Renewed Killings

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In a big blow to hopes of people of Kashmir men in uniform have once again resorted to civilian killings. A few days back as the events unfolded in North Kashmir Township of Handwara after the allegations of molestation  on the security forces lead to heavy protests and in action of security forces three precious lives were lost.

As the pro-freedom groups announced strike call the very next day one more precious lives was lost in Kupwara.

These killings are a setback to recently sworn in Government of first ever women  Chief Minister Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti.She too seems to be upset over all this.

 

Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, met the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, at Delhi and discussed with him the unfortunate firing incident at Handwara yesterday in which three civilians, including a woman, were killed.

 

During the meeting, the Chief Minister called for a time-bound enquiry into the incident so that those responsible for the deaths are handed exemplary punishment. This, she said, will act as a deterrent against such incidents in future.

Mehbooba Mufti said such incidents shake the confidence of the people and adversely impact the efforts of the State government in consolidating peace dividends.

She said the loss of lives of the innocent civilians cannot be compensated by whatsoever means.

 

However, she urged the Defence Minister to announce adequate compensation to the families of the victims, who have suffered such an irreparable loss.

The Defence Minister assured the Chief Minister of a detailed time-bound probe to fix the responsibility in the firing incident at Handwara. The Chief Minister also discussed several other wide-ranging issues with Manohar Parrikar.

Pertinently, the Defense Minister assured Mehbooba Mufti, as regards the issues raised, early positive consideration by his Ministry.  One hopes a tough action is taken against those responsible for these innocent killings and these killings are stopped immediately.

Informed suspicion is the path towards intellectual salvation: Professor Ashis Nandy

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Ashis Nandy   is an eminent Intellectual and Indian political psychologist, social theorist, and critic. A trained clinical psychologist, Nandy has provided theoretical critiques of European colonialism, development, modernity, secularism, Hindutva, science, technology, nuclearism, cosmopolitanism, and utopia. He has also offered alternative conceptions relating to cosmopolitanism and critical traditionalism. In addition to the above, Nandy has offered an original historical profile of India’s commercial cinema as well as critiques of state and violence.

 

 

Nandy had received the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007.In 2008 he appeared on the list of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll of the Foreign Policy magazine, published by The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In an Exclusive interview with The News Kashmir Professor Ashish Nandy talks to Rameez Makhdoomi.

Where you always inclined to be polymath?
I did not knew that I would be one day termed as polymath. I do not believe in categorization .I have never defined myself .I was ex student of science and then I left it after some years, than studied clinical psychology as my post doctoral  research focused on it and was  also trained as sociologist .
Any specific motivation towards it?
I have always believed in maintaining margins and not been absolutely attached with one field .
Strictly speaking, I do not belong to single field and have enjoyed this marginal status. I have thus got freedom from traditional standard vocabulary.
How do you view the Jammu and Kashmir on academic traditions?
Jammu and Kashmir has a distinct intellectual tradition. The suffering has harnessed the intellectual tradition of Kashmir which cannot come in normal novels and circumstances.
What are your focus areas ?
I have few concerns and in a precise manner two focal areas of interest -one is the human creativity and other is human destructiveness because that too has been part of human nature.
How much relevant are Gandhian thoughts in present era?
Gandhian values are very much relevant in present era as globe is witnessing a bad cycle of violence and anger. A lot of this violence does not have target as violence precedes the target.
Would be fair to state that research related paradigms are still unimpressive in India?
Oh yes definitely. The research related paradigms are yet to relate with the actual problems faced by our societies. The main thrust is just to get good status via research which is cause of serious concern.
Any specific interest to have book on Jammu and Kashmir?
I do not have much knowledge to pen down a book on the issues of Jammu and Kashmir. Although, I comment on the issues faced by JandK.
What is your message to youth especially those pursuing  research?
Suspect everything as exercise of informed suspicion is the path towards intellectual salvation. Only divine beings can be perfect, human beings have laid foundation of nothing perfect be it nation States, democracy  or systems  .Do not Trust even your work because as human beings we carry the burden of humanity.

