Tag: kashmir schools

Briefing April 23-29, 2023

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POONCH
Remains of the ill-fated army truck that went up in flames after suspected militants attacked it in Bhata Dhurian area in Mendhar (Poonch) on April 20, 2023. Six soldiers were killed and one survived injured.
In anticipation of preparations for the G20 meeting in Kashmir, suspected militants targeted an army vehicle killing five of the six soldiers. The surviving soldier is battling for his life in the hospital. The attack occurred at Bhatta Durrian (Mendhar), where four soldiers were killed in a gun battle with the militants in October 2021. Army statement said militants hiding behind bushes and a cluster of trees opened firing on the Army truck moving between Bhimber Gali and Poonch at Bhatta Durrian on April 20, 2023, at 3 pm taking advantage of rains and thunderstorms. While one militant used grenades to stop the truck, another opened calibrated fire towards its fuel tank, triggering a massive blaze as yet another militant opened fire at onboard soldiers. Four of five Rashtriya Rifles soldiers are from Punjab.
In order to hunt down the assailants, authorities have suspended civil traffic in the Bata-Doriya area. An NIA team is visiting the area for investigations.
How will the attack impact the cold relations between India and Pakistan remains to be seen. Interestingly, Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is expected to lead a delegation to India for a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on May 5 that Goa hosts. It would be the first visit by any Pakistani Foreign Minister since Hina Rabbani Khar’s in 2011.
LG Manoj Sinha says Kashmir will produce Mustard oil worth Rs 800 crore in 2023.
PUNJAB
State Investigation Agency
In a first of its kind, Jammu and Kashmir Police’s State Investigation Agency (SIA) has attached a Punjab resident’s property for “his links with militants”. Identified as Amarbhir Singh of Baba Darshan Singh Enclave at Ram Tirath Mahal in Amritsar, he is living in Dubai but is wanted in many cases in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. The SIA seizure with the help of Punjab Police was in a case of recovery of Rs 15 lakh hawala money at Nagrota from two alleged JeM associates Parvez and Farooq, who were arrested in 2021. This is the first action taken by the SIA outside Jammu and Kashmir.

