Other forms of housing loss are even more of an enigma. For example, foreclosures for not paying property taxes are almost never tracked or studied. Yet in Detroit, one of the few places where this phenomenon has been studied, Detroit News reporters found that between 2008 and 2020, one third of city properties had been tax foreclosed.
And, because we have no idea how big the housing loss problem really is, America lacks a coordinated approach to fixing it, and no unified benchmarks to hold leaders accountable for their role in addressing it. By contrast, the monthly unemployment rate attracts rampant attention from the media, researchers and policymakers, and is tracked closely by the public — not only because it’s an accessible bellwether for the state of the economy, but also because it’s often viewed as a referendum on local and federal politicians’ progress in office.
If we want to tackle housing loss, we need to understand how large the problem is, where it’s occurring, and who is affected. Similar to how the unemployment rate is the most commonly used metric to gauge the state of the economy, a national housing loss rate would provide a baseline whose rise and fall reflects on the housing stability of American families. It would have to encompass the various ways that American families lose their homes each year — from eviction and foreclosure to the displacement caused by homes destroyed by natural disasters. Collecting data on each type of housing loss would require coordination between local and federal entities, since much of this data is generated at the local level.
What could a Housing Loss Rate look like? The unemployment rate is a good model.
Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts a high-quality survey of the American population, asking whether in the previous month, people have been affected by a layoff, quit for some other reason, or are working part time but want to work full time. Similarly, a national Housing Loss Rate could start with a rigorous survey of the number of people who lost their homes the prior month.
Tracking who lost their home through a survey is not without precedent. The American Housing Survey, sponsored by HUD and fielded by the U.S. Census Bureau every other year, asks about eviction and foreclosure. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey asks tens of thousands of Americans each week how confident they are in their ability to pay rent or their mortgage the following month (during much of the pandemic, between a quarter and a third of renters nationwide said they weren’t confident in being able to pay next month’s rent). The Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey — also fielded by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics — collects data on who, why, and how often household members have relocated in previous years.
At the same time, it’s important to measure housing loss not just on a national level but locally — city, county and state leaders need real-time information to develop responsive housing policies, deliver targeted financial and legal assistance, and assess the impact of existing housing loss programs just as they do for job loss. The work of developing a national housing loss rate must include helping localities build and improve local housing loss databases of their own, including generating or standardizing this data in places where it does not exist.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Last Wednesday, Lieu, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and a couple of other members introduced a bill to prevent a Terminator-style robot takeover of nuclear weapons — the same day that Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) sent a barrage of tough letters to cutting-edge AI firms. Leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee — egged on by the software lobby — are debating whether they should tuck new AI rules into their sprawling data privacy proposal.
And in mid-April, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dramatically entered the fray with a proposal to “get ahead of” AI — before virtually anyone else in Congress was aware of his plan, including key committee leaders or members of the Senate AI Caucus.
The legislative chaos threatens to leave Washington at sea as generative AI explodes onto the scene — potentially one of the most disruptive technologies to hit the workplace and society in generations.
“AI is one of those things that kind of moved along at ten miles an hour, and suddenly now is 100, going on 500 miles an hour,” House Science Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) told POLITICO.
Driving the congressional scramble is ChatGPT, the uncannily human chatbot released by OpenAI last fall that quickly shifted the public understanding of AI from a nerdy novelty to a much more immediate opportunity — and risk.
“It’s got everybody’s attention, and we’re all trying to focus,” said Lucas.
But focus is a scarce commodity on Capitol Hill. And in the case of AI, longtime congressional inattention is compounded by a massive knowledge gap.
“There is a mad rush amongst many members to try to get educated as quickly as possible,” said Warner. The senator noted that Washington is already playing catch-up with global competitors. As the European Union moves forward with its own rules, both Warner and the tech lobby are worried that Congress will repeat its multi-year failure to pass a data privacy law, effectively putting Brussels in the driver’s seat on AI.
“If we’re not careful, we could end up ceding American policy leadership to the EU again,” Warner said. “So it is a race.”
The White House, Schumer and… everyone else
To judge by the grab bag of rules and laws now under discussion, it’s a race in which Washington is undeniably lagging.
Many of the world’s leading AI companies are based in the U.S., including OpenAI, Google, Midjourney and Microsoft. But at the moment, virtually no well-formed proposals exist to govern this new landscape.
