Hyderabad: Dressed in an auto driver’s uniform, driving an autorickshaw, Telangana finance minister T Harish Rao arrived at the Siddipet Auto Credit Cooperative Society meeting to express solidarity with the auto driver community.
Lauding the services rendered by the auto drivers, the minister addressed them as brand ambassadors of Siddipet as they carry out multiple tasks from taking tourists safely to their destinations, tour guiding them while they are on their way and also in many cases shifting injured passengers to hospitals before the ambulance arrives.
While addressing auto drivers and their family members to mark the fourth anniversary of the society, Harish Rao said that the society was increasing the credit limit to Rs 15,000 from the existing Rs 10,000, besides enhancing the marriage incentive to Rs 5,000 from the current Rs 3,500.
Harish Rao also declared setting up a petrol bunk for the auto drivers society so that they could get petrol at cheaper rates and assured them of a permanent building in addition to setting up an auto nagar.
He stated that auto drivers earlier blended money from private money lenders by paying a huge interest rate, until four years ago. The minister said that the society has helped the drivers consolidate financially in the last four years.
Harish Rao further promised prize money of Rs 25,000 for children of auto drivers if they scored 10 out of 10 GPA in the SSC examination.
69 super specialists to be recruited as patients flood medical college hospital in Nizamabad
Harish Rao on Sunday said that the Nizamabad Government Medical College will soon be allocated 29 senior doctors who will provide super speciality services to cater to the increasing number of patients in the district.
“Telangana government will recruit 40 specialised doctors to work in various departments in Mahabubnagar Government Medical College and Hospital, in view of the patient inflow increasing,” he said.
Remarking that patients were earlier forced to go to big cities for quality medical care, the mister said that with new medical colleges and super speciality hospital services made available for the people in every district, the issue has been tackled.
“As part of this endeavour, the state government will soon open nine more medical colleges this year, in addition to the 17 such existing colleges,” Harish said.
Emphasising the availability of seats to medical students, the minister said, “Telangana has become a role model for the country in the field of healthcare. Also, people’s trust in government hospitals has increased significantly.”
Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranked second in the world in societal awareness of artificial intelligence, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
A survey within the Artificial Intelligence Index, in its sixth edition, issued by the American Stanford University, on Thursday, revealed a high rate of confidence of Saudi citizens in dealing with artificial intelligence products and services in the Kingdom.
The Kingdom came after China, which ranked first in terms of positivity and optimism of Saudi citizens towards artificial intelligence products and services provided in Saudi Arabia during the current and future phases.
The survey included a number of criteria, the most important of which was the extent of “society’s knowledge of the benefits and value of artificial intelligence products and services.”
Saudi Arabia came in first place in the world, equal to China and ahead of South Korea and America, in a question about “the positive impact of artificial intelligence products and services on the lives of respondents in the survey during the next 3-5 years.”
Saudi Arabia ranked second in the world, ahead of South Korea and Brazil, when it came to talking about “whether artificial intelligence products and services will make the lives of the respondents easier.”
It also ranked second globally, ahead of India, France and Russia, when respondents were asked “about their knowledge of the benefits and value of artificial intelligence products and services.”
Efforts in Saudi Arabia to develop artificial intelligence do not stop, and Riyadh announced, in 2021, that it aims to establish 400 companies in the field of artificial intelligence and contribute to attracting investments in this field, during the next 10 years, estimated at 80 billion Saudi Riyals.
The head of the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence, Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi, said in 2022, that by 2024, 70 per cent of institutions in the Kingdom will use AI-based infrastructure and smart cloud services to activate artificial intelligence.
More than 50 per cent of organizations use hosted AI services; to enhance its application portfolios by 2023, according to Al-Ghamdi.
A by-product in traditional butter making, buttermilk has been the most consumed drink in Kashmir for centuries. With machines taking over the skimming and the marketing chains renamed and rebranding the product, Gurus (Lassi) may not be as abundant as it once was, writes MJ Aslam
Milk, Butter Milk (Gurus), Lassi, Chatch). A glass of milk (left) and a glass of buttermilk (right). Buttermilk is thicker and covers the glass after taking a sip
Long before the making of Gurus(buttermilk) and Th’ain (butter) was found in created cultured cream or milk, there were traditional methods of preparing the same from unrefrigerated fermented milk. All societies in the East and West have used the traditional ways of making these delicacies for centuries.
