Month: May 2019

Police crackdown across city leaves migrant beggars staring at an uncertain future

Editor

“Walaiy bobai’y traavi niyaazah,” pleaded Anisur Rahman, in flawless Kashmiri, as he sat on the steps leading to the shrine of Hazrat Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom in Srinagar’s Old City. “Come, mother, show some generosity.” Nearly every morning, Rahman, 50, leaves his rented room in the Old City and makes his way to the shrine. He gets by on alms from devotees who throng the shrine every day. “I have been sitting here each day for 10 years now,” he said. “No one who visits the shrine returns empty handed. People…

Read More

As many 43% newly elected LS MPs have criminal record: Association of Democratic Reforms

Editor

Nearly half of the newly-elected Lok Sabha members have criminal charges against them, a 26 per cent increase as compared to 2014, according to the Association of Democratic Reforms. Of the 539 winning candidates analysed by the ADR, as many as 233 MPs or 43 per cent have criminal charges. The BJP has 116 MPs or 39 per cent of its winning candidates with criminal cases, followed by 29 MPs (57 per cent) from the Congress, 13 (81 per cent) from the JDU, 10 (43 per cent) from the DMK…

Read More

BJP bating for the early abrogation of Article 370, 35A

Editor

State BJP chief Ravinder Raina Sunday said his party was for early abrogation of Articles 370 and Article 35-A of the constitution. He also exhorted confidence that the BJP would form the next government in the State on its own. Raina said his party would work for de-freezing of the eight assembly seats reserved for the refugees from Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK) and revoking of the cumbersome M-Form exercise for Kashmiri migrant pandits before the next assembly polls. “Article 370, a temporary transititional provision, is the biggest injustice with the…

Read More

As BJP returns to power, Kashmiris fear demographic change

Editor

With the BJP returning to power in the Centre, the people in Kashmir fear that the party may bring demographic change in the Valley by removing Articles 370 and 35A, which provide constitutional safeguards to the region within the Union of India. A majority of Kashmiris may have stayed away from the polls, but they kept track of the results. More than results of the Valley, they were keen to see who will come to power in the Centre. And as the day progressed, with the BJP emerging the clear…

Read More

How Narendra Modi seduced India with Envy and Hate

Editor

The prime minister has won re-election on a tide of violence, fake news and resentment. Before dawn on Feb. 26, Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India, ordered an aerial attack on the country’s nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan. There were thick clouds that morning over the border. But Mr. Modi claimed earlier this month, during his successful campaign for re-election, that he had overruled advisers who worried about them. He is ignorant of science, he admitted, but nevertheless trusted his “raw wisdom,” which told him that the cloud cover…

Read More

Modi wave hits Kashmir wall got less than 10000 votes across Valley

Editor

Even as the BJP had claimed that it had 4.5 lakh members in the Valley, the saffron party managed less than 20,000 votes from the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir. As this figure included 9,835 migrant votes, the BJP technically managed to get less than 10,000 votes from the EVMs during the polling in Valley. BJP’s Srinagar candidate Sheikh Khalid Jehangir got 4,631 votes that accounted for mere 2.48 per cent of the total ballots polled. Of the 4,631 votes, 2,584 were of migrants besides 85 postal ballots. Similarly,…

Read More

Zakir Musa’s journey from tech student to most-wanted rebel from Valley

Editor

From an engineering student to one of the most wanted militants, Zakir Musa’s journey had all ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler. Zakir Rashid Bhat, alias Zakir Musa (25), had joined the militant ranks in 2013 and four years later he parted ways and founded the Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda. Musa, a close aide of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, whose killing in 2016 sparked nearly five-month-long unrest and led to the killing of nearly 90 civilians, was gunned down in south Kashmir’s Tral sub-district. Musa was trapped inside…

Read More

Engineer Rashid credits Facebook for getting over a lakh vote in Kashmir

Editor

He ran the election campaign on his Facebook page and surprised everyone with over 1 lakh votes in his kitty. Engineer Rashid, an independent candidate from Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla constituency has become a challenger to regional parties in the Valley. “I’m extremely thankful to Facebook. Without Facebook, it was impossible for me to connect with people and ask for votes. Reaching everywhere across three districts of north Kashmir was not possible. I had no money for campaigning. Facebook became an effective medium,” said Engineer Rashid. His effective use of…

Read More

Indications what lies ahead in J&K post BJP 2.0

Editor

The right wing party’s stance on Kashmir and increased attempts to polarise Jammu will only aggravate the situation in the valley, which had witnessed unprecedented oppression accompanied by a rise in militancy under the previous Modi regime. Ever since exit polls came out, people in the Kashmir valley have been too anxious about the prospects of Bharatiya Janata Party coming back to power. And now that the BJP has won, it seems that their worst fears are going to come true. Despite a myriad of issues plaguing the Indian population–…

Read More

Despite the win, Modi can’t scrap 370, neither authority to decide next CM: Farooq Abdullah

Editor

Farooq Abdullah, National Conference (NC) chief and newly elected Member of Parliament from Srinagar, said on Friday that no matter how powerful the electoral mandate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he could not remove Articles 370 and 35A. He said the preservation of Articles 35A and 370, besides grant of regional autonomy to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, would be the main plank of his party, while exuding confidence that NC would form the next government in the state on its own. “No matter how powerful the Prime Minister has become after winning…

Read More