On Wednesday, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan pledged to help rein in AI — but without more authority from Congress, any new FTC rules would almost certainly face a legal challenge from the tech lobby. The White House came out last year with a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” but the provisions are purely voluntary. The closest thing to an AI law recently was a single section in last cycle’s American Data Privacy and Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that gained traction last year but which has yet to be reintroduced this Congress.
This year, the highest-profile proposal so far has come from Schumer, whose term as majority leader has already been punctuated by the passage of one massive tech bill, last year’s CHIPS and Science Act. His mid-April announcement laid out four broad AI “guardrails” that would theoretically underpin a future bill — informing users, providing government with more data, reducing AI’s potential harm and aligning automated tools with “American values.”
It’s an ambiguous plan, at best. And the AI policy community has so far been underwhelmed by Schumer’s lack of detail.
“It’s incredibly vague right now,” said Divyansh Kaushik, associate director for emerging tech and national security at the Federation of American Scientists who holds a PhD on AI systems from Carnegie Mellon University.
A Schumer spokesperson, when asked for more details about the majority leader’s proposal, told POLITICO that the “original release . . . has most of what we are putting out at the moment so we will let that speak for itself.”
Beneath the legislative uncertainty is a substantive split among lawmakers who have been thinking closely about AI regulation. Some members, wary of upsetting innovation through heavy-handed rules, are pushing bills that would first mandate further study of the government’s role.
“I still think that there’s a lot we don’t know about AI,” said Lieu, whose incoming bill would set up a “blue-ribbon commission” to determine how — or even if — Congress should regulate the technology.
But others, including Senate AI Caucus Chair Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), say the technology is moving too fast to let Congress move at its typical glacial pace. They cite the rising risk of dangerous “edge cases” (Heinrich worries about an AI that could “potentially tell somebody how to build a bioweapon”) to argue that the time for talk is over. Sooner or later, a clash between these two congressional camps seems inevitable.
“We have two choices here,” Heinrich told POLITICO. “We can either be proactive and get ahead of this now — and I think we have enough information to do that in a thoughtful way — or we can wait until one of these edge cases really bites us in the ass, and then act.”
A grab bag of ideas
While they’re mostly still simmering under the surface, a bevy of AI efforts are now underway on Capitol Hill.
Some have their roots as far back as early 2021, when the National AI Initiative Act first tasked federal agencies with digging into the tough policy questions posed by the technology. That law birthed several initiatives that could ultimately guide Congress — including the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Risk Management Framework, an imminent report from the White House’s National AI Advisory Committee and recommendations released in January by the National AI Research Resource Task Force.
Many of those recommendations are focused on how to rein in the government’s own use of AI, including in defense. It’s an area where Washington is more likely to move quickly, since the government can regulate itself far faster than it can the tech industry.
The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity is gearing up to do just that. In late April, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) gave the RAND Corporation think tank and defense contractors Palantir and Shift5 two months to come up with recommendations for legislation related to the Pentagon’s use of AI.
Capitol Hill is also looking beyond the Pentagon. Last week, a spokesperson for Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), head of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, IT and Government Innovation, told POLITICO she’s working on a bill that would force federal agencies to be transparent about their use of AI. And Bennet’s new bill would direct a wide range of federal players — including the heads of NIST and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy — to lead a “top-to-bottom review of existing AI policies across the federal government.”
The two AI pushes to watch
The tech lobby, of course, is focused much more on what Washington could do to its bottom line. And it’s closely tracking two legislative pushes in the 118th Congress — the potential for new AI rules in a re-emergent House privacy bill, and Schumer’s nebulous plan-for-a-plan.
While it’s somewhat unusual for the tech industry to want new regulations, the software lobby is eager to see Congress pass rules for AI. That desire stems in part from a need to convince clients that the tools are safe — Chandler Morse, vice president for corporate affairs at software giant Workday, called “reasonable safeguards” on AI “a way to build trust.” But it’s also driven by fear that inaction in Washington would let less-friendly regulators set the global tone.
“You have China moving forward with a national strategy, you have the EU moving forward with an EU-bloc strategy, you have states moving forward,” said Craig Albright, vice president for U.S. government relations at BSA | The Software Alliance. “And the U.S. federal government is conspicuously absent.”
Support from powerful industry players for new rules makes it tougher to understand why Congress is stuck on AI. Some of that could be explained by splits among the broader lobbying community — Jordan Crenshaw, head of the Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Engagement Center, said Congress should “do an inventory” to identify potential regulatory gaps, but should for now avoid proscriptive rules on the technology.
