SURVIVING ON MUSIC

For the last thirty years when the gloom and gore enforced mourning’s as the new priority, the Kashmiri song chose one of the most violent belts for survival. Shams Irfan meets the new generation of professional singers from Sonawari belt who have made the art as their profession and the experiment has been an astounding success

POLICE THE DOUBLE CROSS?

As cops found their colleague accompanying the most wanted militant in a Jammu bound car intercepted on the highway, it was like a proverbial killing of two birds with one stone.

‘SC VERDICT HAS FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES IN FUTURE'

Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal, the Managing Editor of Kashmir Times went to the Supreme Court against the communication blockade that Jammu and Kashmir is passing through post-August 5. After the verdict came more than five months later, the petitioner told Samreena Nazir that the decision has huge consequences in future

HIRED TO HUMILIATE

The abundant colleges and teacher-scarce education department has lead the department to use and abuse almost 1900 teachers as contractual lecturer for more than 15 years. Now, they have been disengaged in utter disregard of their contributions and status

DREAMING A HOME

Caught in the heaps of files and procedures, the officials in the rural development department are oblivious of the inhuman conditions in which the rural poor are living after they were promised help in their home construction, reports Umar Khurshid

CURTAINS FALL

After August 5 shutdown, most of the courier and the parcel delivery companies working with the e-commerce outlets have closed forcing almost 500 young men to joblessness, reports Saifullah Bashir

CURSED NUMBERS

Focus on particular registration numbers during routine wayside searches by the security grid has impacted the resale value of some vehicles, reports Umar Mukhtar

CROCHETING LIVES

It took her 16 years to encourage her husband to earn for the family. The failure has led her to separate and to further decide the management of better lives for her four children. In this struggle, Halima emerged as an exceptional social entrepreneur who now helps nine other to live a dignified life, reports Humira Tabassum and Sumiya Ramzan

CANED FOR THE STICK

The camera caught him carrying a stick and police took him to jail as the family says the handicapped tailor, suffering with a serious disease, was shepherding the cattle home, reports Muhammad Younis

BUKHARI BEGINS?

With three former Chief Ministers’ still incarcerated, businessman politician Syed Altaf Bukhari regrouped a section of the political class to defreeze the politics in Kashmir’s winter chill. Saima Bhat met the new characters to explore the possibility of a new politics dawning upon Kashmir, that ceased to be special as well as a state

RODENTS AND OBSTETRICS

OBSTETRICS As South Kashmir’s main maternity hospital operates from a rundown building, the mothers and the new born have to co-exist with rodents along with the staff. The hospital can be managed better if it shifts to the new space

THE POLITICAL COLLAPSE?

History will remember 2019 as the rough year for politics in Kashmir. For the first time, both the faces of Kashmir’s ideologically driven politics were offthe scene for different reasons. As the year approaches its conclusion, efforts are underway for a brand new platform.

IN A MESS

At a time when the businesses across Jammu and Kashmir are bleeding, the government is working overtime for managing afresh Rs 100000 crores of investment to the UT to allay fears.

THE KASHMIR SPILLOVER?

As protests, sloganeering, stone pelting surfaced on mainland India streets, Kashmir’s Standard Operations Procedure (SOP) was literally in vogue with arrests, firing, internet ban and snapping of cell phone services. Many think that as Kashmir story moved out of the Valley, it is Kashmir dominating the spaces, processes and the policies.

GAG CAPITAL

As the internet shutdown continues into 2020, making it the longest internet gag in the history of democracy.

IN COLD WAR

A harrowing car bomb explosion in 2019 almost got Kashmir into a war.

EXPORTING ENTERTAINMENT

With the closure of internet, one of the key sectors that suffered severely in a highly stressed society was the entertainment. Understanding the emerging requirement, a middle-aged man resurrected his ailing business to fill the void by selling content from his huge cache that he had evolved in last 30 years

PARKING PAUPERS

For more than 125 days, neither the parking lots nor the octroi posts worked. Since they have paid hefty sums to get these spaces to earn a livelihood, Umar Mukhtar reports about their crisis they are desperate to find an answer for

ASSOCIATED BY PAIN

When the society and the government looked down at them and, in certain cases, even families saw them as burden, fate got a couple of like-minded handicapped persons in touch with each other. Shams Irfan tells many stories of individuals’ struggles that eventually paved way for an association for the betterment of this least privileged lot in north Kashmir

THE DISEMPOWERING DEBATE

Integration and subsequent bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir is the major happening in contemporary history with consequences within and outside India. But the work is still in progress, reports Masood Hussain

BJP's New Tensions

Though the elections for the local bodies and Panchayats were considered a hugely partial exercise, at least in Kashmir, the outcome of the just concluded BDC polls indicated the BJP’s slide in Jammu and Kashmir politics, reported Muhammad Younis

A Red Hearing?

There were some highly uncomfortable questions that American Congressmen asked its own officials on Kashmir. The hearing by a Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs, however, led to some clarity in the US stand. The Trump administration sees Delhi’s Kashmir interventions as internal but having external consequences. The sole American concern remains if at all Kashmir can live in dignity, reports Tasavur Mushtaq

THE URDU UMPIRE

More than 130 years of being the official language of Jammu and Kashmir, Urdu’s fate hangs in balance as the downgraded state inches towards becoming the Union Territory. In anticipation of UT’s new assembly deciding about the new official language, Masood Hussain details the fascinating story of Urdu’s emergence and importance in Kashmir

THE SWEAT MONEY

Managers of the Rs 4300 crore Provident Fund of the workers in Jammu and Kashmir’s private and public sector were literally yearning for a change that would help improving social security to its members. Now the takeover of the Fund by the Central EPFO will completely change the systems and take the Fund to the next level, reports Masood Hussain

LABOUR DEFICIT

In run-up to August 5, when the government issued advisory asking non locals to leave Kashmir immediately, tens of thousands of skilled and migrant workers left home. As the communication blockade prevented them to stay in touch with their employers, almost entire manufacturing facility suffered immensely, reports Shams Irfan

Briefly In Jail

A group of 13 women who planned the first protest against August 5 decisions spent almost 30 hours in jail and were set free after they signed a bond that they will not breach peace again,

Constitution: Election On Kashmir

Kashmir may not have any election anytime soon. But BJP made the abrogation of Article 370 and Kashmir such a powerful issue during election campaign in Haryana and Maharashtra that even Congress fell in line

It Breaking A Silence

Barely four days ahead of the platinum jubilee of the communication lockdown, when the phones returned to life, not every call was a happy talk

Agriculture: Bloody Harvest

Unlike all other unrests that Kashmir witnessed since 1990, apple somehow escaped the crisis. In the wake of the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the Rs 10,000 crore economy is caught in crossfire and is struggling to survive at crippling costs, especially after a series of killings in south Kashmir,

Elections, Again

At a time when Kashmir’s entire political class is restricted to homes or jails in wake of abrogation of special status and undoing of Jammu and Kashmir as a state, the governor’s administration has announced elections for the second tier of the Panchayat Raj system in the state. This has raised more questions, reports Masood Hussain