Khyber Shame

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Poison has been sold in name of food items in Kashmir. Once again the Khyber corporate house of Kashmir has bought the corporate of Kashmir shame by being convicted of selling unsafe milk products.
In this regard, Court declared Khyber milk unsafe, imposed fine and convicted nominated person of the company.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate Budgam on Monday held M/S Khyber Agro Farms Pvt Ltd guilty for selling substandard and unsafe milk. The court has imposed a fine of Rs 9 laks on the company and besides it has ordered six months imprisonment to the In-Charge Operations nominated by the said company. The court has also declared Food Analyst Kashmir either incapable or dishonest and has ordered for his immediate removal.

The court passed these directions in the case of State through Zeenat Ayoub Food Safety Officer area Budgam (complainant) V/s Incharge Operations nominated person for M/S Khyber Agro Farms Pvt Ltd, Muhammad Shafi Ganaie, son of late Ghulam Muhammad, resident of Repora Lar, Ganderbal and Ghulam Ali Khan, son of Ghulam Muhamamd, a resident of Wahdatpora Budgam, proprietor M/S Yaseem Provision Store main chowk Budgam.
It is high time all such corporate companies compromising with human health get the harshest possible punishment.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate Budgam Imtiaz Ahmed Lone in its judgement said: “this is not first case where it has come to the surface that the milk product manufactured by the accused company contains detergent, urea and other dangerous chemicals not only in milk but other edible products and in this behalf prosecution has been launched against the accused company and others. The accused company is facing similar cases before various courts,therefore, the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused company is ruled out. The apex court of the state has also taken cognizance suo moto against the product in question and the product is presently before the Honorable Supreme Court of the country, for the same offence.

One hopes the corporate of Kashmir maintains the desired principles and standards.

 

Kashmiri Youth Activists take on NIT Row

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News Kashmir Desk

As political temperatures are rising over clash between local students and non-local students during loss of India to Westindies in cricket world cup, this is the view of eminent youth activists over the issue.

Faizaan Bhat, Writer, activist and Student of NIT writes -“For all those people who says Kashmiri’s are communal let me remind them we are same people who gave yatra food,shelter while our trucks carrying food etc were burned and our people beaten.This Nit issues is all planned by some saffronised people.”

Eminent Youth Activist Muhammad Tauseef writes -“NIT issue nothing but divisive and vitriolic politics at its best. Things are being blown out of proportion. Media and leaders fanning the flame.

Need of the hour is resumption of classes and united stand of both local and non-local students about genuine grievances…

 

BUT I still believe the entire incident should be looked into deeply from alpha to omega and the culprits should be dealt as strongly as were the innocent students in the Subharti University cricket match row….

 

Fringe groups very well fed from behind to further foment trouble, worsen the situation and widen the wedge…Kashmiri students being demonised ingenuinely.”

Mushtaq ul Haq Ahmad Sikander Prominent Activist and Researcher writes -“Today I alongwith youth activists, Muhammad Tauseef and Faizaan Bhat visited National Institute of Technology (NIT) to take the stock of situation about the polarisation between local and non local students. We were not allowed inside the campus, but what we could garner by talking to local students in person and non local ones over phone, was that fringe elements are trying to create a divide that will lead to the ruin of this institution. Further these fringe elements try to get sympathy from the Hindutva regime by involving politicians who are ready to communalise any issue. Both the saner elements of the student groups are ready for reconciliation, but the fringe elements are hell bent on escalating the situation. We are trying to mediate and formulate a joint statement of both the groups.”

Growing Suicide Rate

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Life is a priceless gift from God.   Even when a human being has no material belongings, life will still be possessed.   In light of these observations, it is very rational and principled to believe committing suicide is dreadful because you are always better off than someone else out there. Why would you want to throw your life away?

