by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Governance, Emerging Businesses
Srinagar : Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti hoped on Saturday the state opens up to the world as an international trading destination through land routes, realizing its geopolitical situation as part of a peaceful region.
Addressing a function on the inauguration of 7th International Buyer-Seller meet here, she said that the state has been the recipient of major cultural, social and economic influences from the areas of silk route during the past seven centuries and these influences, once used contextually, would help in making the state a hub of economic activity in the region.
On the efforts of her government, the Chief Minister said two dry ports are being set up at Jammu and Srinagar to get the goods from the state to the international market in a hassle free manner.
She said with such an easy mode of transportation the agri and horticultural produce from the state would get a quality international market.
Complimenting the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Industries Department for organising the event, Mehbooba Mufti said that she believed that such an occasion would provide a meeting ground to the artisans, entrepreneurs and the trading community to promote the arts and crafts and build a relationship of trust and sustained interest with their outside counterparts.
“I hope you will go back as our ambassadors in the international trading community and the masterpieces you carry from here will act as souvenirs of peace and goodwill.
“Our artisans do not use their fingers and hands only, they give their blood and soul to produce the artifacts the state is known for,” she said in her address while pledging all support from her government.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Sheikh Qayoom,
Jammu : The decision by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to drop Haseeb Drabu from her council of ministers for his remarks at a business meet in Delhi is being hotly debated in political circles – especially what its consequences could be on the state’s PDP-BJP ruling coalition.
By doing what she has done, the Chief Minister has proved that she is prepared take political risks — and taking her for granted is something her colleagues and allies should learn not to do.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders were aghast after Drabu, who was the Finance Minister, was quoted as telling a meeting organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi that Kashmir was not a political problem and a conflict state but a “social problem”. He said this while seeking investments in the state from businessmen and saying the conditions in the state were conducive to business “where you will find some very interesting opportunities” not just to make money but also to have “a lot of fun and enjoy yourselves”.
PDP Vice President Sartaj Madni had said this was something which negated the very existence of the PDP because it is the firm belief of the party that Kashmir is political problem that needed political remedies to resolve.
Interestingly, instead of voices being raised in Drabu’s favour by his own party men, leaders of the PDP’s coalition unlikely partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seem to be more worried about the decision to drop him.
Some senior BJP leaders have rushed to Delhi to discuss the development and its fallout on the ruling coalition with the central leadership of the party.
How important Drabu had been for the PDP was proved not once, but many times in the past. The late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed trusted him to work out the terms of the agenda of alliance with BJP National Secretary Ram Madhav that finally paved the way for the present PDP-BJP coalition.
“Mufti Sahib always loved him and would overlook what some of his party men would say about Drabu Sahib,” said a PDP insider, not wishing to be identified.
In a letter released to the media after he was dropped from the cabinet, Drabu expressed sorrow for not being told by the Chief Minister or her office about the decision to drop him.
“I read it on the website of daily ‘Greater Kashmir’. I tried to call the Chief Minister, but was told she was busy and would call back. I waited, but my call was never returned,” he rued.
He also said in his letter that he had been quoted out of context by the media and that he what he had said was that Kashmir is not only a political problem, but that “we must also look beyond this”, Drabu clarified.
Sayeed made Drabu his economic advisor during his 2002 chief ministerial tenure and later made him the chairman of the local Jammu and Kashmir Bank. In fact, Drabu became the point man between the PDP and the BJP after the 2014 assembly elections.
The problem is that many PDP leaders had of late started saying that Drabu was more of “Delhi’s man in Kashmir rather than Kashmir’s man in Delhi”. Drabu is reportedly very close to Ram Madhav, the powerful BJP leader who is in-charge of Kashmir affairs, which many say “cost him his job”. It is this image that has been floating around in the PDP that finally cost him his berth in the state cabinet.
While even Mehbooba’s political adversaries, including the National Conference President, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, have welcomed her decision, her allies in the BJP are not happy at all about her decision.
“What did he say? He said it is a social problem and Kashmir is a society in search of itself. Is this wrong? We don’t think this is something for which such a harsh decision should have been taken,” a senior BJP leader told IANS, not wanting to be named.
His successor, Syed Altaf Bukhari, who has been assigned the finance portfolio, took a major decision immediately after taking over. Bukhari announced that the decision to replace the old treasury system by the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) has been put on hold. The ambitious PAO system was Drabu’s brainchild.
Bukhari’s decision has been welcomed by hundreds of contractors in the state who had been on strike during the last 13 days demanding their pending payments and suspension of the PAO system at least till March 31.
Would Drabu’s ouster be a storm in a teacup or would it have repercussions on the PDP-BJP ruling alliance in the immediate future? Ironically, Drabu’s PDP colleagues say it won’t be, while the BJP leaders in the state say it would.
(Sheikh Qayoom can be contacted at sheikh.abdul@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Finance, News, Politics
Jammu : Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday sought the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Union Finance Ministry to have the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) system implemented in Jammu and Kashmir after it was put on hold a day ago.
Syed Altaf Bukhari, the new Finance Minister, on Tuesday ordered to put on hold the implementation of the PAO system till March 31.
Reacting to this decision, Abdullah sought the central government’s intervention.
