BRANWAR
Thanks to bad weather; chief minister Omar Abdullah got to show his cricketing skills at Branwar, Budgam recently. Omar was in the village to inspect 7.5 MW Small Hydro Power Project (SHPP) set up on IPP mode over Doodganga Nallah, a distributary of Sukhnag. Talking about achieving the goals of self-sufficiency in power generation, Omar said 9000 MWs of power are in offing within next some years besides about two dozen small and medium power projects are at various stages of execution under IPP mode in the State.
KARGIL
Pakistani and Indian armies have allegedly broken a 14-year-old calm in Kargil by violating a ceasefire in the Drass sector. An official report said, “There was medium-level exchange of fire in the Drass sector during the intervening night of August 11 and 12. But there isn’t any report of any violation.” If the reports of exchanges of fires are true it would be the first time since the 1999 Kargil war that the two forces have violated the ceasefire in this sector. The Kargil war saw two sides engage in clashes that left hundreds of army men dead on both sides.
AUSTRALIA
Giampiero Pagliuochini, a European who has virtually mapped the world on his two wheeler has found Kashmir to be a ‘wonderful place’ but finds the preponderance of forces distasteful. A passionate traveller, he has dedicated every two months a year for travelling and so far since 1983 has travelled nearly 1,75,000 kilometres on different bikes. He has rode his bike from Italy to South America to as far as South Africa. He will be coming to Kashmir again in October, probably with other 10 bikers, he says.
Mumbai
J&K Bank has been felicitated as a top bank in India at the Dun & Bradstreet- Polaris Financial Technology Awards 2013. The Bank was selected as the Best Private Sector Bank under the category ‘Rural Reach’ for the Dun & Bradstreet Banking Awards 2013. The award recognizes bank’s growth and resilience; its credentials and sound fundamentals. It is the recognition of bank’s longstanding commitment of reaching out to people living in rural regions, hard-to-access locations and backward areas.
BANGALORE
A 12-minutes short film, ‘The Last Day’, directed by Siddhartha Gigoo, was screened at The Indian Independent Film Festival in Bangalore. Film tells tale of migrant Kashmiri Pandits who lived their life in canvas tents in Jammu. There are four main characters played by leading theatre artists of Kashmir – ML Saraf, Bharati Zaroo, MP Sharma and Kusum Tiko. Their life depicts how militancy affected human relationships and the 39 years old writer, Gigoo, has donned a cameo role. If everything goes well, he will be making a feature film on the same subject, the writer was quoted as having said.
Srinagar
After her stylish trawled markets of New Delhi to make her look glamorous, Freida Pinto, the actor of Slumdog Millionaire, used Dal lake as background for the photo shoot of this month’s Condé Nast Traveler’s cover. An Indian army officer’s niece, Pinto, says that she was always fond of Kashmir’s beauty and she always wanted to bring it on to an international podium. She feels Kashmir is not known as a beautiful destination as much as it deserves to be!
Leh
Indian Army has again sighted mysterious unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in Ladakh sector along the Line of Actual Control with China. There have been almost 100 sightings over a period of time but the Union Defence Ministry have not confirmed the reports as yet. Early this month, the army had sighted some similar objects. They were later found to be planets- Jupiter and Venus, which are clearly visible from the high altitude and thin atmosphere terrain of Ladakh. Last year, the 14 Corps, deployed along Kargil-Leh and the frontiers with China, had reported sighting of UFOs in Thakung near Pangong Tso (Lake).
In 2013’s Amarnath Yatra, there were only 13 natural deaths as compared to 93 in 2012 and 106 in 2011.
This year 353442 yatris visited Amarnath cave during its 55 day span.