.

. Unfortunately, despite being the greatest vice, the suicide rate has increased alarmingly over the past few years in the Kashmir Valley. Just a few decades back, Kashmir was among few places across the globe with very low suicide rates. Paradoxically, over the past two decades the graph of suicides has run north. With the growing depression among masses owing to conflict and changing times the suicide rate has risen in Kashmir considerably enough. Many voices believe that the breakdown of institution of parenting being the single largest reason behind rising suicides

The other factors responsible for most of the suicides in the valley are unsuccessful love affairs, failure of students to meet the expectation of their parents.

The need of the time is to provide  strong counseling to depressed people to fight the pain and challenges of life. We have to understand that Pain is for the living, souls do not feel earthly pain as that is an experience that is reserved for when we are in our physical bodies, now, heartbreak is ruled by our emotional selves and the emotions primarily manifest on the astral plane, we need to recognize the loveliness of life and fight boldly with unfavorable situation rather than taking foolish and immoral step of ending our life. Life is a precious gift of Allah and we need to value it.

 

Much ado about nothing

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News Kashmir Exclusive

 

When the former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed Passed away many had thought that new government formation in Jammu and Kashmir is matter of few days or hours, but as PDP took rigid stance the hopes faded away.

PDP made it clear that they want concrete Confidence building Measures to form the Government with BJP and even gave signals that it is ready for fresh elections rather than compromising on its core values.

But as now the picture is clear that PDP chief and prominent women politician Mehbooba Mufti is all set to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir after being unanimously nominated as party’s legislature party leader in a meeting of PDP legislators and leaders at  her residence in Srinagar, Thursday 24th March, many believe that after these months of political negotiations with BJP the  PDP has given impression that it has been ‘much ado about nothing’.

Pertinently, even in the first week of February and also few days back it looked PDP and BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir is on the verge of collapse. On their Part, BJP sources suggested that to maintain the core support base intact in Jammu they are not ready to compromise or listen to dictations .

PDP on its part stated that they need time bound commitment on completion of projects and agenda of alliance that walks the talk. “Mehbooba Mufti wants assurances from the top BJP leadership. The two parties are ideologically very different, so PDP wants time-bound implementation of agenda of alliance. The assurances must come from the very top,” said a senior leader of the PDP just some days back.

Mohmammad Tauseef, a Political analyst , while talking to News Kashmir stated -“If we do serious Political Analysis of the situation, the question that arises why three precious months were wasted for government formation as nothing new has come out. The government being formed is setup on the base of old formula with no new approach coming up .The perception that has gone among the masses is that PDP has not been able to gain anything despite this long delay in the Government formation .PDP  grasroot workers would also be thinking that this long interval has brought them back to square one .It would be now interesting to more how the Government runs but the path to governance would be now more stiff and beset with challenges.”

On the otherhand,” a senior BJP leader had sometime back stated –“There will be no further assurances given to PDP. The state government is committed to work for the development of all three regions of the state, which include Jammu, Kashmir and Leh. One party alone cannot dictate terms. We are in touch with the senior leaders of PDP and the regional party has to decide.”

From ground zero opinion to analysis  by political analysts the marathon wait for the Government in Jammu and Kashmir seems to have yielded nothing to PDP in terms of gaining upper hand or anything that can be dubbed as concrete.

Transformation:- As If It Happened

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Writer Syed Zumair Bukhari

 

 

Isolated every now & then, up the creep,

Life goes on with musings of heap;

Hollowness tempts me deepen deep,

Blissful often unhollows me, i cry ,i weep;

Why couldnt uh hear me? Am i that nigh?