“@PMOIndia and @FinMinIndia need to take a long, hard look at the reasons behind the sudden and arbitrary reversal of the PAO system that had been introduced in Jammu and Kashmir,” the National Conference leader said in a tweet.
In another post on his widely followed Twitter handle, Abdullah chided the PDP-BJP ruling coalition for hyping the PAO system as a novelty that would dispense with the centuries old treasury system in the state.
“For three years the state legislature was told that this reform would be a major step towards transparent use of funds.
“A measure approved by legislative vote has been overturned by a mere government order,” Abdullah said.
Envisaged and championed by the state’s former Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu who was sacked by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday, Drabu’s successor, Syed Ali Bukhari ordered on Tuesday that the system be put on hold till March 31.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Srinagar : Hundreds of people, including several gun-toting militants, attended the funeral of a slain Lashkar-e-Taiba commander in south Kashmir despite people’s movement being restricted and internet curfew clamped across the Kashmir Valley on Monday, a day after four civilians and two insurgents were killed in a shootout with the Army.
Dozens of clashes involving stone-pelting erupted in Shopian as people came out on the streets to protest alleged civilian deaths in the south Kashmir district on Sunday evening.
While the security forces claim that all those killed were militants or their over-ground workers, separatist leaders and locals alleged that four of them were civilians.
The deaths on Sunday evening occurred after a militant travelling in a car attacked an Indian Army’s mobile vehicle checkpost near Pahnoo village in Shopian district, some 60 km south of Srinagar.
Four persons were confirmed dead on Sunday night and two more bodies were recovered on Monday morning, police said.
Police said they recovered the bullet-ridden body of Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Ashiq Hussain Bhat at Saidpora area in Shopian, about six km from the firing spot. He was missing since November 13, 2017.
“Preliminary investigation suggests that Bhat’s death was part of Sunday’s gunfight in Pahnoo village. Further investigation is on,” a police officer said.
The body of a civilian, Gowhar Ahmad Lone, 24, was also found on Monday morning, some 250 metres away from the gunfight site.
The Army said in a statement that militants fired at the mobile check post from two vehicles. It said troops signalled the vehicles to stop near the check post but they moved on and opened heavy fire.
“Our troops, in self defence, responded with fire. In the ensuing gunfight, one terrorist was hit and he fell off the vehicle. The vehicle veered off the road towards a stream and the second vehicle sped off.”
Later, the army personnel recovered the body of a terrorist, who was identified as Amir Malik, a Lashkar militant and a resident of village Harmen in Shopian. “Three more bodies were found in the vehicle during the search. These individuals were accompanying the terrorist.”
The statement said Bhat, whose body was recovered on Monday, was also linked with the same chain of events that took place on Sunday evening.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said she was “deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian” and expressed her “heartfelt condolences to the deceased’s families”.
Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik called for a valley-wide protest shutdown against the killings.
Fearing street protests, the authorities imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar city and south Kashmir region. Internet connectivity in south Kashmir was suspended while its speed was curbed at other places in the Valley.
The State Public Service Commission ordered the cancellation of Monday’s civil services exams in the state. All university and school board exams scheduled on Monday were postponed.
People thronged Kapran village of Shopian to participate in the funeral of Lashkar commander Ashiq Hussain Bhat. Half a dozen militants were also seen offering the congregational Nimaz-e-Janaza of the slain commander. The militants then fired in the air to honour their dead colleague.
Protests also broke out in Shopian’s neighbouring Anantnag and Pulwama districts and Badgam in central Kashmir where youths clashed with the security forces.
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik was arrested from here on Monday during a protest march against the killings.
Police intercepted the Malik-led protest march and took the separatist leader and some of his supporters into custody.
Speaking to media persons, Malik said: “It is the MLAs of the state who are responsible for the killings of these civilians.
“The Army has been given a free hand as no effort has been made by the so-called law makers of the state to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday referred to the religion of soldiers killed in Sunjuwan Army camp terror attack and questioned the “silence” of those raising questions about the patriotism of Indian Muslims.
“Five of the seven killed in the attack (on Saturday) were Kashmiri Muslims. Now, everybody is silent on their sacrifice,” Owaisi said, asking “why such silence on this issue?”
“Everyday, at 9 p.m. on television (debates), the nationalism of (Indian) Muslims is questioned. Questions are also raised on the Kashmiris.”
The Hyderabad MP said the people “who question the integrity of Muslims and those who call Muslims Pakistanis” will have to take a lesson from this.
“We (Muslims) are giving our lives… terrorists are killing us too as they are not discriminating on the basis of religion. They treat everyone as Indian. But there are many people in the country who still question our integrity,” Owaisi said.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh termed Owaisi’s remarks as “unfortunate”.
“These are very unfortunate remarks from a person elected to Parliament and who has taken oath under the Indian Constitution. He always looks at areas where he can divide society on communal lines,” Singh said.
“So far as our martyrs are concerned, they have sacrificed their lives for the country. We don’t see these martyrs as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians. They are martyrs of the nation,” he added.
CPI leader D. Raja however backed Owaisi. “I think it is an answer to the people who are questioning the patriotism or nationalism of the Muslim community.”
Seven persons, including six soldiers, were killed in the terror attack on the Army camp. Three militants involved in the attack were also killed in offensive by the security forces.
—IANS
