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 | Media, News, Politics
Srinagar : Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday wondered if the situation in Jammu and Kashmir had deteriorated so badly that the government was afraid of allowing foreign correspondents to report freely from the state.
Annie Gowen, the India bureau chief of Washington Post, tweeted on Tuesday that she was in Kashmir for a friend’s wedding.
But she said she was not reporting because the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs had not granted the special permit now required for foreign correspondents. She said she applied for it on June 22. “Unacceptable delay.”
The National Conference leader took exception to the denial of permission to Gowen.
“Has the situation in Kashmir deteriorated to such an extent that we are now afraid to let foreign correspondents report freely from Kashmir? Another crowning achievement of BJP’s Kashmir policy ably assisted by its partner in crime the PDP.”
In the early 1990s too, foreign journalists had to seek permission from the Home Ministry to report from Jammu and Kashmir.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Farooq Abdullah
New Delhi : Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah on Friday said peace in Jammu and Kashmir was impossible without involving Pakistan, asking the BJP government to give up its rigid stance and be flexible in solving problems in the terror-ravaged state.
“You may not like what I am going to say. We will not have peace in Jammu and Kashmir unless we strike a deal with Pakistan,” Abdullah said in his speech during the no confidence motion in the Lok Sabha.
He said he had high hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would build peace with Pakistan that Atal Bihari Vajpayee could not do.
“North Korea, which was making nuclear missiles, atom bombs, has made peace with US President Donald Trump. Trump and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin are meeting each other to find peace. But we have failed to do the same for Jammu and Kashmir.”
In his short but fiery speech, the National Conference leader said the anti-Muslim rhetoric building up in the country needed to stop because it was dangerous.
“We won’t be defeated by America, Russia or any other nation. We will defeat ourselves. We will not be successful unless the Hindus and Muslims unite.”
Pointing his finger towards the ruling bench, Abdullah asked the BJP to take note of the fact that “Muslims are as Indians as you are”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Sheikh Qayoom,
Srinagar : Beware of predators and poachers, take care of your flock. This is the classic warning for shepherds while they graze their flock in the Himalayan meadows. In Kashmir’s political meadow of expedient opportunities, the same warning is now visiting mainstream politicians.
After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew from the ruling alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, the politics of make and break is back with a vengeance.
Dissident MLAs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), including the influential Shia leader and former minister Imran Ansari and his uncle, Abid Ansari, who is also an MLA in the 87-member legislative assembly, were the first to hit the road against Mehbooba Mufti, the former Chief Minister and the PDP president.
Three more PDP MLAs — Abbas Wani, Abdul Majeed Paddar and Javaid Hussain Baig — found common cause with the Ansaris to rebel against the party leadership.
Encouraged by the trend set by rebel MLAs, two PDP legislators from the upper house of state’s bicameral legislature, Yasir Rishi and Saifuddin Bhat, also joined the dissident group.
Alarmed by the cracks in her party, Mehbooba Mufti warned the Centre against attempting a split.
“The breaking up of my party will produce more Sallahuddins and Yasin Maliks,” Mehbooba said on July 13, the day Kashmir remembers its martyrs who fought against the autocratic rule of the erstwhile Maharajas.
BJP leaders including Ram Madhav, the party’s national general secretary who played a pivotal role in forging an alliance with the PDP that brought the coalition to power in 2015, washed their hands off.
“This is an internal issue of the PDP and we have nothing to do with it. Our priority is to improve the situation in the Valley under governor’s rule,” Madhav said.
Former Chief Minister and regional National Conference (NC) Vice President Omar Abdullah came out strongly against encouraging dissidence in the state’s regional parties.
Omar has been pleading from day one after the imposition of the governor’s rule by N.N.Vohra that keeping the state assembly in suspended animation gives an opportunity for horse trading.
The NC Vice President wants dissolution of the state assembly and announcement of fresh elections to restore democracy in the state.
Omar’s worry has valid reasons. His father and party president, Dr.Farooq Abdullah, lost the Chief Minister’s post in 1984 when NC dissidents, with the support of the Congress Party, installed his brother-in-law, G.M. Shah, as the Chief Minister.
Sajad Lone of the Peoples Conference (PC), who was a minister in the Mehbooba Mufti led coalition, is believed to be the front-runner for the Chief Minister’s post if a viable third front supported by the BJP is able to take shape.
Forty-four MLAs is the minimum number to stake claim to power in the state. In the 87-member assembly, the PDP has 28, BJP 25, NC 15, Congress 12, PC 2 and CPI-M 1, while four MLAs are unattached.
Sajad Lone was given a ministerial berth in the erstwhile PDP-BJP ruling coalition out of the BJP quota.
J&K has a tough anti-defection law which makes changing parties very difficult for the rebels.
What irks the regional parties is the fact that seven BJP MLAs who were expelled by the party in the former state assembly were allowed by the then Speaker to sit separately in the assembly without losing their membership.
The top leadership of both the NC and the PDP are worried about such a situation arising again if horse trading succeeds in breaking the PDP to reach the magical figure of 44 with BJP support.
“That would be the darkest day for democracy in the state”, said a senior NC leader.
There are no indications at present that the NC faces a similar crisis as the PDP does, but as the saying goes — once bitten, twice shy.
Some senior BJP leaders in the state, including the former Deputy Chief Minister Kavinder Gupta, have started saying that the tradition of having a Muslim Chief Minister in the state has no constitutional basis.
“Anybody who becomes the leader of the majority in the assembly can be the Chief Minister. There is nothing in the constitution that debars a non-Muslim becoming J&K’s Chief Minister”, Gupta said.
Ironically, the growing voices in Jammu for a Hindu Chief Minister could prevent the PDP dissidents from fishing in the troubled waters.
“Why should the dissidents give up their claim to have one of them as the Chief Minister? After all, none of the dissidents has stuck his neck out to pave way for a Chief Minister who is not among them,” asked a senior PDP leader who owes unflinching loyalty to Mehbooba Mufti.
Politics being the art of the possible can make for strange bedfellows, but definitely not those who take risks for somebody else to get the top job in Kashmir.
(Sheikh Qayoom can be contacted at sheikh.abdul@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Srinagar : The first batch of 820 pilgrims from Jammu and Kashmir will be leaving for Saudi Arabia on Saturday to perform this year’s Haj pilgrimage.
Special buses from the Srinagar Haj House in Bemina area took the pilgrims to the Srinagar International airport early on Saturday.
Authorities said four Air India flights will be carrying them to the West Asian nation.
The last flight of Haj pilgrims will leave on July 25.
After an additional quota of 250 seats was allowed to the state by the All India Haj Committee, over 10,000 pilgrims from the state were able to perform this year’s pilgrimage.
The first flight carrying the pilgrims will return here on August 25 and the last on September 7.
—IANS
