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India is weaponizing its Spiritual Tourists

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 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…

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

July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 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…

Istanbul declaration on Kashmir

July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 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…

Out of box ‘Cure’ for coronavirus, Patanjali continues to do ‘Science’ by Press Release

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 Editor

By – Vasudevan Mukunth Patanjali Ayurved, the FMCG company owned by yoga guru Baba Ramdev that has made a windfall selling food and consumer goods rooted in supposed Ayurvedic precepts and by capitalising on protectionist sentiments, claimed on Tuesday that it had developed an Ayurvedic product that could ‘cure’ COVID-19. At a launch event earlier this week, Ramdev said their Patanjali Research Institute had produced an “evidence-based ayurvedic cure” for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has thus far claimed 4.4 lakh lives around the world. The…

Bringing the Israeli model to Kashmir

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020 Editor

The gradual encroachment on Kashmiri’s rights and the growing prospect of colonisation could set the region on fire. By Anuradha Bhasin For more than 70 years, Kashmiris have lived with the dread of the Indian government changing the demography and special status of Indian-administered Kashmir, which was till recently Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state. Deemed preposterous and exaggerated at one time, these anxieties have now become completely justified and have even deepened. On August 5, 2019, Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which gave the state its special status and…

We butchered freedom to win slavery

June 20, 2020June 20, 2020 Editor

By – Hashim Qureshi A scuffle took place between Indian and Chinese border forces somewhere on the border of Eastern Ladakh. Many in Azad Kashmir and some on this side of the valley and also many in Pakistan began to celebrate the faceoff by beating drums and cracking crackers. Animosity has made all of them blind. Euphoric to see the enemy dragged to destruction and defeat we do not have even the little vision about what next and what gain is it going to bring to us? Let us go…

There is a Global Dimension to the India-China Confrontation in Ladakh

June 12, 2020June 12, 2020 Editor

By – Siddiq Wahid It has been a frenetic five weeks of a suddenly “unquiet front” in Ladakh between India and China. The saga began with simultaneous reports of a helicopter chase on May 5 and scuffles around the high-altitude Pangong Lake. There followed reports that the Chinese had doubled (to six) the number of boats on the lake, which is bisected by the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Then, in the second half of May, there were more reports of unsoldierly tussles and a week later dramatic visuals of Chinese Air Force…

Late Marriages: Matter of concern

June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 Editor

By – Davood Peer Marriage is a legal contract between a man and a woman both the groom and the bride are to consent to the marriage of their own free wills. A formal, binding contract – verbal or on paper is considered integral to a religiously valid Islamic marriage and outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom and bride. Marriage is described as the legal contract between two people that marks the beginning of the family. Marriage is not only physical but a spiritual and emotional tie-up between…

Tale of two pregnancies, A dying elephant & A caged Human Being

June 6, 2020June 6, 2020 Editor

Where has the outrage and empathy we rightly felt at the death of the elephant in Kerala gone in the case of Safoora Zargar, the Jamia student held in an overcrowded jail at COVID time? By -Bedabrata Pain I saw the report first on social media – WhatsApp, to be precise. A gut-wrenching story of a pregnant elephant dying a horrific death, standing in the middle of a river. The initial reports was that some people had deliberately fed her pineapple filled with firecrackers. On the basis of this narrative,…

New thinking and New action plan needed to resolve Kashmir Issue, Nationalists must unite!

June 2, 2020June 2, 2020 Editor

By Hashim Qureshi Since a long time, I have been suggesting that all nationalist parties and organizations in J&K State should be dissolved. New ground situation has to be taken into account and three or four persons should be identified from big or small nationalist groups to form a Central Committee. This committee will have consultations with experts and the agenda should be to re-unite the state, struggle for opening all road links, set a claim for fundamental rights, rights for development and announce a definite anti-terrorist policy. The demand…