I’ve veiled your reminiscence with every sigh;

On the wedge of hills,i scream your name,

My soul stretches tight across the skies,

The rainbow furnishes shade to reach you,

The time resumes to feel you, to feel us,

I’m burnt-out in my covetousness, blazing high,

Your shadow furnishes breeze to my lingering soul,

I espy uh in the burnt-out ends of smoky day,

Though you’ve a great vision of boulewards,

Your glimpse fades to astonish me,

And slowly I live I die, though it hardly understands,

I being a hypocrite keep things go on,

Uh exist no more in my nest, so doesnt i,

Somewhere far away, I yet feel us,

Abhorrence jammed ecstasy, life walked out,

Time passed by degrees, detached us,

Nothing much to carve up,

We departed long turns back,

Distant us,

Strangers Us . . .

 

Reforms in Education needed

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Nazima Parray

The education sector in Kashmir has seen a drastic change over the past years. Despite the fact that government of India has introduced number of literacy programme and many other literacy campaigns one third of state’s population is illiterate. Every year huge investment is made by the government so as to improve infrastructure in schools. But this is very disappointing to see number of government schools and colleges without facilities that are required to push the education sector from the old rugged system to the ever growing state of the art pattern. The ratio of school going girls has declined only due to lack of basic health facilities in the government schools and colleges. The irony is that no one is ready to admit their children in government schools. The teachers and the other staff are highly qualified and are drawing a healthy amount of salaries from the government but quality education has become a distant dream. The government schools follow the same out dated curriculum and teaching methodology which is of no use in present innovative world.  Fear of severe punishments from the teachers has become another nightmare for the students with the result illiteracy rate have increased. Sense of morality is sacrosanct for the teachers as well as for the students. It is a sense of morality that will awaken the sense of humanity in an individual. Students should learn these things from their teachers which are their role model .But these things seems less important to the teachers. Tolerance level and intellect bend of mind is seen lacking in them. Habit of listening is a considered healing for the one who is speaking. Our teachers have become a very bad listener and our students have turned dumb. Nobody is ready to give them a patient hearing. With the result they have become distracted and disinterested. Majority of teachers are seen disinterested in teaching. They are teaching either for the monetary purpose or are there by default. Passion dedication is totally absent among many teachers with the result every year our schools drop out ratio is alarmingly increasing. Our youth needs vision and credible guidance from the teachers. Above all they need an example which in our education system is none.

Not only has this but the present political situation and turmoil across the valley become an apparent cause of illiteracy in Kashmir.  Corruption and favoritism in the government sector is on the other hand very discouraging for these poor people. Society at large is also playing its part towards illiteracy. Number of young boys has to quit school only to support their families. On the other hand many parents want to marry their daughters early so as to ease their burden. Discrimination among upper class and lower class has created a barrier for poor students to get stress free education.  It is not that teaching fraternity in the education sector especially in the government is completely responsible for the mess this sector is in, the other factors especially the apathy on the part of government and the bureaucratic setup have a nasty hand which cannot be ruled out. To bring this sector back on rails we need some tough decision making at the top level and some brushing and combing at each level so that the education in real sense is imparted to the children in the most relevant manner. This sprucing at each level should not include the government, bureaucrat   and teachers alone but also the parents, civil society, intellectuals, media and the students themselves. In addition to the changes and improvements that need to be taken care of in the system on the fronts involving teachers, government, students etc, we need thorough revamp in the infrastructure also. The modern techniques with modern equipments and gadgetry need to be employed for adopting unconventional teaching practices. The airy and spacious classrooms with sufficient lighting and comfortable heating arrangements will have to be put in place to give a sense of comfort to the students and to make their learning more attractive. Proper curriculum with the latest teaching methods and the facilities of modern libraries, laborites and computer labs are imperative in the contemporary educational setup. The ease of access to the internet and a contact through interschool competition, symposia are some add-ons that would keep the students glued and enhance the interest of the students and teachers in the process. The need of the hour is not only to focus on books and blackboard but to imbibe the new technology in to the system that along with the general line studies would expand the imagination and intellect of the students

(The writer is a research scholar)

