KOLKATA
It is a story that took turns from being bad to good and finally to worse. In a Pulwama village lived a young lady, Sadaf Ayoub, who was fighting Leukaemia. The family was drained from whatever it had and finally started seeking help. As the word spread, people started talking about it and a Facebook page – dedicated to charity works – took over. Within 24 hours, the people donated more than Rs 80 lakh thus easing the tensions of the Lassipora family.
As everybody was happy, there was a report about a Budgam student, Muhammad Umar Ganai, who was reported dead in his BBIT College hostel. He was an engineering student. No immediate reasons for his death were known. It was a day later that the shocker came – he was the same boy whose emotional appeal for the donations led to a historic collection of funds for the patient. Reports said he last talked to the girl’s father and was happy that the target was achieved. Then he talked to nobody. The family is seeking a probe into his death. They believe the death has taken place in a mysterious situation.
Almost 20 per cent of the Jammu and Kashmir population smokes and spends Rs 850 crore for smoking.
BUDGAM
Kashmir’s public transport is a huge sluggish mess and the principal victims are the women. This is the reason behind commuters seeking a lift from strangers. This trend put a Budgam girl in a horrifying situation last week. Desperate for a lift, she approached a local for help. The person obliged. As they drove, a situation created that she was forced to flee for her life, leaving behind her belongings in the offender’s car. Fortunately, the authorities captured the culprit, Saqib Ahmad Dar from Narkara Budgam, and seized the vehicle involved. It remains to be seen if the RTO cancels the registration of the offender’s vehicle. People, especially young females must avoid seeking a lift from people they do not know.
Jammu and Kashmir waived off a petty fee that the state-run schools were charging students up to the middle. This was funding their small activities. Now, they are seeking a budget that they were locally managing.
UDHAMPUR
Speed could address your adrenaline rush and somebody help you reach the destination faster. But, not always. Tragedy struck as a bus carrying Vaishno Devi shrine-bound Amritsar pilgrims veered off course and plunged into a deep gorge, claiming ten lives and injuring more than 60 at Jajjar Koti. Now the officials say the bus was overcrowded and the weather situation had made the road slippery – an ideal cocktail of death on a hilly road. In the same region, two individuals lost their lives as their vehicle slid off the road and plunged into a river. In another incident at Budgam, a motorcyclist lost his life after a collision with a tipper.
NBEMS has given 12 more seats under DNB for public institutions taking the overall tally to 270 DNB berths.
KASHMIR
Kashmir has started getting “modern” and “global”. The government is gradually pulling itself out of the market, apparently on a selective basis, and decontrolling the price control mechanism in livestock products. Now the prices will be decided by the demand-supply chain. What used to act as a gatekeeper for livestock products is no longer a watchman and the sector is not a small one, more than Rs 15000 crore a year turnover. The Jammu and Kashmir government has directed authorities to stop regulating the prices of mutton and other livestock products. The government has also revoked the Jammu and Kashmir Mutton (Licensing and Control) Order, 1973. Kashmir has remained historically tense over the overpricing, hoarding and profiteering in the livestock sector and, at one point in time, the government’s in past invoked the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978 or even sealing of the mutton and vegetable shops to stabilise the prices. It is interesting to see who will now decide these prices and how high they will go.
J&K Waqf Board orders re-designation of posts of 323 employees
ANANTNAG
The ENT Department at Government Medical College Anantnag successfully operated on a 12-year-old boy with a rare tumour deep inside his nose. The surgery lasted around five hours. The medical team showcased their expertise and the patient is currently stable and recovering well. Ideally, such proc
edures take place at SKIMS or GMC Srinagar. Interestingly, GMC Srinagar hosted a conference where they witnessed a live robotic surgery from a Chennai hospital.
The government has disengaged 93 paramedical staff who had been engaged on an academic arrangement basis at Government College Srinagar.
SRINAGAR
The Income Tax Department has initiated action against fraudulent refund claims. Two FIRs have were filed against a Chartered Accountant and 405 others for alleged conspiracy to defraud the government of Rs 16.72 crore. The accused filed incorrect Income Tax Returns to obtain fraudulent refunds. A Special Investigation Team has been formed to investigate the matter, and bank accounts associated with the accused have been seized. The department has also requested the revocation of the CA’s license.
