SRINAGAR: At least seven persons were injured in a road accident on Tuesday in the Uri area of North Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
According to officials, the accident occurred at Gun Post Nambla between two vehicles, an Alto bearing registration number JK05J-8290 and a Tata Punch bearing registration number JK05L-3712. The injured individuals have been identified as Rehnaz Banu, Sameena, Afshana, Syed Ishtiyak, Bashir Ahmad, Mohammad Shafi, and Mohammad Sharif, all residents of Uri.
They were immediately taken to SDH Uri for first aid, and two of them were later referred to GMC Baramulla for further treatment.
The police have taken cognizance of the incident and started an investigation (KS)
SRINAGAR: In a tragic incident on Monday morning, a person living in a rented accommodation in Srinagar’s Chattabal area lost all his belongings and savings he had accumulated over the years by doing menial jobs, due to a fire.
According to Ghulam Nabi Dar’s relatives, he had been living in the rented room for over a decade and was supporting his family of six through his job. The fire destroyed everything he owned and has left him in a helpless state.
“He had saved some money to buy a small piece of land, but the fire took away everything he had. Now, he and his family are left with only the clothes on their backs,” said a relative.
Ghulam Nabi’s neighbors mentioned that he had been living in poverty, and the locals had frequently helped his family. The room where Dar lived with his family is owned by the local Masjid Committee, and they are yet to make any further arrangements for their accommodation.
“The Masjid Committee has offered them a room for now, but with six members in the family, we are unsure how we will manage,” said another relative. (KNO)
Mirza Waheed’s 2014 novel tells the story of love and hope in times of war, writesMuskan Fatima
Mirza Waheed (Author)
Mirza Waheed’s novelThe Book of Gold Leaves is a story about Kashmir, about the spirit of resilience that makes natives to cling the hope in wake of challenges.
Mirza is a Kashmir-born, British storyteller who quit a promising journalistic career to become a full-time novelist. His debut novel The Collaborator was an international bestseller and was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award in 2011. The Book of Gold Leaves, published in 2014 was shortlisted for the 2015 Folio Prize and the 2016 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
Set In the 1990s
The Book of Gold Leaves is set in the 1990s war-torn Kashmir and at it captures a love story of devastating beauty at a time of political strife in Kashmir. Faiz is a Shia papier-machie artist who supports his family by painting pencil boxes. His artworks are sold overseas in countries where he cannot travel. He is a dreamer too and often dreams about creating a masterpiece. Roohi, the other lead character in Mirza’s book is a young damsel who is a Sunni. She is a woman with dreams in her eyes and when her dreams are shattered she does not let her hopes die or her heart harden.
They knew each other as kids and are reunited as adults only to fall in love with an all-consuming intensity. The love they share is the kind of love that Shakespeare talked about – a love that is beyond all impediments and thus cannot be altered.
By no means, however, is their story a fairytale where a happy ending is awaited all along. Instead, it is a story where the heart is fragile and full of heartache and yet it chooses to be a rebel and love regardless of the consequences. The beauty of the book and the plot lies in the details of how the war tears their story apart and how they bravely face it in the hope that the war will end one day as it always does.
Times apart, the story is set in a space, where Shia-Sunni tensions have been part of history’s baggage. The storyteller ensures the love bloom, transcending the narrow sectarian divide. This is despite the fact that Faiz, the key character in the film, becomes a militant and is known as the “papier machie militant”.
Family Support
The family dynamics and history have also been woven with great delicacy. Farhat who is the little sister of Faiz shares a beautiful bond with Roohi. The bond is like that of sisterhood and comfort. While Faiz is away from home Farhat and Roohi become pillars of strength for each other.
The Book of Gold Leaves by Mirza Waheed
The writing style is poignant and lyrical. There is incredible use of imagery and the prose has been written in such a way that it leaves the reader with a sense of catharsis.
The scent of home is spread throughout the book from the scenes set up in Khanqah to the water bodies described with incessant beauty. One can almost imagine themselves walking down the lanes in Habbakadal and gazing at the houseboats while on a Shikara ride.
There is a sense of melancholy felt throughout the novel which gives the sense that the book shares a personal connection with the author. In fact, the book cover carries a picture of Mirza’s late grandfather’s paper-machie artwork.
Communal Relations
One of the underlying themes that this book explores is the Hindu-Muslim relations in Kashmir. On TV screens and in political discourse, the relationship is often portrayed of a rivalry. Mirza not only describes the plight of Hindus who left their homes but also explores the ground reality of relations between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir. He portrays with utmost delicacy how both communities have shared a history of utmost love and tolerance.
Just like in real life within one story lies multiple other stories waiting to be explored and understood. The side characters in the book carry within themselves a complexity of their own.
