Briefing February 7-13

   

RAJOURI

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 Whatever the circumstances, the crime against women continues to rise, alarmingly. With new cases being reported on each passing day, the death under ‘mysterious’ conditions later turns out to be murder. One such gruesome incident was reported from Rajouri. Initially termed as death under ‘mysterious conditions’ on November 16, 2020, later police found out Rupakshi Sharma was murdered by her husband, Shanker Sharma. Taking cognizance of the incident, police started inquest proceedings under 174 CrPC and arrested her husband. Soon after the post mortem of the body was conducted which has proved the fact that her death was a murder. An FIR 10/2021 under section 302 IPC has been registered in Sunderbani police station. Police after two months have arrested Shanker, formally.

 PUNE

Mayor Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Murlidhar Mohol

As Pune has a pleasant weather condition, it is one of the favourite destinations of Kashmiri students. This time traders’ find solace in the city, as well. Understanding the quantum of loss of Kashmiri traders and farmers due to the “tense” situation and Covid crisis,  Mayor Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Murlidhar Mohol announced that PMC will set up a permanent Kashmir Trade and Cultural centre in the city. The partner to this process would be Sarhad, a social  organization . To begin with, Sarhad organised a Jammu & Kashmir handicraft sales festival at Ambar Hall in Kothrud on Tuesday. The festival will continue till February 9. The initiative attempted to strengthen the “bond” between two places. This buildup is coming under Pune-Srinagar “sister-city’” agreement and is expected to prove the market for the Kashmiri products.

NEW DELHI

File picture of Rajya Sabha

For the first time after 1990s, J&K is all set to lose representation in the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha in the first fortnight of February. The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir is going to lose representation in the Council of states, the second time in the last 27 years. This is going to happen because the four Rajya Sabha members: Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress), Shamshir Singh Manhas (BJP), Fayaz Ahmad Mir (PDP) and Nazir Ahmad Laway (expelled PDP leader), will retire leaving the union territory without representation in the House of Elders. Among the four, Azad and Laway will complete their six-year term on February 15, while Mir and Manhas will retire on February 10. The loss of representation is because these berths cannot be filled due to non-existence of the J&K legislative assembly, the Electoral College for these polls. The Legislative Assembly was dissolved in November 2018, by then-governor Satya Pal Malik. 

 MUMBAI

Arbaaz Khan, Vidya Balan, and Siddharth Roy Kapoor attend Gulmarg winter festival organised by Army, J&K Tourism on Sunday February 7,2021. KL Image by Bilal Bahadur

Bollywood seems to be in love with Kashmir, completely. With people visiting from glamour world to valley continuously, the dating seems not to end. The latest being two famous actors plan to be part of Kashmir diary. After multiple famous production houses, now two more celebrities, Vidya Balan and Arbaaz Khan are going to be in Gulmarg to attend a three-day winter festival. This was revealed by the Army in its statement where it was mentioned the festival will be organised along with the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Department that will begin this weekend. Other artists performing in the event include Altmash Faridi, Aabid Aly, Shafi Sopori, Zubair Khan, Waseem Ahmed, and Umer Rockband.

SOPORE

Suhaib Firdous Yatoo

Wherever there is Diptera, people just raise their hands to make it fly but Sopore’s Suhaib Firdous never did that. A 23-year-old undergraduate student, he was always fascinated by nature and attracted by insects. Curious to know about these small creatures, he finally has won the ‘Young Naturalist Award’ from Sanctuary Nature Foundation, a reputed organization working for wildlife conservation. He has been awarded for discovering and documenting endemic flora to fungi and two-winged flies scientifically known as Dipter along with two more young naturalists on January 30. Sanctuary Nature Foundation has described Suhaib as an “intrepid explorer, roving scientist, and wondrous inquirer” of the wildlife in Jammu and Kashmir. Since 2016, despite being an undergrad, he has been working professionally as a wildlife researcher and has worked on plant systematics, fungi, and different types of wild flies. He has contributed natural history information to several other online databases including SpeciesFile.org, ASCO France, and Mushroom observer.

JAMMU

Er Arun Bangotra, principal government polytechnic college Jammu

After the virus took the reins, one of the worst-hit sectors was education. In these trying times, Jammu & Kashmir was no exception. But even after finding it difficult to survive,few managed to achieve a rare feat. Last week, Er Arun Bangotra, principal government polytechnic college Jammu bagged the global teaching excellence award for “Contribution to Education community” by Kites Kraft Productions, which organized a virtual award presentation event to honor the educators from all over India because of Covid 19. In all, 250 educators were awarded. The selection of the awardees was based on the process of nomination and thorough research by the KitesKraft Productions Jury. ErArunBangotra has also received a meritorious award for his MTech from the President of India during convocation in SMVDU. He has also been recently awarded International Education Award 2020 as Outstanding Principal.

