FJ Kashmir

  inam ul rehman     On February 12, traders from various markets in the city centre organised a press conference. They expressed concern over the slow pace of smart city works , encroachment of roads , and lack of parking facilities for the business community. Genuine concerns.    The Srinagar Smart city project started in 2018, but accumulated pace in 2022. Its first deadline was set in December 2023, but as we know deadlines are just a number which are always tossed around here.    Had Kashmir ’s largest circulated English daily, Greater Kashmir , not advocated for Srinagar smart city project this project would have lumbered on like the fate of most projects in Jammu and Kashmir . Most projects under the smart city in and around Lal Chowk and old city would have not been completed if the GK had not highlighted it daily. Every day it would publish a story about the smart city project. If not a story, a picture of an incomplete project would b...

Book: Loal Kashmir: Love and Longing in a Torn Land Author: Mehak Jamal Publisher: HarperCollins  Pages: 343 inam ul rehman  As I received the pre-ordered book I was impressed with its cover design and illustration of Veer Misra and Basita Shah. As a reader I always skip blurbs, quotes by others regarding books because I don’t want my opinion coloured by these, second, it usually is done to please the publishing house or the author. Hence holds no value for serious readers.  The book, as the author states, fructified during the traumatic events of reading down of Article 370 and 35A in 2019 Jammu and Kashmir .  Mehak Jamal’s book on love and longing starts with exuberance. In the early 90s when cordon and search operations were norm in Kashmir¬¬—where people used to be paraded before masked men sitting in armed gypsies—17-year-old  Javid tries to dodge one such operation, notoriously known as a crackdown , but finds himself late to escape.  As he moves to...