Declining Wild Life

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Wild life is a very notable ingredient of our ecology and our ecological balance   depends upon a healthy and varied wild life. We cannot in any manner chip away at the significance of wild life. When Compared to plants, animals although make up only a small part of the total mass of living matter on earth. Despite this, they play a important part in shaping and maintaining our natural environments

 

Many environments are directly influenced by the way animals live. Grasslands, for example, exist partly because grasses and grazing animals have evolved a close partnership, which prevents other plants from taking hold. Tropical forests also owe their existence to animals, because a large amount of their trees rely on animals to distribute their pollen and seeds. Soil is partly the result of animal activity, because earthworms and other invertebrates help to break down dead remains and recycle the nutrients that they contain. Without its animal life, the soil would soon become compacted and infertile.

 

But as a matter of great distress, the world’s wild life has declined to one third over the last 40 years. Pertinently, the massive plummet in wild life was figured in the  edition of land mark research conducted by WWF some years back.

 

 

Pertinently, The estimated losses of wildlife cross 50 percent in the tropics while in tropical freshwater ecosystems alone the average loss is as big as 70 percent as per the 2012 edition of the Living Planet Report. In a hurting note, it is learnt that the freshwater dolphin from China’s Yangtze River seems to have become extinct now and the wild tigers face 70 percent decline in their population.

Even in our beautiful valley of Kashmir we are witness to great loss in terms of wildlife on account of havoc caused to their natural habitats. If we continue to lose wildlife at this pace our natural environment is slated to face more catastrophic dimensions.

Kashmir Drainage System in Shambles

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News Kashmir Exclusive

Drainage systems are key areas of development and contribute to sustainable development  of city and  balance the diverse issues that influence the development of communities. An efficient drainage system has to take into account many realities. Approaches to manage surface water that take account of water quantity (flooding), water quality (pollution) and amenity issues are collectively referred to as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS).

Kashmir Valley has over the decades seen its drainage system going from bad to worse. Few hours of rain are enough to waterlog and flood the streets of Srinagar city and other areas of Kashmir. Thanks to inefficient drainage system Kashmir gets converted into a cesspool of mud and water as soon as it rains . The drains start  overflowing with just few millimeters of rains . Be it heart of Srinagar the areas like  Maisuma, Regal chowk, MA Road or Old City areas of Nowhatta and Khanyar  and many other parts the drainage system fails immediately  . On the other hand, scores of areas have no drainage system  in place. The low lying areas are the worst hit where residents state that  slight shower blocked flow of water and as streets gets choked they are restricted to homes.

Importantly, the devastating floods that shattered Kashmir Valley in 2014 had caused much damage to its fragile drainage system but no noticeable efforts have been made to repair the same. No new drainage project had been started in the last few years which are complicating the matters further.

Sheikh Sameer, a teacher by profession, while commenting on this issue states-“The drainage system of entire Kashmir Valley presents an abject outlook. During this current rain-spell it has been badly exposed, with water logging and Jamming almost entire Srinagar and other parts of the Kashmir Valley. There are many illegal structures – few of them even inside the flood spill channels. Many government offices have come inside or near those channels. They have been choked leaving a little room for water to discharge. Unfortunately enough, our world famous  lakes have  slowly migrated from the status of being a fresh water lakes to becoming a part of drainage system where they have  become a recipient of all the discharges from households to industrial effluents without these wastes actually being checked by  any filtering systems. We are witness  to the fact that government is sleeping over the issue. Pertinently,  Illegal encroachment are  still going on rather intensified after September 2014 floods and no initiative have been taken  to take them task. In the majority of the areas of Kashmir the drainage system has failed miserably . It is important that all drainage systems are properly maintained and at  regular intervals .Government need to outsource this entire Drainage and flood management system as the current setup is failing to achieve any concrete result on this count.”

As a matter of great worry, our existing  drainage systems  causes grave problems of flooding, pollution or damage to the environment and are not proving to be sustainable in the context of wider challenges from climate change and urbanization, and current drainage system   is virtually in mess   .