The Centre on Monday expressed happiness over the reopening of most educational institutes in Jammu and Kashmir and appealed to all sections of the people, especially parents, to cooperate with the government in their smooth functioning. Home Minister P Chidambaram said there was a call by one of the Hurriyat leaders to the parents asking them not to send their children to schools and colleges, but it was heartening that parents have disregarded that call.
Defence Minister A K Antony on Saturday arrived in Srinagar on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir during which he will review the security situation in the Valley and also interact with troops deployed in forward locations.
The ongoing violence in the valley is driving students to excel, but it is also making them angry, discovers Ritwik Sharma.
'They are worried that the BJP government is trying to reduce Kashmiris as a minority.'
In a significant move, Kashmiri separatist leaders on Sunday decided to convene a meeting of all stakeholders on Tuesday to decide the future course of the nearly four-month-long shutdown in the Valley.
Normal life has been paralysed due to curfew-like restrictions and separatists-sponsored strike since Saturday.
Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav is among six personalities chosen for this year's Padma Vibhushan.
Kashmir remained on the edge with six more persons, including a cop getting killed in violence on Sunday.
A court in New Delhi on Wednesday granted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) 10 days' custody of two people accused in a case related to NGO terror funding.
The report covers 20 countries, including war-torn Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen and also the situation in India, the Philippines and Nigeria.
The minority affairs minister ruled out reconsideration on abrogation of Article 370 provisions, saying there was no going back.
The Congress said the rally by the INDIA will send a "strong message" to the Lok Kalyan Marg, where the prime minister's residence is located, that the BJP-led government's "time is up".
Sayeed said said such attacks would not deter the people from pursuing the path of peace and the process of dialogue and reconciliation would be carried forward.
Kashmiris hope that India and Pakistan can find a lasting solution to what many call the Kashmir 'problem'.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to announce a package for border districts of Jammu and Kashmir when he travels there on Tuesday along with United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on a two-day visit.
'As of now, it seems like they want to tread the Vajpayee line, but the central government has to create trust.' 'It has to be vibrant and unambiguous.'
'Collateral damage during operations needs to be avoided.' 'Such an objective can be achieved more easily should stone throwers not gear up to en masse oppose security forces.' 'With the conditions being quite sensitive at this stage, the death of one of these boys could easily serve the terrorists in instigating violence,' notes Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'...Else we will let the situation develop to a dangerous level where much greater violence will be the only outcome,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The education sector has been badly hit in Kashmir Valley during the five-month-long unrest, causing "irreversible loss" to students, the Economic Survey Report has said.
In the wake of 73 confirmed cases of coronavirus in India so far, the Union health ministry has made functional 52 laboratories for testing samples while 57 labs have been designated for helping in sample collection for Covid-19 to enhance capacity for diagnosis and detection of the disease. "Following the increase in load of screening samples from suspected cases with symptoms and travel history to the affected countries, the department of health research/ICMR has commissioned 52 laboratories for COVID-19 testing in India," an official said.
Curfew remained in force on Thursday in parts of Kashmir valley as a preventive measure to maintain law and order after a youth was killed when security forces allegedly opened fire to chase away stone-pelting protesters.
As Azad ended his decades-old association with the party, leaders across political spectrum praised his contribution to Jammu and Kashmir, with the BJP hailing him as a "towering leader".
Raising slogans against Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and the administration, the demonstrators, mostly government employees posted in the troubled valley and their kin, demanded that they be provided adequate security or be transferred to Jammu. The employees also threatened en masse resignation from their jobs.
A unanimous statement of the delegation appealed to the people of the state to shun the path of violence and resolve all the issues through dialogue and discussion.
'As of now, this one move seems to have precariously altered the balance of forces on the volatile ground, between separatists and the mainstream. 'The landscape today presents a fearsome picture of the future of mainstream politics in Kashmir. 'Conversely, the separatist ideology looks to have got an unearned boost,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs
Airtel said it will implement 25 per cent more stringent mobile call drop benchmark of 1.5 per cent versus 2 per cent prescribed by the regulator Trai.
The defence ministry said Maharashtra was voted as the best tableau among the states/union territories in the popular choice category.
Earlier this month, a controversy had erupted over the reduction of syllabus by the Central Board of Secondary Education due to the COVID-19 situation, with the Opposition alleging that chapters on India's democracy and plurality are being "dropped" to propagate a particular ideology.
He emphasised that if any life is lost in Kashmir, whether of any youth or any security personnel, 'that loss is ours, of our own country'.
A special court in Srinagar on Monday framed charges against eight persons, including a prominent Hurriyat leader, for selling Pakistani MBBS seats in Jammu and Kashmir to fund terror activities.
A PAGD leader said the meeting was held at the residence of alliance chairperson and National Conference president Farooq Abdullah at the Gupkar locality of Srinagar.
This is the seventh consecutive day that Pakistan has targeted forward posts along the Line of Control (LoC).
The Union Cabinet also decided to promulgate an ordinance -- The Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 -- to give reservation benefits to the people living along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir, who often face shelling from across the border.
The report contains 58 case studies of alleged excesses by the armed forces in the state.
'Kashmir is complex, conflicted and unpredictable.' 'Take the instance of Handwara and the killings there.' 'The need of the hour is more one of restraint in the violent reactions of the armed forces.' 'But restraint is wanting in Kashmir for a quarter of a century now.'
'It is flabbergasting to think that this heavenly region has, for decades, been coveted by India's aggressive neighbours,' says Claude Arpi after a recent visit to Ladakh. 'Wanting to use the newly created infrastructure to defend the borders after the clash of 2020 with China and the resulting standoffs, the home ministry is keen to boost border tourism to show that these areas are controlled by India.'
Militants snatched an automatic rifle along with a magazine from a cop and decamped with it in south Kashmir Pulwama town on Tuesday afternoon.
Major General B S Raju said a full scale cordon-and-search operation, like the one conducted in Shopian recently, will be carried out only in places where the army's operations are hampered.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled central government alleging that there were attempts to suppress the cause of the train accident in Odisha.
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