Numbers: Since August 2019, 58 civilians lost their lives in 54 militant attacks for “various purposes”: MoS Home

 WEST BENGAL

file picture of Real Kashmir Football team playing. KL Image by Bilal Bahadur

From consistent victories, the Real Kashmir FC had a low when they had two back to back draws. But as the team went out to kick the ball with Indian Arrows, they left their fans in absolute joy. Displaying ruthless attacking, they made a comeback and showed their swiftness in the field before trouncing their opponents by an embarrassing margin of 6-0. Giving their fans something to cheer about, a brace from Dipanda Dicka was followed by strikes from Lukman Adefami, Haroon Amiri, Chesterpoul Lyndoh, and Danish Farooq.

GULMARG

Rapper Badshah and Shehnaaz Gill in Kashmir

The serene ski resort of Gulmarg is having a busy schedule these days. With continuous shoot of the music albums and honeymoon couples, now it was Bigg Boss 14 fame Shehnaaz Gill and Punjabi star singer Badshah who are in Gulmarg for shooting their upcoming song. The celebrities spent two days in Kashmir and both of them were overwhelmed by the beauty of place. Shehnaaz was even reported saying that she had some Kashmiri friends while in school, who had asked her to come to Kashmir someday. She reached out to her instagram handle where she shared two of her pictures from Kashmir, one with Badshah and another a solo in Pahari look. Both the pictures had a million likes from her fans. A Kashmir based production house RK Productions was handling their logistics. Before them, Guru Randhawa, Zubin Nautiyal and Himanshu Kohli including others were also in Kashmir.

JORDAN

Dr Mirwaiz Molvi Umar farooq

Not seen in the public domain post abrogation of the Kashmir’s special status, Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has been listed among world’s most influential Muslim politicians for the seventh consecutive time. Besides being Mirwaiz, also chairman of his faction of Hurriyat Conference, he was chosen among the 500 most influential Muslim personalities across the globe by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, an independent research entity affiliated with the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic thought, Jordan. After this listing of Mirwaiz, RISSC Jordan has said that “he has been advocating dialogue with both India and Pakistan so that the aspirations of the Kashmiri people may be realized. “It specifically mentions his arrest, stating that he (Mirwaiz) has been under house arrest since August 2019.” 

 ANANTNAG

Hides recovered in Anantnag

Giving slip many times in the past, when Gul Mohammad Ganai was finally apprehended, it was a shock. Arrested from his home in Awantipora, Ganai was not alone. From his possession, police recovered eight leopard hides, four musk deer pods and 38 bear gallbladders. As per the experts, gallbladders seem very old, almost eight years old. Evading arrest, Ganai was on radar. As the information was zeroed in, a joint team of the Wildlife Department and police raided Ganie’s house in Shirpora. As per the preliminary investigation, the accused has admitted that he has got these skins from Kishtwar. Meanwhile the bear gallbladders have high medical value that helps in clearing the gall stones and can be used as anti inflammatory in humans. 

KASHMIR

In the first month of the New Year, a revelation shocked all. Reports surfaced suggesting that personal data of around 26 lakh Airtel telecom company subscribers from Jammu and Kashmir has been leaked and compromised, after being hacked and sold for $3500 in Bitcoin on the web. It has been reported that the hacker who goes by the name of Red Rabbit Team, uploaded the details of Airtel users in January and aimed to “extort money” from the telecom giant. But Airtel negated the reports saying, it “takes great pride in deploying various measures to safeguard the privacy of its customers”. In this case, they have claimed that there is no data breach at their end. In fact, the claims made by this group reveal “glaring inaccuracies and a large proportion of the data records do not even belong to Airtel.”

BUDGAM

Wildlife official while throwing feed for migratory birds in Hokersar wetland. Source Internet

As the advisories galore, that there is need to stay away from wetlands or take proper care in lieu of new viruses scaring the world, the element of humanity never goes out of fashion. Busy to protect themselves from the avian flu, mostly found in migratory birds and crows, the department of wildlife last week went out in freezing conditions to feed the migratory birds in wetland Hokersar. The station that receives the highest number of migratory birds every year, is one of the largest wetlands in the region. The step was taken to protect birds from starvation as the wetland was partially frozen in the harshest January, when the temperature plummeted to minus 10 degrees Celsius. At least 700,000 birds have flocked to Kashmir in the past two months and the officials are expecting more to arrive as temperatures improve in February.

J&K

4G Internet services restored in Jammu and Kashmir after 18 months on Friday late night on February 5,2020. KL image by Bilal Bahadur

After putting J&K under what became the world’s longest-running internet shutdown in a democratic country on August 5, 2019, the administration has decided to revoke the ban on high speed mobile internet in the entire erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir. The news after being in circulation unofficially was finally confirmed by the spokesperson of the UT administration, Rohit Kansal. “4G mobile internet services being restored in the entire J&K,” he tweeted. The restoration is coming after more than 18 months ban to prevent a backlash against the Delhi’s move to revoke the former state’s special status. A demand for many since August, a restoration would see far more people taking the credit for a decision taken as per the officials on the basis of security situation.

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