One such story which goes parallel to the love story of Faiz and Roohi is that of Shanta Koul, the Principal at Farhat’s school. Army barracks are being set up in the school and youngsters joining militancy has become common news. Shanta Koul is forced to watch as her life and the life of those around her are stripped of any stability that existed before the war and the turmoil.
Interestingly, Mirza skips indulging in who is at fault. Instead, he leaves it to the reader to form opinions and conclusions. He merely shows the aftermath of it all and does what storytellers must do- tells the story.
In Kashmir the silence is loud and the waiting is long. Although amidst all of it Mirza Waheed does not fail to slide in a glimmer of hope within the little moments of joy shared by the characters.
This book is a slice of life filled with spirituality, family history, love, longing, hope and in the midst of it all a feeling of home that Kashmir never fails to give.
New Delhi: A youth was killed and his cousin seriously injured in a hit-and-run case in Delhi’s high-security VIP zone.
The incident, which was captured on video by a witness, took place at the intersection of New Delhi’s Kasturba Gandhi Marg and Tolstoy Marg on Saturday night.
The deceased was identified as Deepanshu Verma (30) while his cousin Mukul is undergoing treatment at a hospital where his condition is stated to be critical.
Verma, who was a jewellery shop owner, is survived by his parents and a sister.
According to the witness, a car rammed into a bike and due to the impact of the collision, Mukul got thrown several feet away, while Verma landed on the car’s roof.
Shockingly, the car driver did not stop to assess the situation but sped away with the injured man still on the roof.
The man even followed the fleeing car on his scooter while recording the incident. Despite honking and shouting, the car did not stop. After driving for about 3 kilometres, the suspects dumped the injured man off the car near Delhi Gate and fled.
Verma and Mukul were rushed to hospital where Verma succumbed to his injuries.
The Delhi Police have registered a case of murder and arrested the suspects. However, the police are yet to reveal their names.
SRINAGAR: At least seven persons were injured after stray dogs attacked them in Minzgam Boniyar area of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
Reports said that a pack of stray dogs attacked and injuring at least seven persons including two childrens. They have been evacuated to GMC Baramulla for treatment.
When contacted Medical Suprident GMC Baramulla Parvez Masoodi said that we have received seven persons including two childrens with dog bite and provide them medical treatment immediately and they are all stable. (GNS)
SRINAGAR: At least two students sustained injuries in an alleged knife attack by an unidentified youth in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, this afternoon, sources said.
They said that two students, Hidayat Ahmad Tantray son of Ab Rashid and Ibrahim Ahmad Tantray son of Noor Mohd, both residents of Beehama Ganderbal, were attacked by an unidentified youth, leaving them with multiple injuries.
The duo, they said, was taken to District Hospital Ganderbal from where they were referred to SKIMS Soura for further treatment.
While Republicans believed the plan they passed Wednesday would force Biden to the table, the White House and most congressional Democrats have brushed it off and made clear they won’t entertain the GOP’s demands. Instead, both sides have retreated further into their corners, with each party planning to spend the coming days talking almost entirely to its respective base voters.
“I think we in the House ought to message the hell out of it,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said, warning that Democrats would “make false claims” about their bill: “We need to be on offense on the message.”
As for the next steps, Roy said: “The ball’s in the president’s court and the Senate court.”
Roy is far from alone in the GOP conference in arguing that the problem is no longer in their hands, putting the blame squarely on Democrats’ shoulders. Most Republican lawmakers insist they have little anxiety about the increasingly rattled nerves on Wall Street as a dysfunctional Congress barrels closer toward this summer’s drop-dead debt limit date.
“Every day that he refuses to negotiate, he is putting the U.S. economy at risk,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said. “The next move is on Biden.”
Top Democrats have revealed little about their next steps. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called on Republicans to work with him on a clean debt plan, it’s unclear if his caucus would even unite to vote in favor of one. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), specifically, has put the onus on Biden to meet with McCarthy.
And at least some in the party are getting nervous: “We all should be getting anxious,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said.
All the focus next week will be on the Senate, which will return to Washington facing the pressure from House Republicans — and possibly from the Treasury Department. Officials there are expected sometime in the coming days to update the public on the “X date,” before which Congress will need to pass a debt limit lift to avoid default.
“I think once we have that date with clarity … then we’ll know with some urgency our timeframe for dealing with this challenge,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Friday, adding: “Understand that this is a manufactured crisis that extreme MAGA Republicans are foisting on the American people.”
In the meantime, Democrats plan to spend their time turning the GOP’s debt plan into campaign fodder, betting that fresh attacks on Republican plans to slash spending on programs like food stamps and Medicaid will hurt in the swing districts they need to flip next November.
Many of the Republicans currently holding those battleground seats, however, say they aren’t sweating their yes votes.
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who flipped a purple Long Island seat last fall, said he recently did a tele-town hall with over 13,000 callers where he asked each person to weigh in on whether they supported his position on debt: Raising the limit, but with some cutbacks to federal spending, including Covid aid.
