AUCKLAND
Umran Malik made his one-day international debut against New Zealand becoming the second player from Jammu and Kashmir to play for India’s national cricket team. The 23-year-old Malik bowled five overs conceding 19 runs while bagging two wickets. Now, the BCCI has announced that Malik will replace fast bowler Mohammad Shami in the ODI series against Bangladesh. Sami is suffering from a shoulder injury.
Of the 23 lakh tourists who visited Kashmir in 2022, 3.5 lakh were Amarnath pilgrims.
KARGIL
The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Kargil passed a resolution seeking Statehood for Ladakh and protection for the rights of locals under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution. The four-point resolution was passed in the House and supported by all the members, except the BJP-affiliated Councillors, who abstained from the General Council meeting of LAHDC Kargil. DDC Doda, in the meanwhile, passed a resolution rejecting the new academic calendar. It said the students of the region are facing problems because of weather conditions and the administration must retain the status quo ante. BJP supported the resolution.
A glossary of 3900 key terms and concepts of political science were translated from English to the Kashmiri language in a five-day workshop at the University of Kashmir (KU).
JAMMU
To popularise the Sanskrit language, a trader body in Jammu announced issuing bills for products in the city warehouse in the language. The body will also inaugurate a Sanskrit market in the biggest and oldest grain mandi of Jammu. Meanwhile, the Urdu language was dropped from the examination of Naib Tehsildar in the revenue department, years after the language lost official status post-August 5.
The central government has released Rs 208 Cr of balance GST compensation to Jammu and Kashmir for the period April to June 2022.
BUDGAM
Bashir Ahmad Bhat and Safdar Ali Mir, two Sozni artisans from the Sonpah village at Beerwah tehsil of Budgam district received the Shilp Guru and National Award for their work from Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar. The Shilp Guru and National Award ceremony was held at Vigyan Bhawan and was organised by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India.
As per Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) J&K chapter, 12 per cent of the heritage sites or buildings have been dismantled completely in the last two decades while six per cent are either in danger of disappearance or have been found in an advanced state of decay.
JAMMU
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has said the government is flexible on reconsidering suggestions given by the Higher Education experts on the Jammu and Kashmir Public Universities Bill. His remarks came amidst opposition to the State Universities Act by some of the University Associations, faculty and other bodies who cited that the Universities will lose autonomy if the new Act is implemented. Now the concerned faculty has started seeking support from the political class to fight the new bill that aims to have a single window control on all academic premises in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Chief Electoral Office said that there has been a net increase of 772872 electors in the final electoral roll which is a 10.19 per cent net increase of the registered electors over the draft roll. The final electoral rolls have a total of 8359771 electors, out of which 4291687 are male, 184 are the third gender and 4067900 are females.
SRINAGAR
In a way, it was a show of strength. The party that was decimated post-August 2019, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) managed a respectable show last week. The key attraction was the brief speech by Waheed Parra, the party’s youth leader who was in jail for two years and is on bail. Asking youth to shun guns, Parra said that killings of youth across the board haven’t changed in Naya Kashmir which the union government is claimed to have built after August 5.
Mehbooba Mufti told the cheering crowd, mostly women, that whatever Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) snatched from the people of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, would be brought back with interest. She vowed to continue the struggle for the restoration of J&K’s special status and lashed out at the BJP for the scrapping of Article 370 in 2019.
The day after, she vacated Fair View residence on posh Gupkar road and shifted to a private residence in Khimber.
Of 5896 persons registered AID/HIV patients across Jammu and Kashmir, 1332 have died.
SRINAGAR
The Shankaracharya temple has been illuminated with the G-20 logo as India has taken over the presidency of the international group. The Shankaracharya or the Jyeshteshwara Temple, situated atop the Shankaracharya hill on the Zabarwan Range, was illuminated with the G20 logo as part of the nationwide programme to illuminate important buildings to celebrate India’s presidency. India formally assumed the G20 presidency on December 1 with a focus on counter-terrorism and “unity” in tackling global challenges, such as economic slowdown and climate crisis. The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies.
JAMMU
Jammu’s Saini community created history by hitting the roads to protest against the government’s decision to include them in the list of other castes which are entitled to four per cent reservation in jobs and professional educational institutions in Jammu and Kashmir. Following protests by the community, which lives in certain pockets along the International Border (IB), the Jammu and Kashmir government had to put the whole list in abeyance till further orders. Meanwhile, the Gujjar Bakarwal Joint Action Committee has suspended their march from Baramulla to Kathua against the inclusion of Pahari and other communities into the Scheduled Tribe (ST) fold. The decision was taken after the government assured the Gujjar-Bakerwal community that the Paharis and others would be accommodated into a separate ST block which wouldn’t affect their existing reservation quota.
DELHI
The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on a plea by Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Dr Mohammad Ayub Mattoo challenging the government’s decision to constitute the delimitation commission for redrawing the assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul reserved the judgement after hearing all the parties in the case. The Centre and Election Commission of India (ECI) have defended the decision to conduct the delimitation exercise which increased the number of assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir. The plea had said the delimitation exercise was carried out contrary to the scheme of the constitution, and alteration of boundaries and inclusion of extended areas could not be done.
SRINAGAR
The State Investigation Agency (SIA) grilled senior Hurriyat leader Prof Abdul Gani Bhat for nearly eight hours after he was summoned by the probing agency at JIC Jammu in a case related to militancy and Hawala funding. The case pertains to former minister Jatendar Singh alias Babu Singh who was earlier arrested. Officials claimed that during the questioning Bhat revealed many facts regarding the money received from across the border by different Hurriyat leaders.
KASHMIR
The Jammu and Kashmir State Election Commission ordered the election to two District Development Council seats of Drugmulla (Kupwara) and Hajin-A (Bandipore) on December 5. The counting would take place on December 8, the order states. Earlier, the counting of votes in these segments was stopped at the eleventh hour on December 22 after it was found that two contesting candidates were not Indian citizens. According to the poll body’s orders, Saumya Sadaf (contesting candidate from Drugmulla) and Shazia Begum (contesting candidate from Hajin-A) had entered the wrong information in the declaration regarding being citizens of India in Form-6 during registration as an Elector. In March 2021, the poll body declared the polling in the DDC Constituency Drugmulla held on 07.12.2020 and DDC constituency Hajin-A held on 19.12.2020 as void and cancelled the candidature of Saumya Sadaf and Shazia Begum.
JAMMU
The Administrative Council (AC) headed by LG Manoj Sinha, approved the installation of rooftop solar power plants on residential buildings across Jammu and Kashmir. The 20 MW rooftop solar power plants on residential buildings shall be installed by the Jammu and Kashmir Energy Development Agency (JAKEDA), Science and Technology Department, under the Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Programme, Phase-II of the Ministry of New Renewable Energy at a project cost of Rs 104 crore. These rooftop solar power plants will be connected to the grid on a net metering basis.
