Author: Kashmir Newsline

As the RBI’s focus is entirely on the management of inflation, borrowers will get further hurt. By Sajjad Bazaz So, in line with the market expectations, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its August 2022 Monetary Policy hiked the repo rate by 50 bps to 5.40 per cent. It’s the third consecutive rate hike in 2022. So far, this short-term key lending rate has witnessed 140 bps hikes since May 2022. The repo rate is now above the pre-pandemic level, which was 5.15%. During the peak Covid times, the RBI slashed the repo rate to 4% at different stages. The hike has…

Series of excerpts from Not Just Cricket by Pradeep Magazine. In Pakistan, while Indian journalists who were Hindu were treated with tremendous love and warmth, I found there was an underlying tension, never overtly stated but simmering below the surface, whenever Indian Muslim journalists talked politics with their Pakistan counterparts. A senior journalist by the name of Javed Ansari—who was covering that tour for India Today—had throughout the tour flaunted his Indianness with pride. I had to stop him once from getting into a lengthy, combative argument with a Pakistani journalist who was seeking a larger Muslim affinity with him.…

While the government calls it a major reform, there is also a widespread resentment against the scheme. By Shome Basu The introduction of Agnipath scheme is a major shake-up for the three services of Indian armed forces and is going to change how they have recruited soldiers, airmen and sailors. The scheme is India’s version of Tour of Duty, a short period of service tenure from which only a small percentage can become lifetime servicemen. During its eight-year rule so far, the BJP-led NDA government hasn’t shied away from introducing dramatic and drastic policy changes – many of which,…

Bilal Ahsan Dar  Since the advent of the T20 leagues, the cricket world has seen a change in trends in international cricket. It has been a gradual process over the years, but lately some changes are happening at a rapid pace and the shadows of the coming events as a result of these changes appear darker. Sports have turned into a multi-billion dollar industry, making games heavily dependent on investors and cash flow. As far as Cricket is concerned, it is one of the last major sports to adopt the franchise model. The franchise league model is highly lucrative for…

A gruesome incident recently came into public knowledge when a 38-year-old woman was smothered to death. The police reacted swiftly and arrested five people for murdering the woman. The five accused include husband, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and two sisters-in-law. The accused are the people whom she must have trusted when she got married. She lived with them in one house, cooked food for them, shared joys and sorrows. This murder is shocking is so many ways and is a reflection of the growing domestic abuse in Kashmir. It is not the first such case in the region and, in the past…

History on My Plate is a gastronomer’s delight.  By E. R. Shine History on My Plate is the fourth book of the 2016 Reuel Poetry Prize winner, Lily Swarn, The book earned her the best author prize from Critic Space Journal. This book is of a completely different genre as compared to the author’s previous books. This is not merely a book on food, but it has traced the journey of various dishes from different cuisines around the world. Not just their origin, but the proper preparation and the importance of the ingredients included has also been shared. Also, the…

J&K was stripped of its semi-autonomy and rudely bifurcated into two UT’s to diminish the political strength of the Kashmir valley.  By Sanjay Kapoor Three years ago on August 5 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party government, much to the shock and chagrin of the Kashmiris and many others, abrogated articles 370 and 35-A of the Indian constitution and ended the special status of the State of Jammu & Kashmir and symbolically merged it with the rest of the country. To be fair to the ruling party, the annulment of the Articles had figured frequently in BJP’s poll manifestoes over the…

There was no human emotion that the maestro couldn’t bring alive. Shabir Hussain Rafi is to playback singing what Shakespeare is to literature, Mozart to music and Da Vinci to painting. Maybe more! From his childhood days of following a crooning fakir, Mohammad Rafi’s destiny as a singer was chiseled. He knew all he wanted to do in life was sing. And as if — in Paulo Coelho’s words — the universe was conspiring in helping him achieve his dream, an opportunity presented itself from nowhere. Music director Shyam Sunder spotted him at a stage show in Lahore where the…

To understand the unexplored potential of the sheep and wool industry in Kashmir, it is imperative to go through some quick facts from global success stories which should help in understanding the realm of possibilities. Australia is the first case study. It produced 8 percent of the world’s sheep meat supply in 2017 and exported 56 percent of its lamb and 95 percent of its mutton to countries around the world. Australia’s sheep meat industry is worth about $5.23 billion and the wool brought another $3.4 billion home in 2018-19. There are nearly 67 million sheep – including 31 million…