I felt safer in Srinagar than South Africa: Chantelle Flores

When Chantelle Flores, an internationally-acclaimed photographer from South Africa decided to visit Kashmir, she had certain apprehensions due to “negative publicity” of the Valley. However, all her fears vanished when she landed in Srinagar. “I did not face any problems during my stay in Kashmir. I hail from South Africa and have been a victim of ‘gun crime’ on numerous occasions during the years I have lived there. I felt safer in Srinagar despite the overwhelming military presence, and the (negative) news reports about Kashmir,” Flores told Kashmir Post. “In…

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What Atal Bihari Vajpayee told Imran Khan on Kashmir

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had told him that Kashmir would have been resolved if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had not lost the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. In an interview to a group of television journalists here, Khan added that former foreign minister Natwar Singh was also of the same view. “It shows that there is a solution of Kashmir and both countries were close to resolving it,” the Pakistani prime minister insisted. Khan said unless there was a…

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Embattled fruit growers buried by wild weather

November is the peak wedding season in India’s Kashmir region. But Riyaz Dar’s sister didn’t get married last month, as planned. Unusually early and heavy snowfall split the trunks of 60 of Dar’s 100 apple trees in November, leading to huge apple—and financial—losses just before the harvest in Shopian, a region known as Kashmir’s apple bowl. “Even if the climate remains favorable in the years to come, I will get only 40 percent (of the apples) I used to harvest,” lamented the farmer from the village of Hirpora. The snow…

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