by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : Pro-Vice Chancellor of Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) Shahid Ashraf on Tuesday took charge as the Vice Chancellor (VC), replacing Talat Ahmad, an official statement said.
After holding the post for four years, Talat quit to join the University of Kashmir as its Vice Chancellor.
Ashraf served as Pro-Vice Chancellor of the university from August 2016. Prior to that, he served the university as Registrar and Finance Officer too. He is currently heading the varsity’s Department of Economics, a statement from the JMI said.
“Ashraf has vast experience in teaching, research and administration. He has authored several books and research articles published in leading national and international journals. His research interests include industrial and financial economics and employment and development issues,” it added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Government Jobs, News, Politics
Lucknow : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Tuesday batted for reservation in government jobs for the economically weaker upper castes and Muslims and other minorities.
She said if the Modi government brought a Bill to give 18 per cent or more reservation to the poor from the upper castes, Muslims and other minority groups, her party will be the first to support it.
Welcoming the passage of The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, 2018 in the Lok Sabha, the four-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister also expressed hope that the Bill will sail through the Rajya Sabha comfortably.
She, however, credited the pressure built by her party and the sacrificeS of the Dalits who participated in the April 2 ‘Bharat Bandh’ for the development.
“The voice of the Dalits and the marginalised along with the BSP cadres forced the government at the Centre to bring in this Bill,” Mayawati said.
She pointed out how an NDA Minister (Ram Vilas Paswan) was forced to announce a sit-in to compel the government to act against the dilution of the SC/ST Act by the Supreme Court.
She, however, slammed other leaders of parties in the National Democratic Alliance government for keeping mum on the issue that was close to the heart of millions of Dalits.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, News, Social Entrepreneur, Success Stories
By Sheikh Qayoom,
Srinagar : Rajnath, 72, a retired school headmaster, continues to live in his ancestral home in north Kashmir’s Manigam village. The turmoil of the 1990s saw most members of his minority Kashmiri Pandit community leave the village, but Rajnath stayed back in the village he was born in, with his wife and daughter.
Rajnath, a Hindu, has tremendous faith in the goodwill of his Muslim neighbours, most of whose present generation in the village have been his students. Local Muslims helped Rajnath’s daughter get a teacher’s job in a private school. They have been the biggest support not only for Rajnath, but also for over 3,000 Kashmiri Pandits who continue to live among their Muslim neighbours in the Valley — much against the established narrative that all Pandits had fled because of persecution in the Muslim-dominated region.
Only two months back, local Muslims not only carried the body of an elderly local Pandit to the cremation ground in Srinagar city, but also ensured that all Hindu rites for the departed were performed in accordance with the customs of the family. Womenfolk in the neighbourhood mourned the death like one of their own. Muslim neighbours arranged food and other requirements for the bereaved family since no Pandit household cooks food during the mourning period.
Rajnath is sad for those fellow local Pandits who left their homes and lands behind while migrating out of the Valley during the turbulent 1990s. He also harbours a strong grouse against the government.
While his daughter teaches at a private school, the wages are too meagre to support her family. She has a four-year old daughter and a husband working as a wireless operator in the police telecommunication wing. She has a masters degree in sociology and for five years she has been running from pillar to post for a government job, but to no avail.
“Her husband has now started pressing my daughter to seek a job outside the Valley and, if that happens, I and my wife would be left behind,” the father said with moist eyes.
“While ordering relief packages and employment offers to the migrant Pandits for their return to the Valley, the government has completely ignored those members of our community who chose to stay back,” he said.
Unfortunately, the story of traditional amity and brotherhood between different communities in the Valley are lost in the negative narratives of violence and hatred that Kashmir has faced in the last three decades.
An ancient temple site in Sumbal area of Bandipora district was last year cleaned and spruced up for Pandit pilgrims by local Muslims. The holiest Hindu temple shrine of Mata Kheer Bhawani in Tulamulla village of north Kashmir’s Ganderbal district continues to receive thousands of devotee Pandit pilgrims each year on the annual festival. The festival is held towards the end of the spring season.
Despite migration, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits continue to come to pray at the Mata’s shrine in Tulamulla and the centuries-old tradition of local Muslims bearing earthen pots filled with milk to receive the pilgrims has not been affected by the winds of violence sweeping the Valley.
One of the holiest places for immersion of ashes for the local Pandits is the Gangabal lake situated at the foothills of the Harmukh peak in the Kashmir Himalayas. After remaining suspended for some years, Kashmiri Pandits have resumed the tradition in the last four years.
Local Muslims have historically worked as guides and load carriers for the Pandit families during the uphill trek to this mountain lake. Even today, local Muslims continue to discharge this duty for the Pandit devotees visiting the lake.
“I have never felt any difference in the warmth and affection the local Muslims have shown towards our family since my childhood when I visited the Kheer Bhawani temple with my parents.
“After my family migrated to Jammu. I have been visiting the temple shrine each year since 1990. Local Muslims have the same warmth and affection when I visit the shrine now as a middle aged devotee,” Ashok Koul, 56, a bank employee, told IANS.
While attacks by misguided militants get front-page coverage in newspapers and as breaking news on TV, the aspect of Kashmir showing the communal harmony and brotherhood among ordinary Muslims and Hindu Pandits gets scant attention. Good news, alas, doesn’t make news any more for the sensation-seeking media of today.
(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Sheikh Qayoom can be contacted at sheikhqayoom@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News, Politics
Srinagar : Life across the Kashmir Valley remained adversely affected for the second consecutive day due to a separatist-called protest shutdown on Monday.
Separatist conglomerate, Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) has called for the protest shutdown to voice support for Article 35A.
The article has been challenged in the Supreme Court. A petition seeking abrogation of this article will be heard by the apex court on Monday.
Shops, markets, public transport, other businesses and educational institutions remained closed here and other district headquarters of the valley.
Very few private vehicles were seen moving on city roads here and elsewhere in the valley.
Authorities placed senior separatist leaders, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq under house arrest.
Although Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), has evaded arrest by going underground.
Authorities suspended the Amarnath Yatra from Jammu to Srinagar for the second day on Monday because of the shutdown.
An official, however, said pilgrims who have already reached the Baltal and Pahalgam base camps will continue to perform the Yatra on Monday.
Rail services between the valley and the Bannihal town of Jammu region also remained suspended for the second day.
Although heavy deployments of police and paramilitary forces have been made in Srinagar and other sensitive areas yet no restrictions were imposed anywhere.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Srinagar : Shah Faesal, an IAS officer whose recourse to social media attracted disciplinary action earlier, on Sunday compared Article 35A of the Constitution to a marriage deed or ‘nikahnama’.
“You repeal it and the relationship is over. Nothing will remain to be discussed afterwards,” Faesal said.
Responding to Faesal’s remarks, former Minister and Peoples Democratic Party leader Naeem Akhtar retweeted the comment and added his own views.
“Repealing it will be like marital rape. Converting a constitutional relationship into occupation.”
Separatist leaders who have all along maintained that they do not recognize the supremacy of the Indian Constitution over the state have also closed their ranks to fight for preservation of Article 35A.
Promulgated on May 14, 1954, the Article gives state legislature the power to define the permanent residents of the state and also their privileges.
—IANS
