MELODY IN MUSIC

Mixing modern melody with prose and poetry, Kashmir’s new age singers and musicians have resurrected folk songs in a different way. Creating their own platforms, this new breed of artists is reaching out to audiences using social media. While keeping alive art and culture of the place, they are finding success as well, reports Khalid Bashir Gura

COMBATING COLD

Unable to move back to warm places owing to financial constraints, many nomadic families were stuck in Kashmir this winter. As cold snap hits severely, the impoverished nomads caught in the crisis shiver in tarpaulin tents, reports Yawar Hussain

Fighting Covid-19

After receiving the first shipment of 1.46 lakh Covishield doses, Jammu and Kashmir administration has inoculated over 15000 workers last week in 100 odd sessions with the target set at inoculating 112893 health care workers.

‘CONGRESS BELIEVES ARTICLE 370 IS A PERMANENT FEATURE OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION'

Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Ghulam Ahmad Mir blames the sudden announcement of the DDC elections for his party’s poor showing. In an interview to Yawar Hussain, he talks about binning of autonomy and the post-poll alliance with the PAGD at some DDCs to keep the BJP out

VACCINE HESITANCY

As Covid-19 vaccination gathers pace in Kashmir, a section of people are sounding cautious not knowing that sixty per cent of vaccines consumed globally are made in India, reports Saima Bhat

SHEIKH'S UN SPEECH

Within four months after the tribal raids led to the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir and eventually triggered the first war between India and Pakistan, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Kashmir’s most popular leader delivered a long speech to the United Nations Security Council (meeting 241) on February 5, 1948. Denying any rights to Islamabad over the decision-making by Kashmir, Sheikh’s speech remains a key document in understanding his Kashmir vision

DINING WITH PIRATES

Cafe Pirates is north Kashmir’ first themed restaurant modelled on a Hollywood movie reports Aqib Nazir

“WE DRAW OUR IDENTITY FROM OUR MOTHER TONGUE”

Playwright Muhammad Amin Bhat tells Khalid Bashir Gura after being elected as president of Adbi Markaz Kamraz

THE HONEY MONEY

As major honey brands were caught using imported adulterated material, Kashmir’s organic honey story could get an instant foothold in major markets if the systems turn supportive, reports Khalid Bashir Gura

HISTORY'S MAJOR SNOWFALL

Every time there is a snowfall, the media chases the weatherman asking about the dates when it snowed more last time. Even elders are routinely saying that it is snowing much less than the past. An English naturalist, geologist and writer, Richard Lydekker (1849 – 1915), has recorded the last major snowfall of Kashmir almost 140 years ago. He was appointed for a geological survey of Kashmir and Ladakh in 1874. The snowfall, he has recorded, was so huge that most of the wildlife perished

CRICKET ON ICE

Snow may be inherently immobilising but the enthusiastic cricketers in remote Gurez valley have been holding an ice cricket tournament for five years now reports Shakir Ashraf

GHULAM NABI SHAIDA [1947 – 2021]

In the death of Ghulam Nabi Shaida, editor of Wadi ki Awaz, Kashmir has lost an upright editor who suffered for calling spade, a spade, reports Khalid Bashir Gura

DAMARAS: AN INTRODUCTION

The Western scholars to whim Kashmir shall perpetually remain indebted for their extensive research on history and culture of the Vale include Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943), the Hungarian-born British archaeologist. A prominent Great Game character, Stein is most known for his frequent forays into Central Asia. To Kashmir, however, he is known as the bachelor sahib who would live in a tent pitched at Mohand Marg (Kangan) while shuttling between Lahore and Central Asia and translating Rajatarangni from Sanskrit into English. Apart from local resource persons, only his dog, Dash, would live with him. Between 1888 and 1943, he is in Kashmir almost every year. In his memory, a small museum is coming up at the spot he would live in the meadows. In this excerpt from his work is a detailed introduction to the origin and actions of the Damaras, Kashmir’s perpetual feudal lords

A VIRTUAL YARBAL

Part of folklore now, Yarbal in Kashmir was not the spot of gossip alone, it was a source of community interaction and involvement. Following the footprints of the past, a young engineer has started a virtual platform, perhaps the biggest gathering of Kashmiri women where problems are divulged, discussed and disposed. Besides, support system is offered to promote women entrepreneurship, reports Saima Bhat

THE HALAL INTERNET!