But the inertia could also be due to the lack of an effective legislative vehicle.
So far, Albright and other software lobbyists see the American Data Privacy and Protection Act as the best bet for new AI rules. The sprawling privacy bill passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last summer with overwhelming bipartisan support. And while it wasn’t explicitly framed as an AI bill, one of its provisions mandated the evaluation of any private-sector AI tool used to make a “consequential decision.”
But that bill hasn’t even been reintroduced this Congress — though committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and other key lawmakers are adamant that a reintroduction is coming. And Albright said the new bill would still need to define what constitutes a “consequential” AI decision.
“It really is just a phrase in there currently,” said Albright. He suggested that AI systems used in housing, hiring, banking, healthcare and insurance decisions could all qualify as “consequential.”
Sean Kelly, a McMorris Rodgers spokesperson, said a data privacy law would be “the most important thing we can do to begin providing certainty and safety to the development of AI.” But he declined to comment directly on the software lobby’s push for AI rules in a reborn privacy bill, or whether AI provisions are likely to make it into this cycle’s version.
Schumer’s new AI proposal has also caught the software industry’s attention, not least because of his success shepherding the sprawling CHIPS and Science Act to President Joe Biden’s desk last summer.
“I think we’d like to know more about what he would like to do,” said Albright. “Like, we do see the kind of four bullet points that he’s included in what he’s been able to put out. But we want to work more closely and try to get a feel for more specifics about what he has in mind.”
But if and when he comes up with more details, Schumer will still need to convince key lawmakers that his new AI rules are worth supporting. The same is true of anything McMorris Rodgers and her House committee include in a potential privacy bill. In both cases, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the powerful chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, could stand in the way.
By refusing to take up the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, Cantwell almost single-handedly blocked the bill following its overwhelming passage out of House E&C last summer. There’s little to indicate that she’s since changed her views on the legislation.
Cantwell is also keeping her powder dry when it comes to Schumer’s proposal. When asked last week about the majority leader’s announcement, the Senate Commerce chair said there are “lots of things that people just want to clarify.” Cantwell added that “there’ll be lots of different proposals by members, and we’ll take a look at all of them.”
Cantwell’s committee is often the final word on tech-related legislation. But given the technology’s vast potential impact, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) — who also sits on Senate Commerce — suggested AI bills might have more wiggle room.
“I think we need to be willing to cross the normal committee jurisdictions, because AI is about to affect everybody,” Schatz told POLITICO.
How hard will Congress push?
The vacuum caused by a lack of clear congressional leadership on AI has largely obscured any ideological divides over how to tackle the surging tech. But those fights are almost certainly coming — and so far, they don’t seem to cut across the typical partisan lines.
Last year, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) joined Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) on the Algorithmic Accountability Act, a bill that would have empowered the FTC to require companies to conduct evaluations of their AI systems on a wide range of factors, including bias and effectiveness. It’s similar to the AI assessment regime now being discussed as part of a reintroduced House privacy bill — and it represents a more muscular set of rules than many in Congress are now comfortable with, including some Democrats.
“I think it’s better that we get as much information and as many recommendations as we can before we write something into law,” said Lieu. “Because if you make a mistake, you’re going to need another act of Congress to correct it.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member on House Science, is similarly worried about moving too quickly. But she’s still open to the prospect of hard rules on AI.
“We’ve got to address the matter carefully,” Lofgren told POLITICO. “We don’t want to squash the innovation. But here we have an opportunity to prevent the kind of problems that developed in social media platforms at the beginning — rather than scrambling to catch up later.”
The broader tech lobby appears similarly torn. Lofgren, whose district encompasses a large part of Silicon Valley, said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has indicated that he believes there should be mandatory rules on the technology. “[But] when you ask Sam, ‘What regulations do you suggest,’ he doesn’t say,” Lofgren said.
Spokespeople for OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
One thing that’s likely not on the table — a temporary ban on the training of AI systems. In late March a group of tech luminaries, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, published a letter that called on Washington to impose a six-month moratorium on AI development. But while several lawmakers said that letter caused them to sit up and pay attention, there’s so far little interest in such a dramatic step on Capitol Hill.
“A six-month timeout doesn’t really do anything,” said Warner. “This race is already engaged.”
