Author: Kashmir Newsline

Respect an ordinary Kashmiri as your own. by Shome Basu Kashmir remains the biggest miscarriage of the partition even though the simmering communal tension goes beyond 1947. It goes back decades when the Maharaja – who was a Dogra Rajput – along with his nobles, consisting of Kashmiri Pandits, somehow kept the Muslim population out of the statecraft. It was the Dogras and the Pandits who dominated and created hegemony in the large state of Jammu and Kashmir which was predominantly a Muslim state. The rise of Reading Room, Round Room (from the Dastagir Sahib shrine) and Jamia Masjid in…

How the beneficiaries of the war keep minting money. by Sanjay Kapoor In the famous Hollywood movie, Schindler’s List, made in the backdrop of the Second World War Germany, the  protagonist, Oskar Schindler, a struggling businessman in the best of times, suddenly finds himself in riches and asks himself a question: “Why am I making money now and never in the past.” The penny drops for him when he realizes that he was making profit due to war. If the reports from the ground are any indication then it could be an unending war where Russia may find it difficult…

Set against the backdrop of the conflict-ridden Kashmir of the nineties, Sana Altaf’s collection of short stories was released on July 24. She is a Kashmiri journalist based out of Dubai. In this interview with Kashmir Newsline, she talks about her book and what inspired her to write it. What inspired you to write Forgotten Tales: Stories from the Kashmir Valley? Forgotten Tales is a collection of short stories set in Kashmir against the backdrop of a conflict. My inspiration is my childhood and the people of Kashmir. If you could, please, elaborate. I was 5 when the armed uprising…

What is it about our culture today that makes us unable to admit that we are who we are? by Soni Razdan An actor at the BEEB (slang for BBC) was chatting with me while I was on one of my walk-on-part episodes. “If you have gotten a place at Guildhall”, he said, “on no account must you give it up. Write to all the charities you can find to get a grant. Do anything, part time jobs, anything, but do not give up that place.” A chap after my own heart! That was all the advice I ever needed.…

Series of excerpts from Not Just Cricket by Pradeep Magazine. The common opinion among many elderly people was that because India is so big and powerful, it behaves like a bully. Their wish was that it should instead be like an ‘elder brother’ and take care of its weak, estranged ‘younger brother’. Kashmir: At Home without a Home It was around that period I started visiting Srinagar more often, finding any pretext, sporting or otherwise, to get my office to send me there for reporting. I was trying to renew my connection with my homeland to make sense of the…

Having made it to the Limca Book of Records for having more than 80,000 books and being the only library-bookshop located on an island in India, Gulshan Books is a model bookstore. Saqib Mugloo In the last week of July, as rains splashed over the streets of Srinagar, two young girls braving puddles and showers made their way into one of the oldest and the most frequented book stores of Kashmir: Gulshan Books. “I can’t believe it, after two years of hard work I am finally going to publish my own book,” one of the girls exclaimed as others around looked…

Yinderser is a trekker’s paradise that every alpine explorer would appreciate. by Shahnawaz Khanday On a sultry July afternoon, I sat with my friends and colleagues in the canteen of our workplace flirting with the idea of visiting Yindersar- a rarely explored alpine tarn located high up in the Astanmarg meadow of Pir Panjals in Kulgam district. I had been ‘visiting’ this place for some months, albeit on Google Earth, trying to find the easiest, shortest but not entirely unchallenging trail. And it was not long before we found ourselves packing up for a day trip to this relatively lesser…

Six teams from Asia are going to wrestle for the coveted trophy. by Bilal Ahsan Dar The T20I Asia Cup 2022 begins on August 27 in the United Arab Emirates with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) serving as the hosts. The grand finale is scheduled to take place on September 11.The highlight of the tournament would be the August 28 marquee duel between India and Pakistan. If the two sides don’t meet again in the finals, that is. Five teams, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are direct qualifiers for the main event. For the sixth slot, a qualifier tournament…

The economic data that is emerging from around the world is grim and points towards a dark future. The recession, it appears as of now, is imminent and it is going to impact all sectors of the society. Take, for example, the situation in the United Kingdom where inflation surged to a new 40-year high in July on rising food prices, worsening the cost-of-living crisis. The Bank of England has warned that inflation will climb to just over 13 percent this year. In the United States of America, the inflation jumped to 9.1 percent in June which is the fastest…