Formally opened on November 4, 2022, the Tele Mental Health Assistance and Networking Across States (Tele-MANAS) has received 10000 calls from people in distress. Women callers constitute 70 per cent.
SRINAGAR
High Court of Jammu and Kashmir
The High Court has quashed a series of detention orders under the Public Safety Act, including the one against journalist Fahad Shah. In the case of Srinagar resident Peerzada Mohammed Waseem, the court said the prosecution accused him of rioting and stone pelting in 2020 when the person was in jail since 2017. “How can a detenue already in jail and facing trial participate in rioting and stone pelting during that intervening period?” Judge Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal asked.
Wildlife officials said the direct sightings during the biennial census reveal improved numbers of Hangul within Dachigam National Park. In 2021, 261 Hangul were counted.
KASHMIR
Ramzan 2023 was the most peaceful month of fasting in the last more than three decades. In Kashmir, there were no killings of militants or by militants. There was one encounter but the militants managed to flee. In Ramzan 2022, 19 militants, two civilians and two security personnel forces also lost their lives in militant violence. More than 20 militants were killed in Ramzan 2021.
Peace, however, did not help markets that remained struggling to earn. The inclement weather added to their crisis. Even though the month of fasting was extended to 30 days, the last days did not help the market revive. Lal Chowk remained deserted unlike in the past and part of the credit goes to the ongoing smart city works.
However, Ramzan 2023 would be remembered for the mess that Kashmir’s so-called grand Mufti, Nasirul Islam landed in. He was in a controversy at the beginning of the month when he declared that his “moon-sighting committee” could not locate the Ramzan crescent. People defied his claim and started fasting as Shia ulema had moon-sighting evidence. On April 19, a brief recording came on social media in which he was saying that his committee could not locate the crescent of Shawaal month on April 20, so Eid is being celebrated on Saturday, This triggered a serious controversy leading Nasir to send a formal request to Jammu and Kashmir Police to investigate the issue. He said he had been recorded for Doordarshan in advance. DD insider confirmed it saying this is the tradition. “We keep two versions recorded and then run the one that he permits at the appropriate time,” an insider said. The question, however, remains – how can anybody record something in advance when he or she lacks knowledge of it? On the flip side of it, police have investigated the issue and have answers. Will they ever reveal? Wait.
Against Rs 217.43 crore, the Government generated Rs 260.94 crore with the e-auction of 257 retail liquor vends for the year 2023-24. Some more vends are auctioned soon.
KISHTWAR
A youth was killed and his brother survived injured in a mysterious blast in their own kitchen at Chitran village in Kishtwar’s Simbol area. The dead young man was identified as Shabir Ahmad, 20, and the one struggling to survive as Mohammad Yaseen, 18. Gucchi mushroom hunters, the two brothers had located something in the hospital and were heating it when it exploded. In another interesting incident, Ghulam Hassan, an ex-serviceman, from Angloe area opened fire on his wife, Rubeena, and Yasmeena, his minor daughter and rendered them injured. He used a 12-bore rifle. He lost his cool when his wife and daughter pleaded with the drunkard not to have liquor. Now, he is being tried for an attempt to murder.
Kashmir’s mutton requirements are expected to go up post-Eid from the prevailing 35 truckloads of sheep a day to 160.
DELHI
Jammu and Kashmir’s erstwhile foot-in-mouth governor, Satya Pal Malik has landed in yet another controversy for accusing Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and NSA, Ajit Doval, of making him silent on February 2019 Pulwama attack. The tragedy pushed India and Pakistan to the brink of a war in which the US had to intervene.
“CRPF personnel had requested aircraft to transport their personnel because such a large convoy does not normally travel by road. They had made the request to the Home Ministry, then held by Rajnath Singh, who refused. If they had asked me, I would have provided the aircraft. They had requested five aircraft,” Malik told Karan Thapar. “I told the Prime Minister the same evening (after the incident) that it happened due to our mistake. If we had provided them with aircraft, it could have been averted. He (PM) told me, ‘You keep quiet for the time being.’ I had already told one or two TV channels about it. He (PM) said, ‘Don’t talk about it. This is something else…’. Ajit Doval (NSA) also told me the same thing, ‘Satpalbhai (brother), you don’t talk about it. Please stay silent on this’.” Malik said, it took him a bit of time to realize “that the blame will now be shifted towards Pakistan, so I better keep quiet.”
Though Malik made several claims and told some very interesting stories about the politics in Delhi, it was the Pulwama attack that people have focused on. Congress is seeking a white paper on the Pulwama attack that killed nearly 40 CRPF personnel, days ahead of the national election. “Satya Pal Malik has brought out the explosive satya (‘truth’) which is more explosive than the Pulwama explosion itself…but this is nothing new. People were aware at the time that some Indo-Pakistan incident would be manufactured for political gain. Was the terror attack staged with the aim of winning elections?” Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Sanhjay Rauat has said. “Was there a plot to get 40 jawans killed for political gain? We [Opposition] had repeatedly tried to ask such questions at the time but were silenced by the ruling party and branded as ‘traitors’.”
The anti-climax of the controversy is that even Pakistan is using Malik’s statement. “His [Malik’s] disclosures demonstrate how the Indian leadership has habitually used the bogey of terrorism from Pakistan to advance its sham victimhood narrative and the Hindutva agenda, clearly for domestic political gains,” a statement from Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.
Nearly four lakh people have visited Tulip Garden in the last month.
KATHUA
Kathua
An embarrassed Jammu and Kashmir government had no option but to admit that little Seerat Naaz’s video clip about the condition of the government high school in Lohai-Malhar is “not far from truth”. Naaz addressed the Prime Minister in the 5-minute video that she shot and commented on. After introducing herself as a student of the particular school, she goes on a virtual tour of her school. “Modi-ji, mujhe na aap se ek baat kehni hain (Modi-ji, there is something I need to tell you.)” Seerat then pans the phone camera towards an uncovered concrete surface, right in front of two closed doors which she identifies as the “principal’s office and the staff room” and comments: “Dekho humara farsh kitna ganda ho chuka hain. Humein yahan niche bithate hain (Look how dirty the floor is. They make us sit here).”
“Chalo mein aap ko bari si building dikhati hoon aapne school ki (let me show you the big building where our school is),” she goes on, “Yeh dekho, pichle 5 saalon se, dekho kitni gandi building hain yahan pe. Chalo mein aap ko andar se dikhati hoon (Look how unclean the building has been for the last 5 years. Let me take you on a tour of the inside of the building)”.
It was againt this backdrop, she makes a reqiest: “Please, aap se na request karti hoon, aap na achha sa school bana do. Humein niche baithna parta hain aur hamari uniform gandi ho jati hain aur phir humein Mamma marti hain. Humare pas bench bhi nahin hain (I request you to build us a nice school. We have to sit on the floor because of which our uniforms get dirty. My mother often scolds me for this. We don’t even have benches to sit on).” She adds: “Please Modi-ji, mein aap se request karti hoon ki achha sa bana de yeh school. Meri bhi baat sun lo (Please Modi-ji, I am requesting you to make my school better. Please grant my wish)”. She even films the toilet: “Dekho, humara kitna ganda toilet aur tut gaya hain (Look how filthy and broken our toilet is).” She then directs her lens towards a pit where the students go to relieve themselves. “Humein iss naali mein jana parta hain (We need to head to this pit to relieve ourselves.)”
The Government will now offer an ex-gratia relief of Rs 25 lakh (Rs 20 lakh out of UT Budget and Rs 5 lakh out of SRE) to the families of personnel who die in the line of duty and are from Jammu and Kashmir.