A possible roadmap: The CHIPS and Science Act
The dizzying, half-formed swirl of AI proposals might not inspire much confidence in Capitol Hill’s ability to unite on legislation. But recent history has shown that big-ticket tech bills can emerge from just such a swirl — and can sometimes even become law.
The massive microchip and science agency overhaul known as the CHIPS and Science Act offers a potential roadmap. Although that bill was little more than an amorphous blob when Schumer first floated it in 2019, a (very different) version was ultimately signed into law last summer.
“That also started off with a very broad, big announcement from Sen. Schumer that proved to be the North Star of where we were going,” said Kaushik. And Schumer staffers are already making comparisons between the early days of CHIPS and Science and the majority leader’s new push on AI.
If Congress can find consensus on major AI rules, Kaushik believes Schumer’s vague proposal could eventually serve a similar purpose to CHIPS and Science — a kind of Christmas tree on which lawmakers of all stripes can hang various AI initiatives.
But hanging those ornaments will take time. It’ll also require a sturdy set of branches. And until Schumer, House E&C or other key players unveil a firm legislative framework, lawmakers are unlikely to pass a meaningful package of AI rules.
“I would not hold my hopes high for this Congress,” Kaushik said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
This creates a terrible dilemma for Trump’s opponents: How do you run against a defeated president without noting the highly relevant fact that he was, ahem, defeated?
A new CBS Poll underlines the dynamic. The top-line numbers, with Trump ahead of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by 58 to 22 percent nationally, aren’t all that different from the latest Fox News poll of the Democratic race, with President Joe Biden leading Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., 62 to 19 percent.
CBS also asked what attributes Republicans would like to see in a nominee. Sixty-one percent want a candidate who says Trump won in 2020. That desire among Republican voters inherently favors Trump, since no one is going to be as adamant and outlandish in maintaining that Trump won than Trump himself.
Among voters supporting Trump, three-quarters say a reason that they are backing him is that he actually won in 2020.
It wasn’t crazy to think that this view would fade over time after the 2020 election, as passions cooled and as Republicans felt less defensive of the former president. Perhaps most Republicans don’t think that there was honest-to-goodness fraud in 2020, and instead merely believe the rules and the press coverage were unfair — in other words, their answers to pollsters should be taken seriously, not literally.
Even if this is so, it will still require finesse on part of Trump’s opponents when addressing 2020. And it may well be that Republicans are simply being literal.
Insisting the election was stolen and convincing his party of this claim has worked for Trump on multiple levels — first and foremost, as a salve to his ego; in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, as the rationale for trying to overturn the result; and ever since, as the necessary condition for his come-back (if that’s the right word, since he never left).
Trump has ruled out of bounds one of the most telling critiques of him for Republican primary voters. Throwing at him that he lost a winnable election in 2020 should be the easiest criticism to make. It doesn’t require departing with him on substance or attacking his character. It needn’t involve condemning him for January 6. It should have, in theory, equal appeal to Trump fans and Trump skeptics, all of whom have a shared interest in defeating Biden. The argument can be swaddled in warm sentiments: “You did so much good and were such a brave fighter as president, Donald, so it’s a real shame you lost. But you did. And we can’t afford to lose again. Sorry.”
Trump’s contention that he actually won, and his intense bond with his supporters, creates the real possibility that making this case against him will boomerang, though.
On Trump’s terms, which are widely accepted in the party, admitting the legitimacy of the 2020 election marks someone as a sell-out to the establishment, a political moderate and a weakling rather than a fighter. It also constitutes an affront to Trump, and therefore a kind of personal attack.
The broad feeling among Republicans is that they don’t want to hear anything disparaging about Trump. In the same poll, CBS News asked what voters would want to see in the 2024 GOP nominee if he or she isn’t Trump. Only 7 percent said they want someone who criticizes Trump. Another 56 percent said they want someone who doesn’t talk about Trump, and 37 percent said they want someone who shows loyalty to him. A crushing total of more than 90 percent of Republicans want silence or acquiescence from a GOP nominee when it comes to his or her predecessor.
This makes trying to get by Trump in the GOP primaries not just a balancing act, but the political equivalent of performing Philippe Pettit’s walk between the Twin Towers while playing Yankee Doodle on a ukulele.
The presidential candidates opposing Trump have to choose whether to accept Trump’s version of 2020, to avoid talking about the matter, to dodge by saying the election was “rigged” without calling it stolen or to tell the truth. The temptation to pull up somewhere short of the last option will be strong, but it’s hard to see how anyone defeats Trump without going there.