Two Punjab peddlers were caught on the Jammu-Rajouri-Poonch highway with around 22 kilograms of a substance that looks like drugs.
EIDGAH
Srinagar will have its first hostel for working women. Currently under construction, the Social Welfare Department-owned hostel will be a multi-story complex. This is expected to address a serious issue that the single female workers in Srinagar are facing. In the absence of a working women’s hostel, a lot of young women living in Kashmir periphery are unable to work in the city or, if at all, they do, it is very costly for them. Such hostels exist across India and in Srinagar in the private sector as well.
The construction company responsible for the Jammu-Akhnoor Road Widening Project has incurred a penalty of over Rs 15 crore for its failure to meet the stipulated deadlines.
POONCH
In a rare incident, the army captured three militants alive, one of them in an injured condition, at Khari Karmara (Poonch). The recoveries included a 10-kilogram Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and 10 packets of narcotics. A soldier was injured in the encounter. What is interesting, the defence spokesman said they recovered the IED that was fitted in an Afghanistan-made pressure cooker. It bore the manufacturer’s name as Peer Baba Afghan. The same cook utensil is available on the Amazon as Baba Strain Cooker which is used for dinner preparation in Afghanistan. The captured militants said they were supposed to use it in the destruction of Poonch’s Gulpur Bridge. The trio was identified as Mohammad Riyaz, 23, Mohammad Farooq, 26 and Mohammad Zubair, 22, all residents of Karmara.
Rural Development Ministry has allocated an additional 1, 99,550 houses under PMAY-G to Jammu and Kashmir. The Rural Development Department will sanction these houses by June 30, 2023. This allocation is the highest among all Union Territories.
LADAKH
In order to cool the tension at LoAC in Ladakh, India and China held in-person diplomatic talks and discussed disengagement in the 27th round. This is going parallel to the military-level talks that reached the 18th round at a high-level in April. The two armies are caught in a standoff in eastern Ladakh since May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong Lake area. The ties between the two countries nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades. In an unrelated development, in the meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence has allowed civilians to fly in Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft from Chandigarh to Leh and Thoise (Nubra). The system was already in vogue and now it has been extended in the wake of connectivity issues to the desert region. Officials said, the IAF aircraft carry out two to three sorties daily from Chandigarh to Leh and Thoise and if 30 civilian passengers are accommodated in each flight, nearly 200 locals will be able to fly and reach their destinations.
BALHAMA
The Jammu and Kashmir Police have booked BJP’s DDC member Ajaz Hussain Rather, an engineer after he allegedly took law into his own hands and attacked some civilians, his erstwhile voters. At least one of the injured persons was hospitalised forcing the families to descend down to the city and protest during late hours last week. They said Rather is unleashed a reign of terror in the area. Though rather said the other side is encroaching upon the Pandit property, he lacked evidence other than a notice that a revenue official issued accusing them of changing the land use in the area. The “victims”- Nazim Hussain Bhat and Imdad Ali Mir – were supported by Srinagar Mayor.
MAJALTHA
Militants shot dead, Deepu Kumar, 27, a mobile circus performer in Junglat Mandi Anantnag. He had moved out of his tent to fetch something from the shop when he was shot dead. The killing was widely mourned as Kumar was the sole bread earner for his family comprising his pregnant wife, blind elder brother and ailing father Mashu Ram living in a mud house at remote Thial village in Majalta (Udhampur). Deepu was in Kashmir for the past six years and had been moving from place to place with his circus. About two years ago, he married Gudya, who also works in the same circus and the couple was expecting their first child around June 15. His elder brother Raju is blind and married and they have two kids and all of them were dependent on his earnings. The family had moved to this remote village from Billawar in Kathua district over a decade back. Lt Governor, Manoj Sinha sanctioned an ex-gratia amount of Rs 5 lakh to the family. The killing sparked widespread condemnation across Kashmir. Deepu’s killing came on the day when the circus operating from the troupe’s Manoranjan Park was being dismantled so they shift to Kupwara. The Circus is owned by the Seri brothers, who have been running amusement parks across Kashmir for 12 years.
