Category: Articles

Articles

Odd-evil of traffic management takes Srinagar hostage

Editor

Majid Hyderi It cannot be more ridiculous than this. Having miserably failed to manage traffic in the summer capital in the wake of closure of the arterial Jahangir Chowk-Ram Bagh(JCRB) road, the government is resorting to hit-and-trial of everything, including the upcoming plan to make schoolchildren sleepless in the name of traffic management. School kids are not any soldiers and Srinagar is no battlefield. But if the proposal to open schools at 7:00 AM gets the nod, the children will need to be ready before sunrise, much like it happens…

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Don’t write about us, if you can’t write the truth: Kashmiri youth

Editor

His friends saw him lying in a pool of blood on the street and they lost hope. A tear gas shell had struck his head during protests. Showkat Ahmed, 18, regained senses two days later after an emergency operation in the neurosurgery ward of Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital, about 80km away from Handwara in northern Kashmir, where he had suffered the near-fatal injury. “Why did they hit me?” Ahmed asks, barely able to open his eyes. “I was not even part of the protests. I had come…

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Nightmare of nightmares in J&K

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Arun Joshi Kashmir is a paradise on earth — a poetic statement that lifts our spirits and imagination and throws us back to the Mughal era, invoking the irresistible charm of the beauty of forests, mountains, rivers and lakes in the Valley. The Valley retains much of its charm for tourists despite loot of forests and unending greed of encroachers stretching up to water bodies with the help of the bribery-driven system. This is good news. The bad news is: travelling on the road to Kashmir is a nightmare of…

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A new future for Kashmir

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Rajni Shaleen Chopra My Sunday musings began with a tweet by a Kashmiri who writes under the pen-name Ibne battuta. His comment: ‘Damn the system, label it everything you can, and then seek help from it. Love your hypocrisy’. If the same had been stated by a mainland Indian, Kashmir would have been outraged. The sarcasm of a fellow Kashmiri may evoke some introspection. Meanwhile, comments of Kashmiris on social media have made me introspect. A popular Kashmiri poet noted after the Friday namaz: ‘Just met a person who said,…

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The sociology of Kashmiri nicknames

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M.Ashraf For past sometime, film actor Anupam Kher has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. For a change one would not like to counter his campaign against Kashmiri Muslims which, according to some Pandit leaders, has already substantially damaged their cause. Let us concentrate on his name. He is Khar and not Kher. There are many Kashmiri Pandits who have a sub-caste of Khar. This word in Kashmiri means a donkey. Kashmiris have a tradition of not only giving nicknames to people but also shortening and distorting…

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The journey from bullets to ballots : Amanullah Khan

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Kashmiris usually are sceptical about their leaders. In the last 462 years, ever since Mughal Emperor Akbar captured and exiled their last king Yusuf Shah Chak by deceit, they yearn for someone who holds his/her head high against any authority. Most leaders, who started as crusaders in this region, have later succumbed to the lure of power and easy life, leaving people in the lurch. Amanullah Khan, 82, co-founder of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), who had passed away in Rawalpindi on April 26, remained a thorn for India…

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Journalists: The unsung heroes

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Gowhar Geelani Internationally acclaimed organisation Reporters Without Borders (RWB) recently released its 2016 World Press Freedom Index (WPFI), which again highlighted the fact that journalists across the globe are vulnerable to physical attacks, murders, injuries, kidnapping, intimidation and various kinds of pulls and pressures from both state as well as non-state actors. Understandably, the situation for journalists discharging their professional duties in conflict zones such as Syria, Ukraine and Kashmir continues to be depressing as they face wrath from various actors and the vested interests. Journalists working in restive regions…

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J&K’s thrust industrial sectors startups should focus on Kashmir

Editor

Jammu and Kashmir Government with support from central government has categorized certain industrial sectors with growth potential and market avenues in the state and has declared them as thrust areas. All the benefits to these sectors will be available even outside industrial estates. Both the governments provide special assistance, incentives and benefits for investing in these particular sectors. The rationale behind choosing these sectors is the availability of the raw material and consumption of the manufactured and produced goods within the state. The thrust area industries development has been given…

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Hartals do not benefit anyone

Editor

Alternative strategy needs to be evolved to protest and counter the human rights violations Muhammad Asif Rashid Hartaal…..! The dialogue by superstar Amitabh Bachchan in his angry baritone voice in 1983 movie ‘Coolie’ has wooed the women, mesmerized the men, impressed the classes and entertained the masses but who could have imagined even in his wildest dream that in the coming time the word hartal will echo on the streets of Kashmir for decades to come, would be on the tip of tongue of each Kashmiri and would change the…

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NHPC and exploitation of Kashmir’s water resource

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Aaliya Ahmed None other than a former minister for PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, Taj Mohi-ud-Din, has described NHPC in J&K State as East India Company, fleecing the natural resources and giving peanuts in return. NHPC is back in limelight as a recent RTI application by a Delhi-based NGO NGO, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI),  has revealed that NHPC has earned from 2001 to 2015 Rs 194 billion from the sale of power generated from the different power projects being executed by them here. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has realized…

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