If it’s accepted that Trump supposedly beat Biden in 2020, well, then, he’s basically owed another shot at it, and, as a two-time winner of presidential elections, there’s not much of a case that he has an electability problem.
DeSantis has talked lately of the GOP’s “culture of losing,” an oblique, if obvious reference to Trump. If the governor feels he has to pull his punches before he actually gets in the race, that’s understandable. To deal with this issue only indirectly would be a mistake, though. Trump alienated swing voters, lost his last election and has grasped at any conspiracy theory to try to cover his tracks. DeSantis attracted swing voters, won his last election and doesn’t have anything he needs to feel ashamed about. That’s an enormous difference, and it should figure prominently in the governor’s campaign.
Give Trump this: He doesn’t necessarily accept public opinion as it is but tries to shape it. Although there’d be widespread Republican doubts about the 2020 election no matter what he said, the belief that it was stolen wouldn’t be as deep and pervasive without his persistent (and deceptive) advocacy. He’s changed the landscape in his favor, and his opponents simply accept it at their peril.
For Trump to lose the nomination, what should be his chief vulnerability needs to be a vulnerability — and his Republican opponents must try to make it one.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
NEET Admit Card 2023 : National Testing Agency (NTA) on Wednesday announced that admit cards of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Undergraduate or NEET UG 2023 have been released.
A direct link to download NEET admit cards is available on neet.nta.nic.in. The entrance test is scheduled for May 7, 2023.
Candidates can download their hall tickets using their application number and date of birth. NTA has already issued exam city information slips for NEET UG.
On the NEET exam day, a printout of the admit card along with other asked documents and photographs will be required. On admit cards, NTA will give instructions to candidates for the exam day, including the dress code they need to follow and items allowed inside the exam hall.
Students must reach the exam venue as per the reporting time mentioned on admit cards. Follow this blog for updates on NEET UG exam, admit card download link and more.
NEET UG Admit Card Released
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SRINAGAR: Police in Kashmir have thwarted a major militant attack plot by arresting a militant associate of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) who was working as a driver in a five-star hotel.
Farooq Ahmad Wani, son of Abdul Rashid Wani, was arrested from the hotel where he worked in Baramulla district last week. During the interrogation, police discovered that Wani was in contact with his handlers in Pakistan and had sent pictures and other details of some of the 5-star hotels in Kashmir where high-profile guests, including Union Ministers, top leaders, and senior officials stay.
The arrest comes ahead of the G20 group meeting in Srinagar from May 22 to May 24. The security has been tightened around the hotels in Srinagar and other places as there is a serious input about a possible militant strike in Kashmir. The police recovered a grenade from Wani’s possession, and he is being questioned, providing leads to the authorities.
The security review meeting in Srinagar was conducted by the Additional Director General of Police Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, focusing on the emerging threat of Vehicle-Based Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIEDs) and other potential modes of militant attacks, including Fidayeen.
The presence of a militant in a 5-star hotel and the audacious attack in Poonch last month on Army has led to elite Marine Commandos (MARCOS) and National Security Guards (NGS) being placed for the security of the G20 Group meeting in Srinagar. The official clarified that the hotel management had no knowledge of Wani’s militant links, and he had developed links several months after working in the hotel.
SRINAGAR: Amid forecast for generally cloudy weather with possibility of rains at several places during next 24 hours, night temperature recorded a drop and settled below normal at most places in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, officials said.
Quoting a meteorological department official, GNS reportedthat there was possibility of a brief spell of rain and thunderstorm particularly in Kupwara, Poonch, Rajouri and Baramulla today.
On May 5, he said, the weather was likely to be fair to partly cloudy. “Brief spell of rain/thunderstorm can’t be ruled out towards late afternoon/evening”.
From May 6-8, he said, there was likelihood of rain at “many places.”
The weather department has urged tourists to keep warm clothes ready. “Weather is going to be cold till May 8th.”
The department also urged farmers to avoid spraying of apple trees and harvesting of crops (in Jammu region) during May 6-8 as chances of rain were high.
Regarding temperature, he said, Srinagar recorded a low of 10.3°C against 10.4°C on the previous night and it was 0.6°C above normal for the summer capital
Qazigund, he said, recorded a low of 7.2°C against 8.8°C on the previous night and it was below normal by 1.3°C for the gateway town of Kashmir.
