This story was originally published on Aug 5. However, on the occasion of Teachers' Day we have reproduced it for our readers.
Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR, Sept 5: Last month, at a leading school in Kashmir, a student twisted the teacher’s arms while his classmate slapped him on the face. They were angry at him for being ‘strict’.
Alarmed by this incident, teachers say that the time has come for the authorities to implement sterner laws to tackle...
Posted 288 days ago.
Nazir Ganaie
SRINAGAR, Sept 3: "Located half-way down Al Mergab Street (in Qatar) sits an unassuming shop. Yet opening the door is akin to opening a Pandora’s Box of delights; Riyaz Bhat, alias the ‘Rug Man’ takes you happily on a virtual journey to the tribal heart of Afghanistan.”
This is how a foreign tourist described in his blog a shop selling carpets and rugs; but the owner is certainly not an Afghan, but from the scenic Himalayan valley of...
Posted 290 days ago.
Azhar Qadri
SRINAGAR, Sept 1: Come Saturday, and love will be talk of the town in conservative Kashmir.
For two consecutive days, young men and women in Srinagar will break taboos to discuss religion and romance and that too on a common platform. The occasion would be a seminar on ‘Marriage and its Ethics’ at Ibn Khaldun auditorium in the Kashmir University campus.
The two-day workshop is a brainchild of Inspire Me — a group of seven students, six from...
Posted 293 days ago.
Ashiq Hussain
SRINAGAR, Aug 30: What was supposed to be the happiest day of two super-specialist doctors in a remote sub-district hospital of Kashmir became the worst nightmare of their life; thanks to an unconfirmed news report gone viral on the internet.
The doctors, Sheikh Tariq (38) and Abdul Rouf (39), became the target of public ire because of a source-based one-sided news story “Kashmir doctors remove gall-bladder instead of appendix” by a local news...
Posted 294 days ago.
SRINAGAR, Aug 29: “How beautiful is Kashmir...how lovely the ppl & silences that can only be Nature's voice. Feel blessed to be here in the land of Sufis,” Shahrukh Khan shared his thoughts on Twitter.
Speaking of the Sufis, SRK also quoted the Turkish mystic Jalaluddin Rumi to compliment Kashmir’s beauty.
“Rumi time..."Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon. So apt for Kashmir,” Shahrukh wrote.
Before coming to the valley,...
Posted 295 days ago.
Cordelia Jenkins
SRINAGAR, Aug 24: "We came here, like the chinars, from Persia,” says Mohamed Sadiq Wani, looking out of the window of his office, a wooden cabin in central Srinagar, at 40ft oriental plane trees.
“We were one of the families that brought craft to Kashmir. Each was expert in a few designs; like the trees, they were imported but they survived and flourished and got beautiful here.”
Wani sits at his desk, piled with papers and antique...
Posted 300 days ago.
Riyaz Wani
The Supreme Court’s intervention was expected to depoliticise the pilgrimage to Amarnath cave shrine but it appears that the court’s role may also snowball into a political controversy, with separatists and civil society groups in Kashmir opposing the court’s ruling on the upgradation of the infrastructure along the route.
All eyes are now on a report being submitted by Special High Powered Committee set up by the court to examine the issues...
Posted 303 days ago.
Ashiq Hussain
SRINAGAR, Aug 14: An increasing number of affluent in Kashmir have started to support thousands of children orphaned due to militancy-related violence in the past two decades.
This, many see as a new phenomenon in quite contrast to the past when well-to-do often shied away from dispensing a mandatory share of their wealth (Zakat) for destitute and needy.
In the month of Ramadhan, orphanages have resorted to an awareness campaign in media...
Posted 310 days ago.
Baba Umar
ZOHAND, Aug 10: In Zohand village, perched on a mountaintop of Doda district in Jammu & Kashmir, Nilkant Kumar, 65, snakes his way through corn and walnut fields to reach his son’s grave.
With a pensive look, the frail man rests besides the marble tombstone that has an epitaph etched in black: “Shaheed Kuldeep Kumar al Maroof Kamraan Fareedi” (Martyr Kuldeep Kumar alias Kamraan Fareedi).
Nilkant’s memory of his son is an awkward one. He...
Posted 315 days ago.
Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR, Aug 9: Last week, at a leading school in Kashmir, a student twisted the teacher’s arms while his classmate slapped him on the face. They were angry at him for being ‘strict’.
Alarmed by this incident, teachers say that the time has come for the authorities to implement sterner laws to tackle insolence and rude behaviour by students in a region once considered to be the heartland of Sufi Islam - which emphasises sanctity of the...
Posted 315 days ago.
