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Sunday, June 14, 2026
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Scope of Energy Entrepreneurship in Kashmir

Energy is a key input for sustenance and growth. Green sources of energy are those which are relatively free from the emissions of Greenhouse...

Talk Loose and Lose Track!

Zamir Ahmed“And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he (the prophet) answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace...
Inside the Tent bodies of Neelofar and Asiya being exhumed for forensic tests. Pgoto: Bilal Bahadur

Can forensics provide answers?

(People demanding arrest of Shopian rape and murder case culprits - Photo by: Bilal Bahadur) Advances in forensic science can pinpoint the culprits in Shopian...

Uncovering a cover up?

As the mystery about the gang rape and murder in Shopian slowly unfolds, the investigative lapses and interventions in the case are becoming strikingly...

I feel like I am you

Shaziya Yousuf
I saw you there in that picture. You were being carried home. There were two bodies wrapped in

Taking on the Left, the Right, and Centre

Tarique A Bhat
 
We are feeling a morbid lack of interest in life and sort of empty inside? Completely lacking in motivation. Reason: We are obsessed with politics and tend to look at the government and politicians as the cause of all problems in our lives.
Yes, we are fed up with politics of more than 75 years now. I am talking of many who don’t neatly fit into the red or green. Kashmir  is mired in a whirlpool of uncertainty. Our politicians are without the requisite political will to overcome deliberately designed structural impediments to solving the problem.

A just cause

After landing in London for higher studies Khursheed Drabu began his career as a lawyer and activist challenging discriminatory measures towards immigrants. He retired...

Gagging Cable TV

Local cable channels are patronised when the news content propagates what government wants people to hear. Gags come in when they present a situation that corners the government. Majid Maqbool reports.  

Local cable channels have again come under government scanner for telecasting ‘objectionable’ news and current affairs programmes. The government has now ordered the cable operators to limit the news and current affairs programmes to 15 minutes everyday.
Last year, in the wake of Amarnath land row, the government had put similar restrictions on the telecast of news and current affairs programmes and passed orders to close down all the local cable channels.

Centre to look into AFSPA: Chidambaram

The recent statements of Home Minister P Chidambaram regarding the revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and maintenance of law and order by the state government have little to reveal for the people of the state. The scheduled two-day visit of Chidambaram to Kashmir yielded two lines for media consumption but if these are dug a little, there is nothing new.
AFSPA is a centre subject and it cannot come into force directly in the state unless state government notifies some area as disturbed and clamps Disturbed Area Act over the same. Then only AFSPA can be enforced in the same area. And for its revocation, a simple ordinance is needed to de-notify any area as disturbed area which automatically will shave off the unlimited powers of armed forces in that area.

Building up a catastrophe

Arshid Malik Last year, a friend of mine asked me to visit a piece of land he had purchased in Srinagar city. We settled...

Asiya Andrabi

Asiya Andrabi became the first woman to address a gathering at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. The firebrand leader addressed the gathering on Sunday,

Battle of ideas

Undeclared curfews, barricaded roads and preventive detentions are again becoming a routine in Kashmir. In the aftermath of the Shopian crisis,

Demilitarise now

Sheikh Showkat Hussain

Rape and killing of two women in Shopian evoked widespread condemnation throughout the valley of Kashmir. Everyone blames Indian security agencies for this crime and demands probe by international agencies. Establishment of an enquiry commission by state was out rightly rejected on account of previous record of such enquiries being used as a device to cool down outraged sentiments and pave way for shielding of culprits.
While Kashmir was burning for eight continuous days, Indian media and civil society remained a silent spectator. This indifference and silence by media and civil society depicted that it is not only government and security agencies which tend to treat Kashmir as aliens but also its civil society and so called human rights activists have the same attitude towards Kashmir. One should not get surprised over the response of Kashmirs to such an incident. The Incident is part of a pattern that is being pursued for past several years in order to humiliate Kashmir society.

Denial of rights

Freedom of speech and expression may be a constitutional guarantee, but JK government deals protesters with an iron fist, rendering the guarantee

Mission green

Declined a government job, Shashi Kumar Kesri was sarcastically told to go farming. He did and turned a vast barren rocky land into a...