Author: Kashmir Newsline

Snow last year, and the year before that, fell in late autumn which hurt the orchards and, with it, weakened the horticulture sector. While orchardists survived these hard-hitting events, the latest set of troubles is mounting an unbearable pressure – one that can be difficult for many to survive. The latest troubles couldn’t have come at a worse time. It is the time of the year when Kashmir’s apple farmers reap the benefits of their toil. With it comes a financial safeguard for the rest of the year till the next harvest. But, the harvest this year has been…

Anatomy of Erdogan’s Kashmir salvo.  Shome Basu Recep Tayyip Erdogan has an uncanny way to deal with things and Kashmir has been one of his favourite topics to stir, whenever needed. One has to understand Erdogan to understand Turkey’s stand on Kashmir. Erdogan rose from a society that ws grappling with ‘modernism vs orthodoxy’ debate. Although, he himself remains a typical modern man, who has not forced women to wear headscarves in Turkey or brought any stringent Sharia law, but his measures remain to be populist when it comes to political Islam. For a long time, the father of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Attaturk has…

 Lily Swarn, the award-winning poet and author released her collection of Urdu ghazals at the Press Club of Chandigarh amid fanfare and wide media coverage. In this conversation with Kashmir Newsline, she talks about the book and how she fell in love with Urdu language.  Yeh Na Thi Hamari Qismat is an evocative title. How did it come about?   The strains of Ghalib’s immortal ghazal, ye na thi hamari qismat ke visal-e-yaar hota, have haunted me ever since I first heard it crooned on a  Murphy radio tucked in a wooden niche in my distant youth and that is where…

This is the final part of the trilogy of essays on Kashmir’s urban history and architecture and how the Srinagar city should shape up under Smart City Mission. Jaspreet Kaur Introduction Cities accommodate 31% of India’s current population (Census 2011). By 2030, urban areas are expected to accommodate 40% of it. Fifty-three percent of the population in India will be living in urban areas by 2050 (UN 2018). Three Indian cities—Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi—feature in the top 20 megacities in the world. This increase in the pace of urbanisation poses spatial and infrastructure management challenges for a country. The…

How the Lankan lions lifted the trophy against all odds and why the hot favourites flunked. By Bilal Ahsan Dar It’s not how you start that’s important, but how you finish. ~ Jim George After beginning with a humiliating loss to Afghanistan, when they were bowled out for a mere 105 runs, Sri Lanka made an exemplary comeback to conquer quietly and get crowned as the Asian champions. A side without any star cricketers, seen as the underdogs and probably in nobody’s favorite list showed what wonders self-confidence, a never-say-die attitude and team effort can do. “I think in…

The Central Asian countries, plus Pakistan and China, believe that Afghanistan should be a part of the group.  By Shome Basu Every bit of today has to go back to World War II and consequently to the Cold War between the US and the USSR, till the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, and finally to 1991 when the Soviet Union was fragmented into more than a dozen separate nations. But how did the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) emerge to become a challenger to the last known superpower: the US? SCO is an organization of nine countries and together they account for nearly half of…

It’s a collection of poems that celebrate relationships and linger on. By Brindha Vinodh Dr. Santosh Bakaya’s ‘Runcible Spoons and Peagreen Boats’ is a collection of beautifully written poems that recall her halcyon days of nostalgia with enthusiasm, pride and pain – the pain of missing her ancestral home in Kashmir and those rejuvenating memories attached around her attic, and the pain of wistfulness that surrounds her as she recalls her parents and granny dotingly. Before one moves on to her poems, one’s eye is caught by the wonderful introduction written by Dr. Ampat Koshy, a poet and academician…

After rallying against Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel variously, hasn’t Turkey reconciled with all the three? Saurabh Kumar Shahi Early last month as the ‘moderate opposition’ fighters in Northern Syria were going about their daily routine of acting like Al Qaeda lite, oblivious to the fact that the rug was being pulled from below their feet, Turkey’s President Erdogan—long seen as the benevolent Sunni neo-caliph—was not-so-quietly negotiating a u-turn that would prove fatal to the Ikhwani dreams of taking over Damascus. Those who have known Erdogan know that he is a champion of two traits: making embarrassing u-turns and surviving…

Drug addiction is a monster living within us and it is feeding on our complacency and ignorance. It was previously referred to as a menace. However, it is more than just a menace now as its severity is snuffing life out of our younger generations. The scourge is so deep-seated and severe that children as young as ten years are getting addicted to some of the worst drugs available. The doctors involved in the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts in Kashmir are painting a really grim picture. The introduction of heroin remains the most horrifying aspect as doctors…