When the high profile dignitaries of the superpower play basketball under the open sky of the conflict area it signals that conditions are normal in a place where half a decade earlier the causality figures in the year consistently touched more than 1000 deaths. The visit of United States Ambassador to India, Timothy E Roemer, in March of this year and now the defeated Republican Presidential candidate of US, John McCain is a testimony of that.

Reacting to the visit of McCain, Executive...

On August 18 a news reported by a local and an Indian daily surprised many in Kashmiri. The news read: ‘Separatists stay away, Soz Attends’. According to the news reports the only mainstream leader who attended the Iftar party hosted by the High Commission of Pakistan Shahid Malik was Saffu-din-Soz and the other political dignitaries like Wajahat Habibullah et al. The moment I read this news I pondered over the headline, which carried lot more weight than anything else. I questioned...

Let us see crime as crime. Perpetrators as perpetrators. Let us not walk the talk with politics. A village woman is kidnapped for couple of days and in a secluded place raped by two persons. Let us agree for a moment that those who raped her were ‘unknown persons’ in an Indian army uniform and were only two. The people expectedly came on the streets to register their protest and what is the response of the State.

First the name of rape victim is officially released against the norms of...

Ever since Kashmir was sold by Britishers to Maharaja Ghulab Singh, Kashmiris never digested this sale. Soon after the deal was executed, people of Kashmir fought valiantly against the army of Maharaja Ghulab Singh and defeated it. The battle took place near Sheikh Bagh under the leadership of Imam-ud-Din, the last governor of Sikh rule (1846).

Dogra army retreated and for several months Kashmir remained free from foreign rule. The Kashmiris who were martyred in this resistance were buried...