The continued ban on the 4G in Kashmir has created new records of digital divide. But the questions being asked on streets are simple, why there is sacred profane divide on basis of ISPs, reports Saifullah Bashir

THE ROAD RAAHAT

Frequent closure of highway leaves a flood of people stranded thus encouraging the residents to have structured and sustainable initiatives to manage huger reports Parrey Babar

“PAGD HAS NO ROADMAP”

People’s Conference’s Abdul GaniVakil tells Yawar Hussain that if Kashmiri leaders have to wait for Supreme Court verdict on Article 370, then what was the purpose of forming a common front

RUMBLINGS WITHIN PAGD

The grouping’s unity has come under fresh strain following apprehensions voiced about its functioning by some of the senior leaders, reports Yawar Hussain

NEW BIRD FLU

With people desperate for a vaccine to manage the Covid-19, a pandemic that has killed two million people worldwide, the new bird flu has started triggering a new crisis as it impacts the migratory birds and the poultry, reports Khalid Bashir Gura

KASHMIR WAZWAN

A Bollywood producer, currently shooting in Srinagar, triggered a controversy by claiming that he has introduced veg-Wazwaan. He simply mistook a typical thali as wazwan. The backlash led him to delete the tweet. The controversy, however, encouraged a learned man to attempt a brief introduction to the key Kashmir cuisine using medieval chronicles as the source

HOME COOKED TIFFIN

At the peak of the August 2019 lockdown, when office-goers faced starvation owing to the closure of the eateries in Srinagar, a young couple decided to deliver affordable home-cooked lunches, reports Aaqib Hyder

THE RAFFUGHAR

While obediently following his parents’ dreams of chasing for a medical school seat, a young boy was fascinated by a painter’s brush. Finally, when he talked about his desires, the family threw a canvas before him. Within years he emerged with Raffughar, a new upmarket Kashmir brand, reports Khalid Bashir Gura

SNOW IN JANUARY

Science and tradition suggest that an early winter snowfall is good for Kashmir ecology but the fragile service delivery systems sent people crying, reports Yawar Hussain

LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD

An increasing number of tournaments being held across Kashmir, mostly by the youth by raising donations from their pocket money, is offering the new generation more opportunities to play, improve, grow and understand, reports Shakir Ashraf

DISTANT BURIALS

Families whose members were buried by authorities in distant graveyards citing pandemic want the restrictions must be eased now for all, reports Farzana Nisar

Pandemic's Emotional Toll

In Kashmir, Covid-19 hasn’t infected and killed people alone. It has broken families or pushed them into crises that are unlikely to settle. Saima Bhat reports the emotional toll of a pandemic involving alienation of husbands from wives, in-laws from daughters-inlaw and engagements that families terminated fearing the irreversible damage by the infection will mar the lives of their wards

TWENTIETH CENTURY KASHMIR

In his fourth books, Khalid Bashir Ahmad accesses rare documents to rediscover many people between Allama Iqbal and Sheikh Abdullah to various events from Roti Agitation to the making of National Conference

‘I HAVE RISEN FROM THE GROUND IN THESE ELECTIONS, NOBODY CAN TERM ME A PARACHUTE'

Trained lawyer and wife of former Deputy Chief Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, Safeena Beigh, who won her DDC election from Wagoora after defeating the PAGD and Apni Party candidate told Yawar Hussain

AMSHIPORA REDUX?

Days after the sleuths completed investigations in the July 2020 fake encounter involving the killing of three Rajouri labourers, the killing of a teenage trio in a gun battle in city outskirts, has run into controversy with their families claiming they were innocent students, reports

A READING ROOM

A woman in Jammu sets up a library on her property to encourage students to read and gradually it is emerging a model for societies where families lack enough of space or the situation for the students to study, reports Umar Mukhtar