mjnaushad
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Fierce battle between Indian army-Pakistan militants in Kashmir
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mjnaushad
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Yes we do..... If they can infiltrate 700.000 better equipped higher budgeted Army (Like they did in the past). those on the Pakistani side are be Piece of cake for them.
Icarus
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Any neutral source ? I'm pretty sure such a large scale covert op would have made good news, for both domestic and international media. Why all the hush, hush ? I'm guessing that the IA ran into some insurgents, lost a man and blamed it on Pakistan, instant fame(remember the Ketchup Colonel).
VCheng
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This is a recent column from The Economist that makes some interesting points:
from: Summertime in Kashmir: And the living looks easy | The Economist
Summertime in Kashmir
And the living looks easy
Jul 18th 2011, 9:40 by A.R. | SRINAGAR
WHEN newspaper-reading outsiders think of Kashmir these days, they understandably conjure images of stone-throwing youths, repressive soldiers, curfews and conflict. Yet in the lulls between confrontations, when Kashmirs separatists pause from exhaustion and the number of militants creeping over from across the border is at low tide, another Kashmir flourishes.
It is tourist season now in Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only is it much cooler here in the hills than down on the plains, it is also time for Hindu pilgrims, or yatris, to trudge up (or, more often, drive up) from humid and low-lying Jammu to visit the sacred site of a big ice stalagmite within a cave, the Amarnath temple. The way from Jammu to Srinagar, a picturesque and vertigo-inducing road that clings to cliff edges, somehow accommodates hurtling buses, lorries, army convoys and long lines of taxis and cars. There is little more to keep them from spinning off the ledge than cheery warning signs stuck up by the Indian army, suggesting this is a highway, not a runway, dont take off and reminding those tempted to drink and drive that life is risky after whisky. It was crammed to bursting on July 17th, with the yatris pausing at roadside stalls run by fellow believers dishing out free food and water.
Srinagar itself is breathing a sigh of relief that this tourist season, so far, has not been disrupted by the sort of violence that erupted each of the past three years. Indian police and soldiers are apparently better-trained, less heavy-handed, and so less likely to abuse locals in such a manner as to restart months of protest. In turn the locals, seeing what little they achieved during the previous summers protests, beyond the loss of life and income, are focused for now on making a living.
The many wooden houseboats on Dal lake, at the heart of the town, are crammed with holidaymakers. More surprising, and less welcome, is the presence of jet-skis roaring noisily in circles around the lake, while other tourists queue to take their turns. As surprising, staring over the lake from a rocky outcropping, is a newly opened five-star hotel, with no vacancies. Indian-brand coffee shops are sprouting in bunches.
It is a reminder that Kashmir, for all its political misery, is not a poor place by Indian standards. Though there is high unemployment among Kashmiris, many of whom are quite well-educated, the state also draws in labourers from the rest of India to do menial toil. Early in the morning the road south from Srinagar, towards an area where saffron is grown, is lined with young men from Bihar who are eager to work fields or on construction sites for a daily wage of about 200 rupees (about $4). Kashmir is in the midst, too, of a building boom, with young men needed to port bricks and sacks of concrete.
Kashmiris remain roughly as well-off as the average Indian, keeping up with the rapidly growing national economy. And compared with Pakistan next door, where economic misery is matched only by the political kind, Kashmir looks increasingly well off. Locals point out that despite the conflict (indeed, at times, because of it) these mountain valleys draw in money: in the good times tourism blossomseven in the winter, when the more adventurous head to Gulmarg ski resortand in the bad times horticulture and the handicraft industry keep plugging along. In addition the Indian state spends heavily in Kashmir, with various development programmes. And the presence of several hundred thousand soldiers in the state, for all the repressive ills it brings the Kashmiris, also adds significant demand for goods and services to the local economy.
Few foreigners are evident in Kashmir at the moment, but with throngs of Indians hurtling about on jet-skis, packing out new hotels and cramming the roads, an unmistakable hum of orderly leisure fills the air. Foreign tourists, in time, may drift back too. How long will this situation last? It could persist happily for years, or, as likely, it could end tomorrow.
from: Summertime in Kashmir: And the living looks easy | The Economist
Summertime in Kashmir
And the living looks easy
Jul 18th 2011, 9:40 by A.R. | SRINAGAR
WHEN newspaper-reading outsiders think of Kashmir these days, they understandably conjure images of stone-throwing youths, repressive soldiers, curfews and conflict. Yet in the lulls between confrontations, when Kashmirs separatists pause from exhaustion and the number of militants creeping over from across the border is at low tide, another Kashmir flourishes.
