Year: 2019

Article 370, 35A should be reviewed, scrapped: Rajnath Singh

Editor

Articles 370 and 35A have been harmful to people: Ravinder Raina Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh Sunday said Articles 370 and Article 35-A should be seriously reviewed and scrapped. While Article 370 gives autonomous status to Jammu Kashmir, Article 35-A allows the Himalayan state’s legislature to define permanent residents of the State. Speaking at a voters’ awareness programme here, Singh attacked National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah for his recent remarks that there should be a separate prime minister for Jammu Kashmir. “When a person, who has occupied a constitutional…

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Modi should free Kashmir if he feels the state is at loss due to it’s special status: Mehbooba Mufti

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Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti while lashing out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that if he wants to remove article 35-A and Article 370 he should free Kashmir. “If Modi thinks that Kashmir is at loss due to the special status of the state, then he should free Kashmir,” Mehbooba said while addressing reporters in Kulgam. On Friday Modi said that Article 370 and 35A have done maximum damage to Jammu and Kashmir and only former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s formula of “Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat…

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J&K staring at bankruptcy, Articles 370, 35A did maximum damage to Kashmir: PM Modi

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the problem in Jammu and Kashmir is that a handful of families in the state have made it a “tool of blackmail”. PM Modi said even before coming to power, we [BJP] knew the “right approach” on Kashmir. PM Narendra Modi said this during an exclusive interview in Varanasi on the day he filed his nomination papers. PM Modi said Articles 370 and 35A have done “maximum damage” to Kashmir.“We set up AIIMS and IIM in Kashmir but top professors are not ready…

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Assembly elections ‘Not Possible’ in June, EC may move date to November

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Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir may not be held in June, a top government source on Friday. The source added that the Election Commission could move the date to November. The government has reportedly cited the Ramzan Yatra, tourism season and Bakarwal migration as reasons for further delay in elections. The state has been under President’s rule following the expiry of six months of Governor’s rule in December. The 87-member state assembly plunged into a political crisis after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew support to the PDP government…

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Highway Ban, Landslides, Mismanagement cause shortage of essentials across Valley

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The frequent shutdown of the 300-km Srinagar-Jammu highway — a crucial and the only route for the supply of essential commodities into the Kashmir valley — has led to a fresh shortage of goods in the region. Residents said the closure of the mountainous highway had led to a shortage of livestock and vegetables. It has even led to the cancellation of weddings as the marriage season begins in the region after the winter. A leading business body in the region, Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had said on…

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Kashmir’s Empty Voting Machines

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Masses stayed away from the polling booths Turnout in the first phase of voting in Anantnag LS seat was 12 percent. It was 39 percent in 2014. Mehbooba Mufti won the seat in 2014, but the meager turnout in PDP bastions might dent her prospects. It is the only constituency in the country that is going to polls in three phases. And yet, Anantnag, which comprises south Kashmir’s four districts, shows no signs that elections are on. In the first phase, on April 23, a few people cast votes at…

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Allying with PDP was BJP’s mahamilavat in Kashmir: PM Modi

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Ahead of his nomination filing in Varanasi on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to India Today Group editors and said that BJP’s alliance with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir was its “mahamilavat”. “We went with the PDP because Mufti Saab [Mufti Mohammad Syed] was there, but it was like mixing oil and water. The PDP-BJP alliance was our mahamilavat. We only did it because that was the people’s mandate,” said PM Modi while speaking to us. The Prime Minister has once again hit out at the Mufti family and…

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Valley’s wedding season badly hit by Highway Crisis

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With hundreds of sheep-laden trucks stuck along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway for the past several days, mutton shortage has badly spoiled the ongoing wedding season. Mutton dealers, who haven’t been able to deliver orders to customers, have threatened to suspend business activity from the next week if the traffic is not restored on the highway. The dealers said more than 250 trucks laden with sheep are stuck at Udhampur. Several families have cancelled or rescheduled weddings. “At the last moment we were informed by the mutton dealer that he cannot…

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Rain, Storm uproots trees, snapped power supply in J&K

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Overnight thunderstorm and rain in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir disrupted normal life while plunging a large areas in darkness as power lines were snapped. However, no injuries or loss of life was reported in Jammu, Reasi, Samba, Kathua, Kupwara, and Anantnag, which were worst-affected by high velocity winds. Parts of Rajouri and Udhampur were also affected by the storm. In Jammu district, power lines and electric poles were damaged as many trees were uprooted. It was only after Jammu Municipal Corporation staff and power development department (PDD) workers…

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BJP’s Giriraj Singh wants EC to ban green flags, ‘Gives feeling of being in Pakistan’

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Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh courted yet another controversy on Tuesday when he called for a ban on green flags, which he said “tend to create hatred in the society and gives one a feeling of being in Pakistan”. Talking to media persons in Begusarai on Tuesday, Singh demanded that the Election Commission ban green flag, claiming it gave an impression of Muslim-related political or religious institutions. “These type of flags tend to create hatred in the society and gives one a feeling of being in Pakistan,” he…

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