Gurus was so vital to the Kashmir food that a lot of saying mentioned the buttermilk. One such saying suggests that Gurus (also called Lassi) should be given to a friend in autumn, while to an enemy in spring. The folklore believes that autumn Gurus is healthy unlike that of spring. Its nutritious value is linked to the quality of grass grazed by cows and goats in spring and autumn.
However, the fact is the Gurus was prepared in hot summers too when the milk, in absence of modern refrigerators, fermented automatically in earthen and copper pots. It was called Ban e Doud.
Then, Kashmir was rich in milk and milk products. The cowherds possessed a large stock of cows and goats. The Gujars in higher altitudes possessed buffalo too. They prepared Gurus. In the city, guoir families associated with dairy items of milk, curd, cheese and butter, too prepared Gurus for sale to the common people. Some village families who skimmed milk and made Gurus at their homes would often come to sell Gurus in the city.
The Process
Traditionally, Gurus means the milk that was left over after churning butter from unrefrigerated sour and fermented milk. Once the milk is ready for the process, it would take 30 minutes to 60 minutes till butter was churned from the milk in a big vessel like tchod.
Ordinarily, Gurus is buttermilk. Gurus is sour in taste. It is still popular and sold with added spices, mint, salt and sugar across most of the subcontinent as a refreshing fermented dairy drink. Its equivalent in the households of the Indian subcontinent is Chaash, which is prepared by beating curd with a churner or leftover of butter (Gurus) and taken with spices, a pinch of salt and mint. In Arabian countries, buttermilk with added ingredients of spices and salt is a favourite drink during the Muslim month of fasting, the Ramzan at Iftiari and Sehri times.
However, like many age-old valued traditions, the churning of butter from milk has disappeared from Kashmiri. Well, Gurus Mandun was an age-old tradition among Kashmiris and it was an elaborate process. The tools that were used for the process included an earthen vessel like tchod in which milk was poured. The milk was churned to Gurus and Th’ain in the vessel. It is a long wooden churner, De’on that is fundamental to the process. Gurus eDe’on is a fine paddle chiselled out of a wooden log that has blunt wooden blades or wicker rings attached at one end – the one that stays in the milk vessel. Its other end is tied to a wall or a thum, a pillar in the kitchen, and in between is the Lam e Raz or Mandan Raz, a pull-push rope that the Gurus maker pulls for making the blade move. The grass or jute rope has attached two handles tied of wood or Pach-i-Adiji (bones of sheep or goat legs) for the right and left hand that is either made of grass or jute.
The vessel was fastened to thum with another rope for preventing it from slipping away during the process. De’on was held tightly with grip of hands by the churner, the Gurus-Gour. With back-and-forth movements of the Lam e Raz butter was churned from the milk with buttermilk left in the vessel. Churning was done at a steady and measured pace by the Gurus-Gour holding two ends of the Lam e Raz in his hands till layers of butter appeared, gathered and thickened at the surface.
The finest quality of milk gave a yellowish tinge to the butter with the pungent taste of the buttermilk. Then, the churner would remove the paddle and scoop out all butter leaving behind Gurus in the vessel. The handmade butter, Th’ain, was what Kashmiris knew in the past.
A Routine
Unlike Srinagar where the Gurus was skimmed by the professional Gurus-Gour families, in the periphery, almost every household had the equipment and enough milk to make Gurus. Apart from spinning wheel, almost every woman in Kashmir periphery would pick the art from the elders.
A traditional drink, Gurus is seen as a traditional coolant. Families making Gurus used to gift part of it to the neighbours. Till recently, even Kashmiri Hakims would advise Gurus intake to the patients. In certain cases, it was customary to dip some silver ornament in the Gurus before drinking it. The tradition goes that Gurus being sour in taste is helping digestion.
With Gurus consumed, the focus would remain on homemade butter. It was gathered in a separate bowl and compounded into soft Th’ain balls (manun) with a spoon. Th’ain was sold in the market in weighed quantities to the buyers. Besides local mustard oil, the Kashmiri womenfolk in the past used the traditional Th’ain for anointing their hair to strengthen and shine the hair strands. Folklore suggests using butter to keep the women’s head cool.
