Omar Abdullah took oath as Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister on 5th of January 2009. In India he was declared as youngest chief minister. And people had expected lot from him at national as well as domestic level, but a detailed look at his three-year term makes one realize that there is almost nothing to cheer about.

Omar Abdullah will complete his three years in office on 5th of January 2012. On his installation as youngest chief minister, some of the observers were of the opinion that...

For a while chairman of moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has trodden into enemies area. On Friday, he talked about the issues that have so far remained a taboo for advocates of azadi and Islam. Making a huge departure from the past, Mirwaiz, for the first time, talked about Aam issues of Aam Aadmi.

“While struggling for the judicious resolution of Jammu and Kashmir issue, we cannot remain aloof to the hardships and privations of the common people caused due...

Nearly 50 per cent of the plant species described in British pharmacopoeia are reported to grow in Kashmir valley. Till date more than 5000 aromatic/medical plants have been discovered in Jammu and Kashmir. Scientific observations reveal that the state could become the superpower in future for the herbal medicines and perfumes if the huge resources are exploited properly and effectively.

Aromatherapy is gaining laurels the world over with Kashmir Lavander being the crown in the world of...

Politics and politicians in Kashmir thrive on deaths, and more so if the dead person is a hapless labourer, shopkeeper or a daily wage-earner. Like vultures, politicians of all hues look for deaths.

To their convenience, they have split people into ‘our’ and ‘their’ folds. It is the circumstantial evidence that defines and determines the political responses to the deaths. It appears that the political class in Kashmir has neither moral qualm nor heart to look at a death.

The death...

“Almost two weeks after the encounter that claimed Ishrat's life, along with those of Pune resident Javed Sheikh and two Pakistani nationals,” wrote India’s respected English newspaper, ‘The Hindu on June 27, 2004’, “it is still unclear just what motivated the young college student to join the ranks of the Lashkar.”

The reporter, considered close to privy sources of intelligence and police, wrote further in his report: “That she did so, in at least some peripheral form...

This year, it will be ten years since the Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali (February 1949 – December 2001) breathed his last at his home in Amherst, Massachusetts, succumbing to the battle with a malignant brain tumor.

“The death of the poet, Agha Shahid Ali, was a terrible loss – for poetry, for Kashmir…” writes author Amitav Ghosh in his tribute.

In his passing some lost a friend, a sibling, a son, a mentor but Shahid’s death was an irreparable loss especially to...

Some time back we heard Dr Farooq Abdullah profusely praising his chief minister son Omar Abdullah for his “vision and resolve” to take Jammu and Kashmir to new heights of peace and development. Farooq Abdullah, quite in fitness of a father’s love for his son, said “Omar has the ability to fulfil Sher-e-Kashmir’s dream”. He, however, did not elaborate what that dream was? And why he (Farooq Abdullah), despite being four-time chief minister, could not fulfil that dream, and what...

On this day, Imam Hussain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) offered the greatest ever sacrifice for salvation of humanity. Imam Hussain (AS) is the example for the self-conscious, uncompromising revolutionary, the one who advocated the rights of the oppressed. Imam Hussain (AS) was a member of the family of the Holy Prophet (SAW), whom Almighty Allah has kept uncleanness away from: "God only desires to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! And to purify you a...