URI
Remember the story about Feroz-ud-Din Mir, the Uri resident who claims to be 141 when Kashmir Life met him a year back. The story was picked up by dozens of international publications last week. The focus of the international interest is that if his certificates are considered all right, he must be the world’s oldest surviving resident. British newspapers report that the Guinness World Records has started investigating the old man’s claims. As reported by KL, his certificate suggests he was born on March 10, 1872 and he currently lives with his fourth wife.
TEETWAL
Kashmir problem will wait as the problems around Kashmir are immediate priorities. The latest on this front was a prompt response by Pakistan army when they returned the corpse of a young boy to their Indian counterparts in Karnah. The boy Farooq Illiyas was a Teetwal resident and met a road accident. His body, however, fell into the Neelum and was washed to PaK. As the local army unit got in touch with its counterpart on the other side, the body was fished out and returned within hours.
DELHI
CNN-IBN’s Srinagar Bureau Chief Mufti Islah and The Caravan magazine’s Mehboob Jeelani got the Ramnath Goenka Award for their 2010 reporting from J&K in Broadcast and print. The sixth Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards were given to 29 journalists in 17 categories, selected by a 10-member jury. India’s Chief Justice P Sathasivam presided over the function. Earlier the award was received by Muzamil Jaleel, Mir Ehsan, Zaffar Iqbal and Syed Nazakat.
LEH
It was again last week when around 50 Chinese soldiers intruded into Ladakh’s Chumar, around 300 kms from Leh, and stayed overnight on this side of the LoAC on July 16. They had their banner drill before their departure. On July 11, Chinese choppers had violated the airspace. Last month, they had taken Indian army’s surveillance camera with them. The incursion coincided with Delhi approving setting up of 50000-strong mountain strike corps along the border with China. It had triggered gossip and humour. A FB status said: ‘Chinese horses are grazing in Ladakh’!
CHENNAI
Joshiy, the director of Nair Saab that made Mammootty a super hit is back to the valley for Salaam Kashmir with Jayaram and Suresh Gopi in the lead. Scripted by Sethu, the film revolves around two men – Sreekumar and Tomy. Sreekumar is a homemaker as his wife is a working lady. Then enters Tomy Eppan Devassy into their lives and that offers an intriguing story being shot in Kashmir.
CALIFORNIA
Kashmiri student Yasir Altaf Zargar got his space in the Apple’s Hall of Fame for helping the company solve security issues in its web servers. He had detected vulnerability in the giant’s website. The company acknowledged his work formally. He was even paid for his services – a $ 200 cheque. Zargar, 20 is a resident of Mattan in Islamabad who did his graduation from the state run college. He is currently pursuing his post graduation.
Only 80% of the 37607 houses destroyed in October 2005 earthquake have been rebuilt so far.
1530 is the number of private nursing homes, clinical establishments, labs and ultrasound units in J&K and 944 of them are in Kashmir and 586 in Jammu.