The Gurus may be out of fashion but its making has not ceased in Kashmir. Herders who take their sheep and cows to upland meadows are unable to take the milk down. They convert it into butter as they consume Gurus while grazing their herds.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has observed that the danger of unjust imprisonment is that inmates are at risk of suffering from “prisonisation”. It pointed out that incarceration has other deleterious effects as well, especially for an accused from weaker economic strata.
The deleterious effects listed by the apex court included the immediate loss of livelihood, scattering of families as well as loss of family bonds, and alienation from society. And if the trials are not concluded on time, injustice wreaked on the individual is immeasurable.
A bench of Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Dipankar Datta said: “Jails are overcrowded and their living conditions, more often than not, appalling. According to the Union Home Ministry’s response to Parliament, the National Crime Records Bureau had recorded that as on 31st December 2021, over 5,54,034 prisoners were lodged in jails against a total capacity of 4,25,069 in the country. Of these 122,852 were convicts; the rest 4,27,165 were undertrials.”
The bench added that incarceration has further deleterious effects — where the accused belongs to the weakest economic strata: immediate loss of livelihood, and in several cases, scattering of families as well as loss of family bonds and alienation from society.
Justice Bhat, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench, said: “The courts therefore, have to be sensitive to these aspects (because in the event of an acquittal, the loss to the accused is irreparable), and ensure that trials – especially in cases, where special laws enact stringent provisions, are taken up and concluded speedily.”
The top court noted that it would be important to reflect that laws which impose stringent conditions for grant of bail, may be necessary in public interest; yet, if trials are not concluded in time, the injustice wrecked on the individual is immeasurable.
The bench noted the danger of unjust imprisonment is that inmates are at risk of “prisonisation” — a term described by the Kerala High Court in A Convict Prisoner v. State as “a radical transformation”.
The court noted that the prisoner loses his identity, he is known by a number, loses personal possessions, has no personal relationships and also psychological problems result from loss of freedom, status, possessions, dignity, and autonomy of personal life.
It said there is a further danger of the prisoner turning to crime, “as crime not only turns admirable, but the more professional the crime, more honour is paid to the criminal”.
The apex court made these observations while upholding that an undue delay in trial can be a ground for grant of bail to an accused charged under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985 (NDPS Act), despite the stringent conditions provided under Section 37.
The apex court granted bail to a man, after noting that he had spent over seven years in jail in a NDPS case and trial was proceeding at snail’s pace.
It observed that the right to speedy trial of offenders facing criminal charges is “implicit in the broad sweep and content of Article 21 as interpreted by this court”.
Petitioner Mohd. Muslim moved the apex court challenging the Delhi High Court order, which rejected his bail application even though he already undergone imprisonment for more than seven years, and the criminal trial had barely reached the half-way mark.
The appellant was accused of committing offences punishable under Sections 20, 25, and 29 of the NDPS Act. The top court noted that at the time of his arrest, the appellant was 23 years old and he was not found in possession of the narcotic drugs but the co-accused were. Also, the prosecution has not shown involvement of the appellant, in any other case.
Petitioner’s counsel argued that the period of long incarceration suffered, entitled the appellant to grant of bail and also 34 more witnesses were yet to be examined, with little or no progress to the trial since the high court’s direction to expedite the trial.
It was contended that the main and other co-accused had already been granted bail by the high court and petitioner’s counsel urged the court for bail on the ground of parity.
Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee strongly opposed grant of bail, citing Section 37 of the NDPS Act and contended that the appellant was actively involved in the commission of the offence — with call records and bank transactions implicating him with the main accused.
He submitted that such cases are deeply concerning, as the accused persons are said to be involved in a drug peddling network. It was further argued that the public interest of protection against sale and use of illegal drugs outweighed the concerns regarding individual liberty of the accused, and justified continued custody of the appellant.
The top court noted that the petitioner has been in custody since October 3, 2015, barring grant of interim bail from time to time, for wedding ceremonies and to take care of his ailing mother.
“The appellant has been in custody for over seven years and four months. The progress of the trial has been at a snail’s pace: 30 witnesses have been examined, whereas 34 more have to be examined,” it noted.
In conclusion, it said that the appellant is directed to be enlarged on bail, subject to such conditions as the trial court may impose.
New Delhi: President Droupadi Murmu on Friday said the Jewish communities in India have maintained and enriched their unique heritage and traditions and will always be an integral part of the country’s composite society.