It is tourist season now in Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Not only is it much cooler here in the hills than down on the plains, it is also time for Hindu pilgrims, or yatris, to trudge up (or, more often, drive up) from humid and low-lying Jammu to visit the sacred site of a big ice stalagmite within a cave, the Amarnath temple. The way from Jammu to Srinagar, a picturesque and vertigo-inducing road that clings to cliff edges, somehow accommodates hurtling buses, lorries, army convoys and long lines of taxis and cars. There is little more to keep them from spinning off the ledge than cheery warning signs stuck up by the Indian army, suggesting this is a highway, not a runway, dont take off and reminding those tempted to drink and drive that life is risky after whisky. It was crammed to bursting on July 17th, with the yatris pausing at roadside stalls run by fellow believers dishing out free food and water.
Srinagar itself is breathing a sigh of relief that this tourist season, so far, has not been disrupted by the sort of violence that erupted each of the past three years. Indian police and soldiers are apparently better-trained, less heavy-handed, and so less likely to abuse locals in such a manner as to restart months of protest. In turn the locals, seeing what little they achieved during the previous summers protests, beyond the loss of life and income, are focused for now on making a living.
The many wooden houseboats on Dal lake, at the heart of the town, are crammed with holidaymakers. More surprising, and less welcome, is the presence of jet-skis roaring noisily in circles around the lake, while other tourists queue to take their turns. As surprising, staring over the lake from a rocky outcropping, is a newly opened five-star hotel, with no vacancies. Indian-brand coffee shops are sprouting in bunches.
It is a reminder that Kashmir, for all its political misery, is not a poor place by Indian standards. Though there is high unemployment among Kashmiris, many of whom are quite well-educated, the state also draws in labourers from the rest of India to do menial toil. Early in the morning the road south from Srinagar, towards an area where saffron is grown, is lined with young men from Bihar who are eager to work fields or on construction sites for a daily wage of about 200 rupees (about $4). Kashmir is in the midst, too, of a building boom, with young men needed to port bricks and sacks of concrete.
Kashmiris remain roughly as well-off as the average Indian, keeping up with the rapidly growing national economy. And compared with Pakistan next door, where economic misery is matched only by the political kind, Kashmir looks increasingly well off. Locals point out that despite the conflict (indeed, at times, because of it) these mountain valleys draw in money: in the good times tourism blossomseven in the winter, when the more adventurous head to Gulmarg ski resortand in the bad times horticulture and the handicraft industry keep plugging along. In addition the Indian state spends heavily in Kashmir, with various development programmes. And the presence of several hundred thousand soldiers in the state, for all the repressive ills it brings the Kashmiris, also adds significant demand for goods and services to the local economy.
Few foreigners are evident in Kashmir at the moment, but with throngs of Indians hurtling about on jet-skis, packing out new hotels and cramming the roads, an unmistakable hum of orderly leisure fills the air. Foreign tourists, in time, may drift back too. How long will this situation last? It could persist happily for years, or, as likely, it could end tomorrow.
VCheng
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Here is another interesting article on the same subject:
from: Kashmir's future: Fleeting chance | The Economist
Kashmir's future
Fleeting chance
A brighter mood brings an opportunity. Expect India to squander it
Jul 21st 2011 | SRINAGAR | from the print edition
THESE are unexpectedly happy days in conflict-torn Kashmir. Tourists flock from India’s sweaty plains to gasp the mountain air. Srinagar’s hotels, houseboats and cafés are crammed. Jetskis roar over the once-tranquil Dal lake. Hordes of Hindu pilgrims trek, unmolested, to a sacred penis-shaped lump of ice at Amarnath, a cave temple. And on roadsides Indian migrant labourers, mostly Biharis, line up to work in fields and on building-sites.
Amid the bustle there is glee. A father tells of his young children playing in streets that last year flew with stones and bullets. A man in Bandipur, a town north of Srinagar, previously protested against Indian occupiers but now worries more about cash: “tourism was gone last year, so now we need to make some money.”