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#Briefing #April
( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

April 24, 2023
How ChatBots Have Posed A New Challenge to Learning, Jobs?

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by Mujtaba Hussain
SRINAGAR: Alarm bells have started ringing in the academic campuses world over as artificial intelligence can do more than what students are required to do in classrooms, at home and while writing their examinations. Though the technology is still in its infancy stage, the value addition could threaten the jobs of millions of people across diverse sectors.
ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chat platform can write essays, legal briefs, scripts, emails, poetry, jokes, computer programmes, business proposals, complex code, debug your code, clear exams, do worksheets, write healthy recipes, and can write all types of comprehensive and error-free content among other complex things.
Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) can get you all the things you could ask for in a simple chat. It is the AI platform integrated with the messaging platform. The open access to the app can lure students to do their homework and assignments through the IA platforms, which poses a great challenge to the ethics surrounding this advanced technology.
The text-based AI Chatbot is the creation of the San-Francisco based Start-up called ‘Open-AI’. The ChatGPT interface allows users to converse with the AI model in English and many other languages. It is almost like talking with a human. It gives answers within seconds one on one just by prompting a question/query/phrase.
What Is ChatGPT And Why Is Everybody Talking About It?
The implications of ChatGPT are stark for educators, academicians, editors, researchers, scriptwriters, screenwriters, and content writers among others. They are worrisome and in severe despondency because of the fear of being jobless due to this advanced AI tool.

This text-generation tool poses a great threat to the education sector as the educationists fear that students will never need to learn to write, as they can merely lean on ChatGPT.
According to the Brookings Institute, “ChatGPT is the latest challenge to the creative human intellect. It is a conversational bot responsive to users’ questions in ways that allows it to search large databases in a fraction of a second.”
Schools and colleges all over the world have been banning this software because of its heavy usage in writing homework and assignments. New York City’s Department of Education imposed a ban on ChatGPT immediately after its passing of complex exams surfaced on social networking sites. It achieved almost fifty per cent in one of the difficult medical exams called the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). In another separate case, ChatGPT gained more than average in the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton MBA exam. It also cleared the US law exam with an ample score to qualify.
Indian educators, technologists, and entrepreneurs are also in the doldrums because of the rising implications of the ChatGPT. Could it replace the role of a teacher? Could the intelligent Chat bot add to rising dropout rates in schools and colleges, are among the intriguing questions they are looking for? Rashtreeya Vidyalaya (RV) University in the technology capital of India, Bengaluru is the first Indian University that banned ChatGPT on its campus. French, German, and Australian universities are also planning to put a blanket ban on the usage of ChatGPT inside the campus.
Although there is a significant discussion about the potential misuse of ChatGPT, the prevalent among them is its use by students to write essays, assignments, and other assigned homework.
Many educationists propose that AI should be seen as an opportunity rather than a hindrance in education. George Siemen, an international expert on AI suggests, “Educators should focus on how AI can be used to improve education. Chatbots like ChatGPT are innovations that are here to stay, so rather than banning them, it is far more beneficial for educators to explore and experiment with such tools to get a better sense of what can be done with them to generate better ideas.”
The panic about the technological threat to education is not new, but every advancement in technology proved to be a blessing in disguise and improved the ways of learning new things. Advancements in learning technology from slate, chalk, and paper, to digital pages and three-dimensional simulation videos all were previously called the death of learning, which proved otherwise. Therefore, panicking and saying ‘you cannot touch the technology’ is not a way out. It is how we get used to it that will be valuable to students and teachers, reported The Age.
Even though Open AI also released anti-cheating software called ‘AI-text Classifier’ that could identify the AI-produced text by studying the hiding cryptographic signals, called watermarks, its effectiveness is still doubtful because it does not cite the source of information and thus there is no linkage formation between the reader and the writer.
ChatGPT has amassed five million users within five days of its release. It gained a hundred million monthly active users only two months into its launch and became the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Thus, it is a revolution that we cannot ignore or run away from.
There is no doubt that Chatbots like ChatGPT will increase the domain and scope of knowledge but the question remains whether students will continue to learn the basic skills and whether this technology will really become the next big thing.

