Mohammad Syed Malik was electronics Engineering student but shifted to journalism and started his career as a journalist while working with renowned pioneers of journalism in Kashmir like J.N. Sathu, Sham Koul, and O N Koul and R K Kak. Currently, Malik works as Chief Consultant Editor of Kashmir Times. On World Press Freedom Day, Kashmir Dispatch correspondent Afsha Arjumand interviewed the stalwart of Kashmir journalism. Excerpts:

In your opinion, what is freedom of press in...

The advent of print media in Kashmir dates back to the year 1856, but the foundation stone of English journalism was laid during the year 1935. The credit goes to Janki Nath Zutshi and Baldav Prasad Sharma who started Kashmir Time— an English news weekly that later emerged as the most popular newspaper of the state, recalls Yousuf Jameel, one of the most prolific journalist Kashmir has seen in contemporary times. A parcel bomb blast in Srinagar office of the British Broadcasting Corporation...

Christopher Snedden is an Australian politico-strategic analyst, author and academic specialising in South Asian studies. His consultancy, Asia Calling, works with governments, businesses and universities. In Kashmir: The Unwritten History, he dismisses India’s claim that Pakhtoon tribesmen stoked the Kashmir conflict in October 1947. On the contrary, an uprising by the subjects of princely Jammu & Kashmir in Poonch, who were disenchanted with the Maharaja’s rule, triggered the...

From the HAJY group— widely considered to be the first among hundreds of Kashmir boys to pick gun in late 1980s— Sheikh Abdul Hamid crossed over the Line of Control between the Indian and Pakistan Kashmir months before his three friends: Ashfaq Majid Wani, Javed Ahmad Mir and Yasin Malik. Credited with the launch of an armed insurgency in this Himalayan region, Hamid died while fighting the government forces in 1992 on this day. Kashmir Dispatch correspondent Adil Lateef visited the Jammu...