Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in a statement on April 9, 2015, disclosed that Chief Minister of Held Kashmir Mufti Muhammad Sayeed had “assured the Union Government to provide land in the valley for setting up Composite Townships for settlement of Kashmiri pandits.” Again on April 28 he reiterated in lower House of Representatives (Lok Sabha) that Mufti Sayeed had “promised to earmark 50 acres of land as first instalment for the resettlement of Kashmiru pandits.” The ...
Read More“Why did you give too many As?” Growled the HOD of my university at an academic who had awarded As to most of the students of our class. The teacher, a true scholar with a command over his subjects, knew how to keep the students captivated in the class, and importantly engaged in the subject. “Let the students be duly rewarded for their efforts,” he chimed. At the same university, another teacher shared with us the ...
Read MoreDeath of any human can stir tears. And if someone dies young, the grief not only wells up the eyes, but shakes the soul also. When I heard about Zaheer’s death I could not, but wail out the opening stanza of the Shelly’s elegy on Keats. Even though “his fate and fame shall be an echo and a light unto eternity, I felt as though light had gone out of my life!”He was my student, ...
Read MoreThe grandiose pictures emanating from Gaza shake the spine of the viewers—Muslims and non Muslims alike. Charred and raged bodies, blood bathed babies and faint cries surging from leathery and helpless lips of sisters and mothers require steely heart to watch and withstand the agonies. Amid relentless sultry heat and trying Ramadan, tears of the mourners seem to have dried. In this backdrop, the desperate cries reverberating from Aqsa, Qibla e awal, shook the souls of millions ...
Read More‘We do not need the educated lot, they elicit more harm than good to us,’ grunted Allah Ditta, wiping sweat, which had started streaming down his chin. ‘What?’I interjected. Deciphering my obvious disgruntlement and bafflement, Allah Ditta waved me to sit down for a few minutes. To convince him with my wide exposure to the literati, staying abreast with sea of knowledge through internet, and having attained a scholarly degree, I chose to sit on a ...
Read More‘Those are Pakistani Fuji standing at the hill top, and they would soon come down to liberate us’, Said Ibrahim, recalling his vivid childhood memories, that how his grandmother, would tell him, pointng towards towering pine trees stationed at the hills at night. “And indeed that they would come, we had a faith”, continued Ibrahim. ‘But it never happened,’ he sighed, with gleam diminishing in his eyes. Ibrahim is a congenial man from Srinagar in his early sixties. ...
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