“Three to one, [constituents] agreed with my position,” LaLota said Friday.
Ever since House Republicans passed its plan on Wednesday, both parties have resorted to finger-pointing to try to pin blame if negotiations go south.
Still, the GOP bill remains a win for McCarthy, who faced a steep climb as he wrangled a deal among the disparate wings of his party with only a handful of votes to spare. By working closely with conservatives to craft a plan packed with right-flank priorities, the speaker achieved near-total unity in his bid to kick off negotiations with Biden.
Even so, White House officials have emphasized in conversations with Democratic congressional leaders the importance of staying aligned on Biden’s no-negotiation stance. The president’s team is clearly betting that it still holds the stronger hand in the debt ceiling standoff; the White House reacted to the House GOP’s bill by issuing a flurry of statements and analyses detailing the damage it would do to the economy and popular programs.
While Biden administration officials have explored a variety of potential alternative options for averting default, there is skepticism that any would be workable — and none are seen as preferable to Congress simply voting to raise the debt ceiling.
The House Republican pitch that would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, or through March of next year — whichever comes first — setting up another fight with the White House next year. In particular, Republicans are proudest of the bill’s slashes to federal spending, including $130 billion in the upcoming fiscal year that would effectively return discretionary spending totals to nearly the same level as two years ago.
But the task is far from done, and McCarthy still could be squeezed yet by his own party.
Some members of the conservative Freedom Caucus are arguing that the California Republican should refuse to negotiate down at all as Democrats decide on their counter — a position that other Republicans in the conference view as irrational.
“I don’t do red lines because there might be a different price that I might want for something, right? Put a border bill on there, change the length and times. There’s always a way to come up with something that will actually be good for the country,” Roy said of the potentially negotiable items.
“Go ahead, Mr. President,” he added. “Go ahead, Sen. Schumer.”
Adam Cancryn and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tucker Carlson, the far-right TV host whose embrace of racist conspiracy theories came to signify a shift further towards the right at Fox News, leaves behind a legacy of mainstreaming extremism after exiting the channel, and speculation is turning to any next step in an incendiary career.
The departure of Carlson, Fox News’ most-watched and highest-profile host, came as a shock. It is the second seismic moment at the news channel in a matter of days, after Fox News agreed to pay a $787.5m settlement to Dominion Voting Systems last week after airing election conspiracy theories.
Fox News announced the split in a terse statement on Monday, stating that the channel and Carlson had “agreed to part ways”. But the pithiness of the statement barely hinted at the dubious repercussions of Carlson’s seven-year tenure as a regular host: a spell in which he seemed to grow into a force that Fox News wouldn’t, or couldn’t, control.
“Tucker Carlson basically leaves a superhighway to the rightwing fever swamps,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, an organization that monitors rightwing media.
“Tucker took things from what otherwise would have been considered the fringes: Infowars [a far-right conspiracy theory website], these white nationalist communities online, he took that content and laundered it into the Fox News ecosystem, and basically built up an appetite for this amongst the Fox News audience.
“And once they sort of got a taste for blood, that’s all they wanted. That’s going to be a challenge for Fox moving forward, but what’s his legacy? His legacy is bloodthirstiness and bigotry.”
Carlson’s eponymous show, which aired at 8pm ET, averaged more than 3 million viewers a night, and was generally the most watched cable news program.
The 53-year-old might have been an unlikely hero to Fox News’ coastal-elite loathing audience. A multimillionaire who was privately educated in California, Switzerland and the Waspy environs of New England, Carlson hosted most of his shows from a specially built studio in Maine, where he spends much of the year (he also has a home in Florida).
Yet night after night, millions tuned in to watch Carlson’s furious, reddening face, under a neatly parted, country club hairstyle, as he fed viewers a daily dose of fury and victimhood and painted a dystopian picture of America.
Among Carlson’s most passionately pursued topics was the idea – contrary to all able evidence – that white people were being persecuted in the US.
Rupert Murdoch reportedly forced Carlson out in connection with a discrimination lawsuit. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP
Across his tenure at Fox News, Carlson pushed the concept of the great replacement theory – which states that a range of liberals, Democrats and Jewish people are working to replace white voters in western countries with people of color, in an effort to achieve political aims – in more than 400 of his shows, a New York Times analysis found.
“No singular voice in rightwing media has done more to elevate this racist conspiracy theory than Tucker,” Joy Reid, a MSNBC host, said in 2022, and his peddling of the claim brought multiple calls for him to be fired across the years, all of which Fox News ignored.
“Carlson positioned himself as the voice of the Maga base of the party and really leaned into the kinds of conspiracy theories, the white nationalist ideas that he thought would appeal to that base,” said Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University and author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.