Welcoming a Parliamentary Delegation from Israel led by the Speaker of Knesset Amir Ohana, who had called on her, the president said over the last 30 years, the diplomatic relations between the two countries have grown into a multi-dimensional strategic partnership.
Murmu noted that throughout their long history, the Jewish communities in India have maintained and enriched their unique heritage and traditions, a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.
She said the Jewish people have been and will always be an integral part of India’s composite society.
The president said in India, Israel is well known as a key source of expertise in advanced agriculture and water technologies.
“Our collaboration in research and innovation has also boosted the Make in India’ initiative,” Murmu said.
“She was happy to note the success of Centres of Excellence’ set up with Israeli assistance across India,” the statement said.
That February, Buckley wrote a second editorial that called Welch’s “views on current affairs … far removed from common sense.” Goldwater affirmed Buckley’s attack and added that in his opinion, Welch’s views did not “represent the feelings of most members of the John Birch Society.” In other forums, Goldwater denounced Welch as “extremist,” called his ideas about Ike “stupid,” and said, “I don’t recall speaking to Bob Welch other than ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ over the last nine years or so.” (He claimed that Buckley, not Welch, had asked him to serve on the Committee Against Summit Entanglements, a Birch front group opposed to the Eisenhower-Nikita Khrushchev summit, in 1959.) In a surreal echo of 1950s liberals explaining their youthful flirtation with communism in the 1930s, Goldwater issued a roundabout mea culpa when he said, “All of us in public life sometimes lend our names to movements that later we wished we’d taken a little more time to find out about.”
When a Birch acolyte criticized National Review for its anti-Birch stands, Rusher responded by sending a copy of the February 1962 editorial and inviting him “to point out to me, anywhere in its first five pages, a single word of criticism of the John Birch Society.” Buckley sounded similarly defensive a few months later, when he wrote to Birch founder T. Coleman Andrews, “I don’t think in my life I have made a single unfavorable reference to any members of the John Birch Society.”
For decades, conservatives and liberals have praised Buckley for those two (and subsequent) editorials. They celebrated him as a model of sobriety and rationality for panning the Birch Society and expunging the far-right fringe from conservative ranks. Over the past decade, however, the legend has come under scrutiny. Historians now argue that Buckley’s vaunted excommunication of the fringe is a myth. They are not impressed by his supposedly Solomonic decision to repudiate the low-hanging fruit of Welch and his conspiracy theories while sparing the society’s rank and file. By welcoming them into the fold both before and after National Review’s supposed break with the society, Buckley and his magazine continued to benefit from Birchers’ political activism, funding, and engagement.
Ideologically, Buckley was not as far from the Birchers as has been claimed. He wrote a book defending McCarthy, supported massive resistance to civil rights in the late 1950s and gave the conspiracy theorist cranks intellectual cover. Moreover, there was significant overlap between his supporters and the Birchers: many National Review subscribers also subscribed to the John Birch Society’s magazine, American Opinion; Buckley’s 1965 Conservative Party campaign for mayor of New York drew Birch and fringe support; and Buckley maintained professional and personal relationships with some of the most extreme Birch leaders, such as Revilo Oliver, who promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Nevertheless, by late 1965, Buckley’s broadsides had infuriated some Birch leaders. Even though Buckley never excommunicated the Birch Society from the conservative movement, his criticisms of it didn’t exactly endear him to Birch leaders. One of the original 12 founding members of the society, Louis Ruthenburg, for example, excoriated Buckley for his “defamation of the John Birch Society.”
Overtly engaging with the Birchers remained an even thornier issue for a presidential candidate. By the time the campaign of 1964 was underway, Goldwater continued his awkward pas de deux with the society. While renouncing some of the views and incendiary rhetoric of Welch and other Birch leaders, as Buckley did, Goldwater gingerly tried to avoid alienating the membership. As numerous historians have recently argued, Goldwater and other prominent conservatives sometimes welcomed the society’s rank and file — and many of their ideas — into the fold. He lost to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson by such a huge margin it set a record.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
On two sides of the Pir Panchal mountains in Budgam live a community that shares ethos, language and heritage. For centuries, they have been marrying their wards and reaching each other by foot using the same route that traders and conquerors used in early medieval Kashmir. Now, they want a 10-km road that will end their centuries of crisis, reports Abul Aala Bukhari
Dumdum The lost watchtower of Tosamaidan. Till last century several such watch towers were seen and most of them are either in ruins or disappeared.