Pahalgam, he said, recorded a low of 2.0°C against 5.2°C on previous night and it was 2.9°C above normal for the famous tourist resort in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
Kokernag recorded a low of 6.7°C against 7.4°C on the previous night and it was 1.2°C above normal for the place, the officials said.
Gulmarg recorded a low of 3.8°C against 3.5°C on previous night and it was 0.5°C below normal for the world famous skiing resort in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, he said.
In Kupwara town, he said, the mercury settled at 9.6°C against 8.7°C on the previous night and it was 1.2°C below normal for the north Kashmir area.
Jammu recorded a low of 17.6°C against 18.8°C on the previous night and it was 5.0°C below normal for J&K’s winter capital, he said.
Banihal recorded a low of 7.3°C (below normal by 2.8°C), Batote 8.1°C (4.4°C below normal), Katra 13.1°C (6.1°C below normal) and Bhaderwah 6.4°C (below normal by 2.8°C). Ladakh’s Leh and Kargil recorded a low of minus 1.5°C and 2.8°C respectively, he added.
Drug abuse is already an epidemic. Earlier the drug abusers used to die silent death by overdose. Now, the resource-deficit addicts have started turning against their own relations, reports Raashid Andrabi
With the hospitals getting an unprecedented number of addicts, some with overdose, a new pandemic is in progress in Kashmir. KL Illustraition: Malik Kaisar
That the instant and unexplained deaths of young men could be the outcome of a drug overdose is the old story. The new story is more tragic. Desperate to have drugs and the means to manage the costs can push the addicts to kill their own family members, even the closest relations.
Kashmir has actually landed into a state of fear and disbelief, as a series of heinous crimes rocked the Vale. In a spate of horrific incidents, family members turned on each other. The tragedy is that a son was held responsible for killing his mother.
Data that the government has put in the public domain suggest nearly 10 lakh people in Jammu and Kashmir are victims of drug abuse. Cannabis addiction affects at least 1.44 lakh drug abusers, while opioid addiction is prevalent among 5.34 lakh men and 8,000 women, and sedative addiction among 1.6 lakh men and 8,000 women. Experts believe that these figures could be much lower than the actual numbers, as many drug users are hesitant to seek medical care or open up about their addiction due to fear of social ostracism.
Despite efforts to combat the epidemic, the problem seems to be getting worse. In 2022, a report by the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre of AIIMS estimated the total number of drug abusers in Jammu and Kashmir at over 6 lakh, placing the erstwhile State fifth in the country among all States and Union Territories. Another study, conducted in December 2022, ranked Kashmir second among the States and Union Territories in the country for drug abuse, ahead of Punjab.
The impact of drug addiction is evident across the region, with reports of violence, crime, and broken families. The recent spate of homicides has only served to highlight the devastating consequences of this epidemic. Families are torn apart, and communities are left in fear and disbelief, as the people of Kashmir struggle to come to terms with the reality of the situation.
Ashmuqam Murders
The air was thick with tension as the news of the heinous crime spread like wildfire through the narrow alleys of Anantnag. Javaid Ahmad Rather, a successful baker, had committed an unforgivable act of violence against his own family and neighbours.
Ashmuqam: The shrine area.
On a chilly Friday morning in December 2022, the small town of Ashmuqam was abuzz with rumours of an incident involving one of its residents. Rather, a man known for his excessive drinking and drug use had apparently lost his sanity under the influence of a faith healer. The news quickly spread like wildfire, and people started to speculate about what could have possibly driven him to such madness.
Some claimed that the faith healer had given him powerful drugs, while others believed that he had cast a spell on him.
Rather’s father vehemently denied these accusations, insisting that his son was not a drug addict or a drunkard. He spoke of Rather’s success as a businessman, with three traditional bakery shops in Pahalgam that were managed by ten people. However, there was no denying the horror of what had occurred.
Rather’s father had just returned from Pahalgam, where he had gone to bring his son back home. Rather’s father claimed that the faith healer had asked them to sacrifice a sheep, but he did not know what had made his son lose control.
It started with Rather hitting his father on the head, sending him reeling to the ground. Rather then took his mother, Hafiza Begum, on the pretext of visiting a shrine. But instead of seeking blessings, he attacked her with a cane, causing her to die on the spot. The blood-curdling screams of Rather’s mother echoed through the quiet streets, alerting the neighbours who rushed to help.
