Year: 2020

Dogra Group staged a protest against new Domicile Law

Editor

Rejecting the domicile certificates, a Dogra group, United Democratic Alliance (UDA) on Wednesday staged a protest here to demand its rollback. The head of the group, Rajiv Mahajan said more than 1.30 crore people of Jammu and Kashmir holding Permanent Resident Certificate (PRCs) do not need the domicile certificates. “The government of India should withdraw the domicile certificates,” he said. Mahajan asked the government to create employment avenues for unemployed educated youth of Jammu and Kashmir. He said the bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two…

Read More

India is weaponizing its Spiritual Tourists

Editor

Pilgrims headed to the divided region of Kashmir get armed guards and national encouragement — if they’re Hindu. By – Raksha Kumar Every July, thousands of buses, trucks, cars, mules, and palanquin bearers crawl up 12, 768 treacherous feet of mountainous terrain to reach the Amarnath cave, where a smooth ice stalagmite dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva reaches up from the cave floor. The devotees heading for this linga (a Hindu term for venerated, somewhat phallic objects) are making one of the most dangerous pilgrimages in India — not…

Read More

Basant Rath a senior IPS officer of J&K cadre suspended for ‘Gross misconduct and misbehavior’

Editor

Senior IPS officer of J&K cadre Basant Rath was on Wednesday suspended by the Union Home Ministry for “gross misconduct and misbehaviour”. Rath, a 2000 batch IPS officer, has been attached to Police Headquarters in Jammu and has been asked not to leave the headquarters without permission from the Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police. The order issued by the Home Ministry stated that disciplinary proceedings against Rath were “contemplated in connection with repeated instances of gross misconduct and misbehaviour, which have been brought to the notice of the…

Read More

Kashmir observed shuts down on Burhan Wani’s 4th death anniversary

Editor

Shutdown was observed in many parts of Kashmir on the fourth death anniversary of militant commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in a gunfight in south Kashmir in 2016. The shutdown was observed despite that the J&K Police on Tuesday registered a case under stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and for public mischief under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) claiming that the strike call by Syed Ali Geelani was fake as per his family sources. In Srinagar, shops mostly remained shut. The private traffic, however, plied normally. The attendance of…

Read More

Since August 5, 2019, the UN made its third communication on J&K public

Editor

Four Special Rapporteurs express ‘grave concern over alleged excessive use of force, ill-treatment during arrests and detentions’ United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs have made public their third communication forwarded to India since the August 5, 2019 decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, expressing “grave concern over alleged excessive use of force, ill-treatment during arrests and detentions”. Four UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions; on minority issues; and on freedom of religion or belief —…

Read More

BJP’s Bandipora leader, his brother, father shot dead

Editor

Bandipora, July 08 (KNO): Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Bandipora leader, Sheikh Waseem Bari, his father and his brother were on Wednesday shot dead by the unidentified gunmen outside their residence in Muslimabad area of Bandipora district. Official sources told news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that Bari, his father Bashir Ahmed and brother Umar Bari were shot at by the suspected militants outside their residence in Bandipora. The residence of Bari’s is located just opposite of Bandipora Police Station. Hospital sources also confirmed to KNO that all three were declared dead on…

Read More

A photo of a dead Kashmiri and the making of a macabre narrative

Editor

An officially staged photo-op involving a dead Kashmiri and a toddler demonstrates another level of depravity in India. By Mirza Waheed Perhaps it does not require a moral compass to feel outrage and fury over the image of a three-year-old Kashmiri child sitting on his slain grandfather’s chest in the middle of a street. You probably need only one of the two to feel something: A pair of eyes or a heart. The 65-year-old man, Bashir Ahmed Khan, was killed after a shootout between militants and Indian paramilitaries in the…

Read More

Eight lakh Indians may be forced to leave as Kuwait approves expat quota bill

Editor

A total of eight lakh Indians could be forced to leave Kuwait as its National Assembly committee has approved a draft expat quota bill seeking to reduce the number of foreign workers in the Gulf country. The National Assembly’s legal and legislative committee has determined that the expat quota bill is constitutional. According to the bill, Indians should not exceed 15% of the population. This could result in 8,00,000 Indians leaving Kuwait, as the Indian community constitutes the largest expat community in the country, totalling 1.45 million, the Gulf News…

Read More

Tourism Sector all set to reopen in J&K dates to be announced soon: Govt

Editor

The tourism sector in Jammu and Kashmir is all set to re-open, and the government is in the process of finalising and announcing a date soon. The government has started preparing the blueprint that would be made public soon to revive the critical service sector in J&K. The hospitality sector sustains the livelihoods of tens of thousands of J&K residents. Several families have been connected to the hospitality industry for generations. “This sector, seen along with Handloom, handicrafts and horticulture sectors forms the core of the J&K economy, as all…

Read More

Istanbul declaration on Kashmir

Editor

KASHMIR: REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONALDIMENSIONS CONFERENCE Declaration Two-days International Kashmir Webinar was organized by Faculty of Letters, Department of Urdu, Istanbul University on June 29 – 30, 2020. The participants unanimously adopted the following declaration at the end of the conference: 1. That there must be an early, just and durable resolution to the Jammu & Kashmir dispute in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolutions. 2. The United Nations Security Council had clearly enunciated that on the basis of the agreement concluded between India and Pakistan, “the final disposition…

Read More