Raja Begum was born in Loran’s Barichaid belt, which is nestled in the Poonch peaks in the Pir Panchal range. Now in her old age, she is settled and married in Budgam’s Drung area for many decades. Interestingly, her son and daughter are both married in Loran.
The two villages inhabit the foothills of the same mountain range on two sides and the residents trek the distance within hours. Throughout history, they have been together in every crisis, a relationship that they have retained even today.
= The erstwhile Poonch principality, now a district, is a huge mountain territory. It literally surrounds most of Kashmir and is accessible from Uri, Tangmarg Budgam and Shopian.
Writing in 1897, De Bourbel detailed various treks that people could use in reaching Kashmir from Poonch. One was Poonch Baramulla through the 9135-ft Gajjan Pass, which was challenging and passed through Bitarh and Sakarala valleys and camps at Kahuta, Palan, Hillun, Gujan, Gaggerhil, and Bhunniar.
From Poonch, Gulmarg is accessible through Nilkant Pass, which almost takes the same trek but moves away from Hillun towards Dangar Allan, Pharpat Marg and then to Gulmarg.
Parallel to this trek, runs another route that connects Srinagar with Ferozpur Pass. It takes off from Mandi (Koondah) , moves to Gurgi Upper, reaches Banabali Nag, and then to Magam via Gerozpur pass. From Gurgi Lower, another route takes off for Srinagar that touches Shinamani, Dunwas, Aripanthan, Soibug and Srinagar.
The closest to Srinagar continues to be the Tosa Maidan access. This trek used to take off from Mandi in Poonch, cross Sultan Patri and land in Tosa Maidan. Running parallel to it is another trek that passes through Doodh Pathri.
There are two formal roads between the two areas – one through Uri, which is defunct because Haji Pir pass is inaccessible to the two sides, and the Mughal Road, which is operational for many years now. Laid in the early forties, the 46 km road connecting Uri with Poonch through the strategic 9000-feet Haji Pir Pass was operational till late 1947 and later for a few months after the 1965 war as well. After India wrested the strategic Haji Pir Pass from Pakistan in 1965, the road was used by Mrs Indira Gandhi and convoys would use it from Uri to Poonch. But Tashkent restored the status quo ante and the road was closed again.
Besides, Poonch is easily accessible from Tangmarg and Tosa Maidan. This accessibility has helped the people living on either side to have relations with each other. Begum is only one of the many hundred women who are settled in Kashmir.
All these tracks were always guarded for any entry or exit. These were the border checkposts. These were called Dumdums in medieval Kashmir and in certain cases were multistory towers. Though most of them have crumbled and disappeared, the ruins of a few are slightly intact. Trekker and mountaineer Mehmood Shah, who is also a brilliant photographer, has captured at least two such Dumdums -one in Hirpora (Shopan) and another at Danwas (Tangmarg). The Danwas watchtower was undone by time but the one at Hirpora had still a perfect base.
Ruins of a watch tower at Danwas, Upper Tangmarg. Pic Mahmood Ahmad
There are scores of women from Poonch who are married in Drung and other adjoining Kashmir areas and vice versa. The familial relations connecting many villages in north and central Kashmir with Pir Panchal’s villages comes even when the proposals of successive governments to revive traditional routes could see the light of day.
In summer, Begum said she goes to her parent’s home via China Mar Gali in Tosamaidan, an access that takes barely five hours on foot. In winter, however, if she requires going, it takes her a long time to use the Mughal Road and if it is closed, it requires three days to reach Poonch via Jammu.
Begum said the marriages are solemnised across the villages on both sides as people of the same castes live on both sides. “Due to our social norms, we don’t marry outside our community and that is why we marry among our people across the mountains,” she said.
These marriages have been taking place in a vast belt on either side. Brides from Poonch can be seen in Khag, Zubjan, Brass, Satrun, Beerwah, Arizal, Raithan, and various Khan Sahab areas. Girls from these villages also settle on the other side of the mountain range. These relations have made the administrative division unimportant. Poonch falls in the Jammu division and Budgam is a Kashmir region district.