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#ChatBots #Posed #Challenge #Learning #Jobs
( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

February 20, 2023
ASER Report Presents Grim Picture Of JK’s Education Setup

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by Umaima Reshi
SRINAGAR: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 has presented a grim picture of the education system in Jammu and Kashmir ranging from a dip in enrolment numbers to poor infrastructure and lack of proper sanitation facilities.
As per the ASER report, the enrolment numbers of children in the 6-14 age group has gone down from 58.3 per cent in 2018 to 55.5 per cent in 2022. This dip comes against the backdrop of the school education department claiming that they have been running campaigns across Jammu and Kashmir to increase enrolment. Also, at the national level, there has been an increase in the enlistment of students.
As per the report, 4.8 per cent of children in the 15-16 age group are not enrolled in schools in Jammu and Kashmir.
At the pre-primary level, the report states that in 2022, around 63.6 per cent of infants were registered at Anganwadi Centres. However, the enrolment improved from 31.8 per cent in 2018 to 39.4 per cent in 2022.
The report also highlighted the gender gap in grown-up children in terms of their enrolment in schools. As per the data, girls in the age group of 15-16 years usually drop out of school more than boys.
The report states that the percentage of students undertaking private tuition from up to middle school level has seen a rise from 8.8 per cent in 2018 to 13.8 per cent in 2022.

The ASER survey reveals a gap in learning outcomes among students of government and privately run schools.
“In UT, the private school children were making progress before 2022 and are still progressing. The Government school children were facing obstacles pre-pandemic but are on the move to progression,” the ASER reads.
The report states that the arithmetic level of students in government schools has seen progress over the years. Despite this, only one in four children of 8^th standards in government schools can do division, compared to one in two in private schools.
The ASER report also points out that the unavailability of computers for children in schools has come down from 82.8 per cent in 2018 to 71.6 per cent in 2022.
The report revealed an increase in electricity connections in schools which rose from 31.2 per cent to 88.9 per cent in 2022.
The report underlined that the education department needs prompt help in achieving foundational skills in literacy and numeracy besides exerting pressure on grades.
“While many children have not been enrolled, the ones who have dropped, especially girls, need to be brought back,” ASER stated.
The report divulged that 30 per cent of schools in Jammu and Kashmir lack water facilities. In the matter of drinking water, the availability has increased by 15 per cent from 69.3 per cent in 2018.
Furthermore, the annual survey report revealed that around half of schools in Jammu and Kashmir have a paucity of girls’ toilets. It stated that 72.8 per cent of schools have toilets, which are being used by both girls and boys, which signifies that approximately 47 per cent of the girls have a shortage of toilets. However, it has also been seen that there is a 5 per cent increase in the facility since 2018.
The survey was conducted across 20 districts with around 10,924 households and 21,666 children in the age group of 4 to 16 years contacted. The ASER is an annual survey that delivers reliable estimation of children’s schooling status and household research all over India.
“We are trying to fill the learning gaps, and as of now, we are moving towards prosperity. With the adoption of the New Education Policy, this year has been regarded as a year of academic excellence and transformation,” Director School Education Kashmir Tassaduq Hussain said in response to the revelations made by ASER. “The National Achievement Survey has revealed that we have jumped from the 18th position to the 8th position, which is quite an accomplishment.”
He added: “This is a continuous process and we are trying and planning to improve the curriculum and infrastructural issues.”

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#ASER #Report #Presents #Grim #Picture #JKs #Education #Setup
( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

January 26, 2023