Such pragmatism is welcome. Kashmir’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, sitting on a terrace in his Srinagar home, says that almost 80% of voters turned out for recent panchayat (village) elections, though he concedes that the vote does not signify acceptance of Indian rule. Protests over the past three years led in 2010 to five months of curfews, boycotts of shops, offices and schools—known as hartals—and stone-throwing by youngsters. Brutal and ill-trained security men responded by shooting dead more than 110 Kashmiris.
People would doubtless do it again, if called out. But many are fed up with staying home or getting shot at for no gain. Parents fret that their children are flunking exams; traders worry about lost earnings. Some fear that traumatised youngsters may become extremists, swapping stones for bombs or guns.
The authorities have also grown cannier. More than 1,000 young men are said to have been locked away as a precaution. Many separatists are behind bars or, like the most notable leader, the octogenarian Syed Ali Shah Geelani, under house arrest. The police have been taught, at long last, to use non-lethal force against unarmed crowds. And officials, not stick-wielding security thugs, are now supposed to respond when humdrum grievances—a broken water pipe, say—bring people on to the street. Mr Abdullah, whose hair is fast turning grey, says “our entire exercise is in not giving these people a trigger to start the protests again.”
The wider background may help. Kashmir’s separatists were quick to condemn a triple bombing in Mumbai on July 13th that killed 20. In Kashmir itself there are still occasional clashes: on July 15th a handful of fighters, allegedly from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group based in Pakistan, died in a shoot-out. But the army says militancy is down to a “subcritical” level. And though sullen-looking armed men in uniform are everywhere, dozens of military roadblocks that choked Srinagar last year have been cleared. Some soldiers might return to barracks, easing the locals’ sense of being under the Indian army boot.
Militants and pro-Pakistanis alike are also subdued because they fear that Pakistan is succumbing to dire economic and security problems. The talk is of “betrayal” by the government in Islamabad. When the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan hold rare bilateral talks in Delhi on July 27th, they will not discuss Kashmir’s status. Nor are Pakistan’s beleaguered army and spies likely to restore the backing for fighters in Kashmir which they reduced after the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
As a result, India has space to do something on its own. Previous lulls were cues for it to neglect Kashmiri grievances, speeding up the return to protest. Possibly things might be different this time. Modest efforts to build trust are under way, such as allowing barter trade of farm goods with the Pakistani-run bit of Kashmir. That could be followed by letting more people cross the border to visit relatives. Braver steps would earn a response from moderate Kashmiris, whose most bitter complaints concern restrictions on daily life, rather than being part of India.
One step would be to hold India’s security services to account for last year’s killings. If Kashmiris thought the army and India’s politicians were concerned about their plight, they might be less resentful. Mr Abdullah says he expects prosecutions to follow current inquiries. The lifting of harsh emergency laws—both at the state level and under a centrally imposed armed forces act—is long overdue.
Timing matters. The Indian authorities move slowly, more worried about seeming soft on separatism to Indian voters than about winning the trust of Kashmiris. Yet delays raise the chances of renewed protest and play into the hands of hardliners. In April the moderate leader of a fundamentalist Wahhabi organisation, al-Hadith, was blown up as he arrived at a mosque in Srinagar. Suspicion points at extremists within the group, whose following is growing. Thankfully, neither bloody protests nor revenge attacks followed. Next time could be different.
from the print edition | Asia
from: Kashmir's future: Fleeting chance | The Economist
Kashmir's future
Fleeting chance
A brighter mood brings an opportunity. Expect India to squander it
Jul 21st 2011 | SRINAGAR | from the print edition
THESE are unexpectedly happy days in conflict-torn Kashmir. Tourists flock from India’s sweaty plains to gasp the mountain air. Srinagar’s hotels, houseboats and cafés are crammed. Jetskis roar over the once-tranquil Dal lake. Hordes of Hindu pilgrims trek, unmolested, to a sacred penis-shaped lump of ice at Amarnath, a cave temple. And on roadsides Indian migrant labourers, mostly Biharis, line up to work in fields and on building-sites.
Amid the bustle there is glee. A father tells of his young children playing in streets that last year flew with stones and bullets. A man in Bandipur, a town north of Srinagar, previously protested against Indian occupiers but now worries more about cash: “tourism was gone last year, so now we need to make some money.”