“My father was a contractor and was working in Poonch where he married my mother in Sonpha,” Maqbool Ahmad, Raja Begum’s son said. “Later he came with his wife and settled in Kashmir; Now I am married in Poonch and so is my sister.” He said marriages take place because people share the same caste and the same culture. “They also speak the Kashmiri language.”
For Maqbool and many others, the preference is the Poonch side bride rather than Kashmir. “There are only two factors responsible for this,” Farooq said, “one is our shared cultural heritage and another is simple marriage.” He said the marriages are taking place from both sides. “It is not a one-way affair and it is not linked to resources,” he added.
= Athamsham Butt said that three areas of Poonch – Loran, Sawjikm, and Mandi – have more than half of the population having Kashmir origins. Their elders migrated to Poonch for trade and business and settled there. All these areas speak Kashmiri.
Ethnic Kashmiris marry in Kashmir. In their weddings, they have almost everything that happens in Kashmir but these marriage ceremonies are less expensive, simple and devoid of mouth-watering Wazwaan.
Most of the weddings, however, avoid moving on foot. These baraats choose Mughal Road instead. For most of their life later, they usually move on foot because it is cheap and a huge time-saving.
Still perfect watch tower on Mughal Road near Hirpora Shopian Image Mehmood Ahmad
Off late, the people living on the two sides of the mountain range have been seeking s road link that would connect Loran and Budgam via Tosamaidan.
In 2015, the Mufti Sayeed-led BJPDP government started work on a road in the Tangmarg area of Baramulla which would connect with Loran in Poonch. However, the work on the road couldn’t be completed. The responsibility of constructing this road was given to the Border Road Organisation (BRO). The work was started with much fanfare but to date, only 12 kilometres were completed out of a total of 38 kms.
Shah Mohammad Tantray, a former PDP lawmaker from the area said that in 2018 he enquired about the progress of the project which led to his “disappointment” when he was informed that the work has been stopped.
“The men and machinery of the construction company also fled away.”
Tantray alleged that post August 5, the union government has stopped construction works undertaken by the previous coalition government across Jammu and Kashmir.
The previous government, Tantray said, had conducted an aerial survey for a cable car project aimed to connect Loran with Tosamaidan. “The Tosamaidan and Loran are just 2.5 kilometres away as per the aerial survey. It just takes five hours to walk on foot. It is just a mountain separating Loran from Tangmarg.”
Poonch resident, Ahtesham Butt said that the work on Loran to Tangmarg road and adjacent areas of Tosamaidan was started but was suddenly stopped due to reasons unknown.
“Locals thought that this road would provide employment opportunities to young educated people along with boosting tourism,” Butt said. “If this road comes up, people wouldn’t opt for the Mughal Road.”
In its vicinity lies the alpine meadow of Tosa Maidan.
Shabir Ahmad, a local resident of Sutran Budgam said a road from Tosamaidan to Loran is shorter than the one being laid to connect Loran via Tangmarg. “This road is barely 10 kms from Tosamaidan to Loran and its stations in between are Damdam, Kadlabal, Habas, Gartar, Damsar, Bandarsar, and Sultanpathari areas,” Ahmad said.
There has not been any spade work on the link connecting Budgam with Loran. In September 2007, when the Mughal Road was being implemented, the then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said there is a much shorter road that must be taken up. Talking to a huge gathering in Poonch’s Loran, Azad said he has asked his Roads and Buildings department to go for a quick survey of the 42-km Loran (Poonch) Arizal (Budgam). “It is the shortest road link between Kashmir and Poonch,” he said.
Returning Home: Tosa Maidan pasture is visited mostly by locals from Beerwah, Khag and some adjoining areas of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district. People from these villages spend nine months in a year in meadow rearing their cattle, apart from getting firewood.
This road that the people are so keen to have properly laid and developed is not a new route between Poonch and Kashmir. It is actually one of the oldest that conquerors and traders used for centuries. This route was used by Mehmood Gaznavi more than once to capture Kashmir. He failed every time.
During the Shah Miri rule, Sultan Fathe Shah ran for life to Poonch using this route. Later in the 15th century, Yousef Shah Check returned home from Delhi using this trek.
It was a trade route too. It was a formal entry point into Kashmir. Till the1960s Salt was transported into Kashmir from this route. Some people still know this trek as the Nun Wath, the Salt Road.
