the fore when Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh today boycotted a meeting to review the implementation of decisions taken at the District Development Board meetings in the Kashmir valley. Sources say Singh is miffed with Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu over the direct fund transfer of Rs 10 crore in favour of a company repairing transformers. The money had to be routed through the Power Development Department, which is under Singh, but Drabu bypassed…

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Li-Fi has just been tested in the real world, and it’s 100 times faster than Wi-Fi

Editor

Sorry, Wi-Fi. We had some good times together. Expect to hear a whole lot more about Li-Fi – a wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using visible light communication (VLC) – in the coming months. With scientists achieving speeds of 224 gigabits per second in the lab using Li-Fi earlier this year, the potential for this technology to change everything about the way we use the Internet is huge. And now, scientists have taken Li-Fi out of the lab for the first time, trialling it in offices and industrial environments…

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Air traffic suspended due to dense fog in Srinagar

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Air traffic was badly affected in Kashmir Valley due to inclement weather today as dense fog forced cancellation of all flights to and fro Srinagar Airport, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded, officials said. “All flights for today have been cancelled due to bad weather as no airline could operate,” an official of the Airport Authority of India said here. She said 21 flights were scheduled at the airport for today. “All 21 flights have been cancelled and passengers informed accordingly,” she said. The cancellation of flights left many passengers, including…

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