Such pragmatism is welcome. Kashmir’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, sitting on a terrace in his Srinagar home, says that almost 80% of voters turned out for recent panchayat (village) elections, though he concedes that the vote does not signify acceptance of Indian rule. Protests over the past three years led in 2010 to five months of curfews, boycotts of shops, offices and schools—known as hartals—and stone-throwing by youngsters. Brutal and ill-trained security men responded by shooting dead more than 110 Kashmiris.
People would doubtless do it again, if called out. But many are fed up with staying home or getting shot at for no gain. Parents fret that their children are flunking exams; traders worry about lost earnings. Some fear that traumatised youngsters may become extremists, swapping stones for bombs or guns.
The authorities have also grown cannier. More than 1,000 young men are said to have been locked away as a precaution. Many separatists are behind bars or, like the most notable leader, the octogenarian Syed Ali Shah Geelani, under house arrest. The police have been taught, at long last, to use non-lethal force against unarmed crowds. And officials, not stick-wielding security thugs, are now supposed to respond when humdrum grievances—a broken water pipe, say—bring people on to the street. Mr Abdullah, whose hair is fast turning grey, says “our entire exercise is in not giving these people a trigger to start the protests again.”
The wider background may help. Kashmir’s separatists were quick to condemn a triple bombing in Mumbai on July 13th that killed 20. In Kashmir itself there are still occasional clashes: on July 15th a handful of fighters, allegedly from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group based in Pakistan, died in a shoot-out. But the army says militancy is down to a “subcritical” level. And though sullen-looking armed men in uniform are everywhere, dozens of military roadblocks that choked Srinagar last year have been cleared. Some soldiers might return to barracks, easing the locals’ sense of being under the Indian army boot.
Militants and pro-Pakistanis alike are also subdued because they fear that Pakistan is succumbing to dire economic and security problems. The talk is of “betrayal” by the government in Islamabad. When the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan hold rare bilateral talks in Delhi on July 27th, they will not discuss Kashmir’s status. Nor are Pakistan’s beleaguered army and spies likely to restore the backing for fighters in Kashmir which they reduced after the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
As a result, India has space to do something on its own. Previous lulls were cues for it to neglect Kashmiri grievances, speeding up the return to protest. Possibly things might be different this time. Modest efforts to build trust are under way, such as allowing barter trade of farm goods with the Pakistani-run bit of Kashmir. That could be followed by letting more people cross the border to visit relatives. Braver steps would earn a response from moderate Kashmiris, whose most bitter complaints concern restrictions on daily life, rather than being part of India.
One step would be to hold India’s security services to account for last year’s killings. If Kashmiris thought the army and India’s politicians were concerned about their plight, they might be less resentful. Mr Abdullah says he expects prosecutions to follow current inquiries. The lifting of harsh emergency laws—both at the state level and under a centrally imposed armed forces act—is long overdue.
Timing matters. The Indian authorities move slowly, more worried about seeming soft on separatism to Indian voters than about winning the trust of Kashmiris. Yet delays raise the chances of renewed protest and play into the hands of hardliners. In April the moderate leader of a fundamentalist Wahhabi organisation, al-Hadith, was blown up as he arrived at a mosque in Srinagar. Suspicion points at extremists within the group, whose following is growing. Thankfully, neither bloody protests nor revenge attacks followed. Next time could be different.
from the print edition | Asia
Tshering22
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I like the Sentry guns idea... it is best we do that. No civilian is permitted to be anywhere near LOC or LAC for that matter by I think the last 10 Km. That is enough distance to realize that something is not normal when you see gun-totting "civilians" coming in. These remote controlled cannons would be one helluva armament. But the how will UPA get to play its cheap slave dirty politics if they do that isn't it?
As for the Sentry guns, I say place them along LOC, LAC as well as IB with Bangladesh. That should get our borders safer
.
As for the Sentry guns, I say place them along LOC, LAC as well as IB with Bangladesh. That should get our borders safer
.
Kashmiri Nationalist
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LoC is not a border, so placing Sentry Guns and what-not isn't in-line with the ceasefire agreement their; Kashmir does not belong to India in the eyes of the world, therefore, you have no right to place Sentry Guns all over the LoC as if it is an international border.
Tshering22
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And who's going to stop us? The "world"? Doesn't seem so these days. This "the world" can say anything it wants but it simply won't do anything even if we place it. So technically this is our call whether we do it or not.
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