GULMARG
Bollywood is back. Ranbir Kapoor and his erstwhile girlfriend Deepika Padukone and many others were seen cooling each others’ heels in Gulmarg’s sub-zero temperature outside the picturesque Khyber Resorts. The Ayan Mukerji directed film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani was shot at many places including Manali, Udaipur, Jaipur, Paris, Mumbai and now in Kashmir. After a lavish party that the leading lady threw for the crew, they moved to Pahalgam and would now be in Srinagar. It has Aditya Roy Kapur and Kalki Koechlin as second line actors.
CHENNAI
Tennis star Sania Mirza was hurt and prevented from playing for India in the upcoming event in Astana, Kazakhstan. She was replaced by Ankita Raina, a Kashmir Pandit girl based in Chennai. While it was reported almost everywhere, sections of the KPs were angry. Reason: Chief Minister Omar did not use Twitter as he did when Parvez Rasool was selected for the under-18 team. Rasool is flying to Australia for a match.
JAMMU
Finally he was ‘caught’. State’s current forest 
commissioner Ejaz Iqbal was found by an official committee responsible for encroaching upon two kanal land in Sunjwan belt of Jammu when he was the local Tehsildar. Now an IAS officer, Iqbal wanted to avail the scandalous Roshni scheme to get it transferred to his name. He has been charge sheeted. Does it matter? Those in secretariat say it does not because the family has a long history of managing these things, even formal cases do not count. Ask his brother!
Bangaluru
The Chairman and CEO of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, Mushtaq Ahmad, inaugurated the new zonal office in presence of bank’s president, Abdul Rauf Bhat and banks zonal head (South) Muhammad Amin Khan. The states’ only listed company is celebrating its 75 years of service this week. The bank shifted its zonal office (South) Bangalore to Union Street, Infantry Road this week. The office equipped with latest technology and is spread over on an area of 3700 sq feet.
CHENAINI
Leighton Weslpun, the forum implementing the 12-km Chenani-Nashri tunnel is in a crisis. Five workers were seriously injured recently when an untreated part crumbled over them. They were dragged somehow alive and driven to the hospital. It triggered a strike as workers accused the company of deducting compensation amount from their salaries, highhandedness and undue harassment and breach of agreement. They said that Rs 10 lakh that the company paid to a worker Chuni Lal’s family, who died in the tunnel earlier, is being deducted from the workers salary.
New Dehli
‘
Aalav’ (The call), a Kashmiri theatre play inspired by an Irish tragedy ‘Riders to the sea’ directed by Arshad Mushtaq, a noted Kashmiri theatre director, playwright and filmmaker was performed to a jam packed audience at historic LTG auditorium, New Delhi. The play was presented by a group called “theatre for Kashmir”. It is the story of the endless wait of Kashmiri daughters who awaits the arrival of sons and fathers. The group is planning a public run of the play in Srinagar this spring.