But the horror had only just begun. Rather, now completely out of control, began targeting everyone in the area. Mohammad Amin Shah and Ghulam Nabi Khadim, two of Rather’s neighbours, were caught in his path of destruction and were brutally killed.
As the town’s gossip mill went into overdrive, the local police were called in to investigate the incident. They managed to apprehend Rather, but not before he had injured six other people. Shockingly, it was later revealed that Rather had been detained by the police just a day before the incident when he was seen roaming naked in the market carrying a bottle of liquor.
A Mother’s Murder
Anantnag’s Kehribal village was plunged into darkness when a shocking incident came to light. In what can only be described as a heinous crime, a 45-year-old woman named Razia Akther was brutally murdered by her own son and his accomplice, all for the sake of money. The victim Razia was hit on the head with a stone by her own son, Aaqib, and his accomplice Adil. The duo had allegedly hatched a conspiracy to steal money from Razia, but it ended up in a brutal murder.
The initial incident was thought to be an accidental fall from a concrete slab, but police investigations revealed that it was indeed a murder.
On October 21, details revealed police recovered the body of Razia and rushed her to GMC Anantnag for treatment, but the doctors declared her brought dead. The prolonged matrimonial dispute and various allegations and counter-allegations in societal circles made the police suspect foul play. They initiated proceedings under section 174 CRPC and took the body into possession for medico-legal formalities.
In a quick follow-up to the murder, it was Aqib, the son, holding the microphone and telling on camera the details of how his grandparents actually killed his mother. With emotional outbursts, he had successfully managed to hoodwink society.
As the cops started investigating the case, the cat was out of the bag. Police found Aqib and Adil responsible for the murder. They had hatched a criminal conspiracy to snatch money from the deceased. As she refused to yield, Aqib smashed his mother and punched her. Later, they tried to portray the murder as an accidental death and even created a fake crime scene.
Both accused fled away from the spot along with the snatched money. They even got the victim admitted to the hospital with the assistance of other family members. However, during further investigation, a disclosure memo was prepared, and the weapon of offence was recovered. An FIR has been registered under relevant sections of IPC.
The Sopore Shocker
The Sopore town was jolted by a horrific incident on a chilly March morning.
On March 30, Showkat Ahmad Ganai, a 32-year-old resident of Dangerpora village in Sopore, reportedly strangled his 70-year-old mother, Aisha Begum. A son, consumed by the dark grip of drug addiction, committed the ultimate betrayal by snuffing out the life of his own mother. The community is reeling from the shock of yet another senseless murder, which has left many questioning the corrosive impact of drugs on society and the lengths to which addiction can drive a person to commit the most heinous of crimes.
Sopore: An aerial view. It is the bridge that connects the two parts of Sopore. Image: Junaid Bhat
Speaking to the media, Showkat’s devastated sister said the family had always tried to steer Showkat away from his wrongdoings and get him on the right track. They had even scolded him when he was heading in the wrong direction, but in recent times, he had turned his life around, working hard and earning a good livelihood.
Showkat’s sister is still in disbelief about what could have happened to him and that he would resort to killing his own mother. She said that her brother had been very humble towards everyone around him, and everything seemed to be going fine until this incident occurred.
The killer’s sister is also grappling with the shock and cannot come to terms with what has happened. She expressed her wish that the police should catch Showkat and bring him to face justice. She went on to say that she wants to see him hanged in front of her, as that is the only justice that she can think of.
Larger Impact
With drug abuse as rampant as an epidemic, according to the police, a lot of crimes could be attributed to the addicts, who are always cash-starved. With some of them turning towards their family members, there is a possibility that they can kill others too.
While the authorities have been taking action against the suppliers – mostly the retailers, and making arrests on a daily basis, there is a requirement for snapping the supply chain. Officials have been consistently saying that the supplies are sourced from across the Line of Control (LoC) and various gangs including members of the security grid, have been arrested. However, the drug bazaar is still making a lot of money and on a daily basis; hundreds of families are getting devastated. Can Kashmir’s efficient security grid trace and squeeze the tracks that keep the drug supplies on?
(Photographs used in this report are representational and not linked, directly or indirectly, to the incidents mentioned in the report.)
On October 21, details revealed police recovered the body of Razia and rushed her to GMC Anantnag for treatment, but the doctors declared her brought dead. The prolonged matrimonial dispute and various allegations and counter-allegations in societal circles made the police suspect foul play. They initiated proceedings under section 174 CRPC and took the body into possession for medico-legal formalities.