Javid Ahmad Farash, a resident of Lassipora Drung said that there is a structure erected at Tosa Maidan whose ruins can still be found there. That, he said, was the custom post having a seven-story building. All the entries and exits used to be recorded there and taxes were also paid, he said.
In 1964, the Tosa Maidan meadow was leased to the Army on a 50-year lease for use as an artillery firing range. Before the lease came up for renewal on April 18, 2014, the lease was terminated, and the Tosa Maidan meadow is open to visitors since May 30, 2016. Now, it is a busy picnic spot for most of the summer.
Noida: Police were deployed at a group housing society near Noida on Tuesday after a controversy erupted between Hindus and Muslims over “some outsiders” reciting Namaz there, officials said.
The row erupted on Monday evening around 8.30 pm at the Supertech Ecovillage 2 society, under Bisrakh police station limits, after around 30-40 Muslim residents of the society were offering prayers in a vacant room on the third floor above the commercial market of the society, they said.
Majority community at a housing society in Noida objects to Muslims offering Namaz in building’s basement. Police later took down the tent erected for Namaz. Earlier, a hindutva group had objected to Muslim students offering prayers at a university in U.Ppic.twitter.com/baH4gfCB3w
“On being informed about some controversy in the society, officials of the local Bisrakh police station went to the spot and the Hindu community said we have no objection to all the people of our society offering Namaz but we have an objection to the fact that 6-7 people from other societies are coming to offer Namaz,” the police said in a statement.
“On this objection, the Muslim community itself decided that Namaz will not be offered at that place. Both sides agree on this. Peace and order is maintained on the spot,” the police added.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Noida) Rajeev Dixit said additional force was deployed at the site as a precautionary measure in view of the episode.
“There is no law and order situation. The matter has been resolved. The deployment of police is part of precautionary measures,” Dixit told PTI.
Hyderabad: Founder and Executive Director of Deccan Development Society (DDS) P V Satheesh passed away, at the age of 77 on Sunday after undoing treatment at a private hospital in the city for a prolonged illness.
His last rites are to be performed on Monday at 10:30 am in Pastapur Village of Sangareddy district.
Satheesh was an icon of civil society activism in India, who, through the Zaheerabad-based organisation in rural Telangana, championed issues of agri-biodiversity, food sovereignty, women’s empowerment, social justice, local knowledge systems, participatory development, and community media.
The women’s sanghams of DDS with a steadfast adherence to millet cultivation and organic agriculture led the way nationally in offering demonstrable alternatives to the dominant agricultural paradigm. Satheesh led the recent efforts to incorporate millets into the public distribution system.
Born on June 18, 1945 in Mysore, Periyapatna Venkatasubbaiah Satheesh was a graduate of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi and started out as a journalist.
He went on to work as a television producer for nearly two decades for Doordarshan, making programmes related to rural development and rural literacy in the then-united Andhra Pradesh. He played an important role in the historical Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in the 1970s.
In the early 1980s, Satheesh, along with a few friends, initiated the Deccan Development Society in the semi-arid Zaheerabad region by collectivizing poor Dalit women in the villages for a range of programmes that together challenged hunger, malnutrition, land degradation, loss of biodiversity, gender injustice, and social deprivation.
He led the organisation for nearly four decades to become an internationally acclaimed NGO and an inspiring example that has motivated similar experiments in millet revival and promotion across the country.
PV Satheesh’s efforts at DDS resulted in improved livelihoods of thousands of poor women across 75 villages in Telangana.
He also led several national and international networks like Millet Network of India (MINI), South Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE), AP Coalition in Defence of Diversity and was also the India Coordinator for SANFEC, the South Asian Network for Food, Ecology and Culture, a five-country South Asian network with over 200 ecological groups.
He was formerly Board Member, Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN), Barcelona, Spain and was also a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), Brussels, Belgium.
Sateesh is also credited with the initiation of India’s first Community Media Trust, a grassroots media centre where non-literate Dalit women were trained in film-making to democratize media spaces, and also with the launching of India’s first rural, civil society-led community radio station, Sangham Radio.
He was recently honoured for his lifetime contributions to making millets a people’s agenda.
