SMC starts sanitation drive on Jhelum banks

The Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) today launched an extensive sanitation drive along the banks of the Jhelum river that has become a dumping ground for solid wastes. On the first day, the drive was kicked off in areas near Lasjan and Pantha Chowk, in presence of Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Farooq Ahmed Lone and SMC Commissioner Bashir Ahmed Khan. “During the drive, the officials concerned were directed to keep proper cleanliness in and around the banks of the Jhelum and other adjoining locations,” the officials said. The drive would be extended…

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Marking J&K students across India

Rajni Shaleen Chopra Omar Abdullah has rightly expressed apprehension about the order issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, asking Kolkata Police for details about students from Jammu and Kashmir studying in colleges there. According to The Indian Express, the exercise is being conducted to create dossiers on J&K students so that the police can monitor their activities. The newspaper has reported that following the JNU controversy, the Centre had issued an advisory to all states to take adequate precautionary measures, and avoid a repeat of such incidents. From this,…

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Rehabilitation of Gujjars continues to be elusive

Encroachments by community members traced to vote bank politics The onus of illegal encroachments on the state land, including forests, by nomadic Gujjars lies with the successive governments which exploited them for their vote bank. Insensitivity on the part of the governments can be gauged from the fact that Central laws available to nomadic tribes in other parts of the country are not implemented in J&K, leading to illegal encroachments by Gujjars at the behest of political parties. In the backdrop of the Sarore incident in which a youth, Yaqoob…

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Delhi High Court reserves order on Art 370

The Delhi High Court today reserved its judgment on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of Article 370 of the Constitution that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir. “File your written submissions. We will consider it and will pass an order,” said a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath said. During the brief hearing, the counsel appearing for J&K told the bench that a similar issue was raised before the Supreme Court but it had refused to intervene in the matter. The counsel claimed that…

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Kashmiris continue to be ‘harassed’ outside JK

In a worrying sign, Kashmiris studying or doing their businesses outside Jammu and Kashmir are being subjected to harassment by police in the wake of recent pro-Afzal Guru protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi last month, several aggrieved Kashmiris told over phone on Wednesday. In a fresh case of harassment, a group of Kashmiri students studying in a college in Rajasthan were reportedly detained by police on Monday after being beaten up in the campus over beef-eating rumors. The students, according to reports, belonged to Mewar University…

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Loud Indictment of PDP, BJP as people no longer talk of new govt; Omar

NC leader slams previous coalition for depriving JK of relief, growth National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Wednesday criticised the previous government of the PDP and the BJP for withholding flood relief and development during its 10-month rule in the state. “The Governor’s administration has released a certain amount of money for flood victims, has undertaken dredging of the Jhelum on a war-footing and resumed work on stalled development projects that were initiated before the PDP-BJP alliance took over. Since there was no new inflow of funds from New Delhi,…

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GMC to do health profiling of Fakir Gujri

To understand the health dynamics in the city, Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, will do profiling of tribal people of the Fakir Gujri locality. “The GMC’s Community Medicine Department is starting extensive house-to-house visit in Fakir Gujri, a tribal area of Srinagar, on March 21 to get the health profile of all inhabitants and rate around 350 households on water purification, sanitation, ante-natal care and immunisation,” said Dr Muhammad Salim Khan, head of the department, Social and Preventive Medicine, GMC. The idea behind the profiling of people is to know…

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Anti-Terrorist Squad keeping tabs on Kashmiris in Goa

The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Goa Police has been instructed to conduct door-to-door checks of tenements inhabited by the people from Jammu and Kashmir, Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said on Wednesday. In a written reply to Dabolim legislator Mauvin Godinho on migrants involved in crimes, Parsekar, who also holds the Home portfolio, said: “One copy of such tenant verification form filed is forwarded to the native district Superintendent of Police of the tenant/migrant for verification of criminal records/antecedents.” “In addition to the above, Anti-Terrorist Squad, Goa, also does…

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State takes steps to prevent illegal immigrants from getting Aadhaar

Agencies preparing cards alerted about 31,000 Bangladeshi, Myanmar refugees in J&K The Jammu and Kashmir Government has prepared a list of over 31,000 illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar to prevent them from getting enrolled under the Aadhaar scheme. Jammu has become a “safe haven” for the illegal immigrants and they are adopting “deceitful tactics” to acquire Aadhaar cards. Agencies involved in issuing Aadhaar cards have been told to maintain a strict vigil on the immigrants as some of them have managed to get fake ration cards and other documents…

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Last ditch efforts to stitch PDP-BJP government in Kashmir begin

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) camps in Jammu and Kashmir are more upbeat about government formation today than they ever have been during the past more than two months. A series of developments taking place in the last three days indicate that the two alliance partners are warming up to each other on government-formation in the state that was placed under Governor’s Rule on January 8, a day after the then chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, passed away at AIIMS in New Delhi following…

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