PURCHASED: Influential British publisher, Harper Press, has bought the rights of Basharat Peer’s “gut-wrenching and intimate” memoir Curfewed Night for UK and commonwealth excluding Canada and India from Peter Straus of Rogers, Coleridge and White. The book will be published in 2010. The book was published in India by Random House India and won the Crossword Book Award for Non-Fiction, an Indian Book Prize.
EVICTED: PDP leader and former minister, Pir Mohammad Hussian, claimed his family was forcibly evicted from government quarters at Tulsi Bagh without giving him a prior notice. Government choose not to react to the allegation.
OCCUPIED: A state run high school in Uri became a bone of contention between public, department of education and an NGO, Bharat Scouts and Guides (BSG), which has been occupying a portion of the school since 2007. The NGO claims that they hold a block of the school under a written agreement with the government, but the authorities refute the claim. School has 450 students including 150 girls.
DIED: Most prominent trade leader of Jammu, Ram Sahai Kakkar, reportedly committed suicide on Rakhsha Bandan in his Jammu Chamber office in Bahu Plaza. He had gone to his bank and opened his locker to get his revolver that he used to kill himself. He was 65 and is survived by two sons and a daughter. Police that claimed to have recovered the suicide note is investigating the factors that forced him to take his life. Sahai has been the president of the Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry for a long time, on court orders for last few years. He was facing elections in October.
SHIFTED: Coalition government finally shifted woman separatist leader, Asiya Andrabi, from a Jammu jail to Srinagar. Government had moved to apex court to get the high court order for her shifting stayed, but the plea was turned down. Andrabi told the court that she was tortured in Jammu jail. She was later sent for medical examination before being sent to the central jail Srinagar.
SELECTED: International Sports Academy Trust (ISAT) selected two Kashmiri boys, Musadiq Mehraj and Mir Abdul Hanan, to represent football academy in Spain on a contract of one year. They are likely to play in Malaga and Spain.
VISITED: Omar Abdullah visited Ajmer for the second time in last six months. He was accompanied by his wife and sons. The visit came after his hectic deliberations in Delhi following his conditional resignation. Meanwhile, the party had a secret function in the state legislature aimed at exorcising the spirits. The decision taken by the party insiders was forced by the fact that the first day of the business in 2008 led to the resignation of Ghulam Nabi Azad. A year after the second day of the business created a situation that led Omar to announce his resignation, a decision he later changed on the request of his party.
HOSPITALIZED: Senior separatist leader, Shabir Shah, currently being held in Udhampur jail under Public Safety Act, was admitted to the SMGS Hospital after he complained of pain in his lower abdomen. After examination, doctors referred him to a private