On the dais, the panelists squirmed at the invocation of such pedestrian political ideas, and Alicea offered some high-level philosophical objections to the idea that America should fracture into independent ideological entities. But the question seemed to linger in the room: If the disagreements over democratic first principles are as serious as Alicea had suggested, then was the idea of a wholesale political rupture really so radical?
The possibility of dramatic changes to America’s democratic order also hung over a panel on election law, where Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at New York University, briefed the audience on Moore v. Harper, a case that is currently awaiting judgment from the Supreme Court. The case, which arose from a challenge to North Carolina’s redistricting plan, is widely viewed by legal scholars as a referendum on the controversial independent state legislature theory, which posits that state legislatures should be allowed to exert broad control over the execution of federal elections.
From the stage, Pildes — who testified about the dangers of the theory before the House last year — seemed confident that the justices were not poised to endorse the theory in its most radical form. But even as the several panelists acknowledged the disruptive nature of the theory, none of them seemed eager to acknowledge that the four members of the Court who have flirted with the idea — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — all maintain close ties to the Federalist Society.
That omission hinted at a deeper dilemma facing the Federalist Society. Despite accusations from liberals that the society is merely the eggheaded puppet of the Republican Party, many of the society’s members genuinely view themselves as independent-minded intellectuals, committed to the principles of individual freedom, judicial restraint and the rule of law. For the past two decades, the society’s members have pointed to those principles to justify the conservative movement’s efforts to weaken democratic norms and institutions, without having to go so far as to explicitly argue that a minority of Americans should be allowed to impose their will on the whole country.
But now, as the American right lurches toward a more explicitly anti-democratic position, the society’s members are face to face with a troubling possibility: that most conservatives couldn’t care less about their high-minded principles, and, even worse, that many of their allies view their attachment to those principles as a quaint — and slightly embarrassing — relic of the bygone era when conservatives still had to be coy about what they actually believed. And whether or not those criticisms are true, there was a definite sense of cognitive dissonance at the conference, where many of the panelists appeared willing to endorse the logic of anti-democratic arguments but shied away from those arguments’ more radical conclusions.
The next morning at breakfast, I met a law student from the University of Tulsa named James Carroll — who was, like me, one of the few male attendees not wearing a suit and tie. He told me he had grown up in Arizona before moving to Tulsa for law school, where he had fallen in love with Oklahoma, married his long-time girlfriend, and set down roots. He had recently accepted a job at the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office, where he had worked as an intern in law school.
As we got talking, he described a vision of democracy that I hadn’t heard much of from the panelists the day before — democracy as something immediate, something pragmatic, something that people interact with in their daily lives and not just in philosophy textbooks.
“On the national level, democracy’s just a construct, but on the local level, it’s not a construct at all,” he said.
I asked him what a functioning local democracy meant to him.
“Keeping your community safe, keeping murderers off the street, making sure people who need mental health support can get connected with those services,” he answered. He said his favorite part of his internship in the D.A.’s office during law school had been helping people who were struggling with mental health problems, and that his work on that issue had been part of what led him to join the office after graduation.
“Democracy,” he said, “works best on a small scale, in your community.”
‘Maybe We Need More Shitposters’
The Federalist Society was founded by law students, and advancing the careers of ambitious, right-leaning lawyers has remained a major element of its work. That work begins on law school campuses, where local chapters host speakers and events, and it extends all the way to Washington, where the Federalist Society has become the GOP’s go-to clearinghouse for major judicial appointments. Although much of the national media attention has focused on the organization’s role in supporting Republican Supreme Court nominations, its presence on law school campuses has also been a source of controversy, especially since the Dobbs decision. Just last week, a Federalist Society event at Stanford Law School made national headlines after protesters heckled U.S. Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee to the Fifth Circuit, causing him to cut his remarks short.
In recent years, however, the Federalist Society has come under fire not only from its traditional opponents on the left, but also from some erstwhile allies on the right. According to these conservative critics, the Federalist Society has excelled at training monkish young lawyers to fill the ranks of the federal judiciary, but it has been less successful at inspiring those same professionals to eschew prestigious clerkships and partner-track jobs in favor of manning the front lines of an all-out war on the American political establishment.
Or as Theo Wold, a former Trump administration official who now works for Idaho’s attorney general, recently put it during an interview on the American Moment podcast, which is popular with young conservatives, “Maybe [conservatives] don’t need any more well-credential lawyers. Maybe we need more shitposters from Twitter.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