“He really was able to give a voice to this kind of grievance that Donald Trump was so good at tapping into. It was Tucker Carlson who was out there saying: ‘They’re coming for you, white people.’”
Far-right host Tucker Carlson leaves Fox News in surprise announcement – video report
Fox News gave no indication as to the reason for splitting with Carlson, but on Monday the Los Angeles Times reported that Rupert Murdoch, the omnipotent chairman of Fox Corporation – the parent company of Fox News – had forced Carlson out of the news channel in relation to a looming discrimination lawsuit.
Another thing that may not have helped were the embarrassing disclosures of Carlson’s text messages and emails, published as part of the Dominion lawsuit. Those messages revealed that privately Carlson held very different views from those he espoused on air, including about Donald Trump.
“I hate him passionately,” Carlson said of the former president, describing Trump’s behavior in the weeks following the 2020 election as “disgusting”.
In another text, Carlson said of “the last four years” under Trump: “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
It is difficult to say what comes next for Carlson. Newsmax and One America News Network, two other rightwing cable news channels, could be possible homes, but they have a much smaller audience, and would probably be unable to match Fox News’ salary.
“I don’t think he goes to a competing cable network,” Carusone said.
“He’s too sensitive to ratings and that would be an embarrassment – they could never match the ratings, they could never give him the reach.”
One thing that is likely, however, is that Carlson “attacks Fox”, Carusone said.
“He wasn’t shy about attacking his colleagues and management when he was at a company – he’s certainly not going to be shy about attacking them now,” Carusone said.
The idea of an aggressive response is “tightly tied into his brand”, Carusone said “And he’s also just a venomous, spiteful guy, so the reflex will be to take a shot.”
Carlson’s unexpected departure meant he had no opportunity to say goodbye to his viewers. On Friday, in what turned out to be his last show, he had once more voiced that issue which is so close to his heart: the great replacement theory.
“The defining strategic insight of the modern Democratic party is they don’t really need to convince anyone of anything,” Carlson said in his monologue on Friday’s show.
“What matters is demographics. To import enough people from elsewhere, people who are financially dependent on you in order to live.”
Perhaps Carlson can take some comfort in knowing that his persona on Fox died as he lived: sitting in a TV studio, looking upset, and pushing a racist conspiracy theory to an increasingly rabid rightwing audience.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Washington: America-based news channel Fox News and its host Tucker Carlson agreed to part ways, Fox News said on Monday.
In a statement, Fox News said, “FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
“Mr Carlson’s last program was Friday, April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named,” it added.
This announcement came after Fox News settled a monster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for USD 787.5 million over the network’s dissemination of election lies, according to CNN News.
Tucker Carlson was a key figure in Dominion Voting Systems’ mammoth defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the parties settled last week on the brink of trial for a historic USD 787 million.
In some ways, Carlson played an outsized role in the litigation: Only one of the 20 allegedly defamatory Fox broadcasts mentioned in the lawsuit came from Carlson’s top-rated show. But, as CNN exclusively reported, he was set to be one of Dominion’s first witnesses to testify at trial. And his private text messages, which became public as part of the suit, reverberated nationwide.
Dominion got its hands on Carlson’s group chat with fellow Fox primetime stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and a trove of other messages from around the 2020 presidential election.
These all communications revealed that Carlson had told confidants that he “passionately” hated former President Donald Trump and said that his tenure in the White House was a “disaster.” However, he took the interview with Trump recently.
Carlson’s departure at Fox News comes after the network also severed ties with right-wing supporter Dan Bongino, who had been a regular fixture on the network’s programming, in addition to hosting a weekend show, reported CNN.
“Folks, regretfully, last week was my last show on Fox News on the Fox News Channel,” Bongino said on Rumble, chalking up the exit to a contract dispute.
“So the show ending last week was tough. And I want you to know it’s not some big conspiracy. I promise you. There’s not, there’s no acrimony. This wasn’t some, like, WWE brawl that happened. We just couldn’t come to terms with an extension. And that’s really it.”
Fox News responded in a statement, “We thank Dan for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavours,” according to CNN.
Guwahati: A team of Assam Police on Saturday left for Karnataka to apprehend the national president of Indian Youth Congress Srinivas B V based on the harassment complaint lodged against him by the suspended Assam unit youth Congress chief Angkita Dutta, an official said.
A case has been registered against Srinivas B V in Dispur police station under Sections 509, 294, 341, 352, 354, 354A, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with Section 67 of the Information Technology Act.
According to sources, a four-member team of Assam Police has been sent to Karnataka to apprehend Srinivas. Assam DGP G.P. Singh has confirmed the development. However, he refused to divulge any further details.
Earlier, on the sidelines of a programme in the national capital, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asserted that Congress’ handling of the situation was dismal and said that the law will take its own course on this issue.
“The way Assam Congress has handled this matter is sad. They ought to have established an inquiry committee and worked things out among themselves,” he said.
