Joint Resistance Leadership may end its hartal politics

The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik are mulling to shun the two-decade practice of calling strikes after every untoward incident. Sources said the JRL is thinking about replacing the shutdowns with protests similar to ones carried against the proposal to repeal Article 35-A of the constitution. They said during the ongoing consultation with all sections of the society that include religious organisations, lawyers, traders, transporters, employees, academicians, civil society members, it was agreed that continuous hartals were not serving any…

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Rebel transgender Javaid Ahmad who coined Ragda in 2008

In 2008, when the first of a hat-trick of summer uprisings broke out leaving more than 60 dead and over a 100 injured, the resistance vocabulary of Kashmiris got richer by one more word: ragda. Ragda went on to become the Kashmiri equivalent to the Palestinian intifada and has made its way into many news stories, articles and opinion pieces on Kashmir carried by various newspapers and periodicals ever since.  A rebel transgender behind the epic coinage and a series of slogans has been the mascot of resistance in and…

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1947 Jammu Genocide Unfolded

On the 70th anniversary of the organised and officially patronised Jammu massacre, almost nothing has been written by India’s mainstream media, keeping alive the tradition of sweeping this enormous human tragedy under the carpet. We pieces together a series of events that turned various areas of Jammu into killing fields. At a time when trainloads of Hindus and Sikhs were coming to Hindustan, leaving the newly-formed nation state of Pakistan behind, and tens of thousands of Muslims were boarding the trains to Pakistan from Delhi, something terrible was happening in…

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Mirwaiz Umar Farooq among top five influential persons in subcontinent

Hurriyat (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has for the fifth consecutive year been chosen among the 500 most influential Muslim personalities across the globe by Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (RISISC) Jordan and one among the five top influential persons in the sub-continent. “Dr Farooq inherited the title of the 14th Mirwaiz, (traditional preacher of Muslims in Kashmir) in 1990 after the martyrdom of his father. At the young age of twenty, he became the chairman and founder of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a grassroots coalition of pro-freedom parties in…

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16 Mentally challenged persons, including 2 women killed by forces outside camps in 15 years

Government forces operating in Kashmir Tuesday said that they would perhaps have to modify their standard operating procedure (SOP) to minimise killings of mentally-challenged persons who wander around security camps during late hours. The tacit admission by the forces that there is no specific mechanism to deal with mentally-challenged persons near the camps comes barely two days after Rayees Ahmad Wani, a mentally challenged person was shot dead outside an army camp in Shopian. Rayees was not the first person to be killed in such a manner. In February this…

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Journalists sought action against IG Basant Rath for slapping scribe

Journalists, camera persons and the management committee of the Press Club of Jammu on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to Governor Satya Pal Malik, seeking action against Inspector General (Traffic) Basant Rath for allegedly slapping a journalist and snatching his mobile phone for unknown reasons. In a meeting here, the journalists unanimously decided to submit a copy of the memorandum to Malik seeking action against the officer. The journalists had also taken out a protest march against him on Tuesday. They put forth various suggestions in the meeting after which a…

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Suppression has become unbearable for people: Separatists discuss Valley situation

The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik Tuesday met at Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman’s Hyderpora residence and said they are going to have wide-range consultation with all sections of the society to frame a comprehensive joint strategy against “Indian suppression”, which has reached beyond tolerable levels. After being released from their prolonged house confinement and police custody, Mirwaiz and Malik held a meeting with Geelani at his Hyderpora residence. The three leaders had a thorough discussion on the prevailing situation in…

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Probe all corruption cases of BJP-PDP Govt: NC, Cong ask Governor

As Governor Satya Pal Malik has established Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) to fight corruption in the State, National Conference (NC) and Congress have urged the Governor to reopen all cases of wrong doings of previous PDP-BJP coalition government. Talking to Kashmir Post, NC General Secretary, Ali Mohammad Sagar said the party had raised the corruption cases in nine different government departments in last assembly session. “However, the then PDP-BJP government brushed all of them aside,” he said. Sagar alleged rampant corruption and nepotism practices were going on in Transport, Education,…

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1947: First Blood

Within 24 hours after Kashmir acceded to India in 1947, the Srinagar airport was not only the epicentre of the first war that India and Pakistan fought over the Vale but a stage for Kashmir’s first cordon and a massacre. We traces the survivors of Kashmir first post-partition massacre to tell the story of dusky Gogo hamlet, that was obliterated from history He remembers everything as if that dark horror shook him only yesterday… Dusk had barely taken over when soldiers knocked at their doors, asking them to come out…

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Durbar Move: Exchequer spends crores on Durbar shift exercise

In the era of digitalisation and information technology, the cash-starved state spends a whopping Rs 100 crore on biannual Durbar move practice every year. A major chunk of the amount is utilised on “shifting” the official files, records and documents. The Durbar move is a ritual of shifting the civil secretariat every six months from one capital city to the other. According to the official order, this year the Durbar will close at Srinagar on October 26 and reopen in Jammu on November 5 for the winter session. “All departments…

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