SRINAGAR: Former minister and president Apni Party, Syed Altaf Bukhari on Monday said that they won’t allow an inch of Jammu & Kashmir’s land to be provided to outsiders.
Addressing a news conference, Bukhari, as per the news agency KNO said the drive to retrieve state and Kahcharai land from the land grabbers must exclude poor people.
“Those who have grabbed a huge chunk of land can be dealt with strictly, but those who belong to the downtrodden section of the society must be excluded from the drive,” he said.
Bukhari, however, said that the land being retrieved will not be given to people from outside.
He further said that only five per cent land of J&K can be provided for industrial purposes to outsiders, but this law can be changed by the next government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Responding to the query, he said that he believes that Kuka Parrey father of Imtiyaz Parrey, who recently joined the Apni Party, was better than other politicians.
“Whatever Kuka Parrey did, he did at the face value and other politicians did the same behind the curtains, so Kuka Parrey was better than those politicians,” he said.
About Bharat Jodo Yatra, Bukhari said that he has not been invited to the Yatra.
TSPSC AEE 2023 Answer key, Cut off marks, Merit list download links are to be released from the official website Check detailed article on Assistant Executive Engineer Exam Key, Objections. The board Publishes TSPSC AEE Answer Key 2023 on the official portal of the Commission at tspsc.gov.in. Students who appeared in the AEE Recruitment exam and want to check the official Answer key or raise objections can do so on the website. Checking the prelim answer keys for the AAE exam is now possible on the official website of the TSPS, tspsc.gov.in.
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But conservative conspiracy sites like The Gateway Pundit and the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit that filed lawsuits that unsuccessfully sought to overturn the 2020 election, have attacked ERIC as part of a liberal plot to control the underpinnings of American elections.
Allen’s abandonment of ERIC illustrates how ideas stemming from the falsehood of a stolen presidential election remain in the bloodstream of the American democratic system, even after its most well-known proponents were shut out from winning key positions in major swing states in the midterms.
It also suggests the era of bipartisan, behind-the-scenes, mundane cooperation on the mechanics of running elections is at risk.
“It’s not the start, nor the end,” said David Becker, a former DOJ attorney who was central to setting up ERIC over a decade ago. “If you’ve been to any meetings of election officials over the last few years — if you’ve been to anything where consensus is attempted — it seems that fewer and fewer want to engage in that.”
Becker, who is now the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, retains a non-voting position on the board of ERIC, which is otherwise made up of voting representatives from member states.
Allen’s office did not respond to an interview request or to written questions about his decision to pull the state out of ERIC. But in a statement accompanying his letter to ERIC, he said that: “Providing the private information of Alabama citizens, including underage minors, to an out of state organization is troubling to me and to people that I heard from as I traveled the state for the last 20 months.”
ERIC collects voter registration and motor vehicle data from each member state regularly throughout the year, the organization says. That data is used to produce several reports identifying voters on their rolls who may have moved to or from other member states or within a state, who may be registered in multiple states — which in itself is not a crime — or who may have died.
The system can also generate a report on voters who may have voted in different states in the same election — which generally carries criminal penalties — and people who appear to be eligible but are unregistered to vote, which ERIC members are required to contact.
The Gateway Pundit published a series of posts in mid-January 2022 about ERIC, claiming it was part of a left-wing cabal. And in December 2022, the Thomas More Society said it has filed complaints in three states about ERIC and planned to continue to do so in more. A spokesperson for TMS did not respond to a request for an update on the filings.
Allen was the second secretary of state to pull his state out of ERIC. Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, a Republican, announced last January that Louisiana would “suspend” its participation in the program and sent a letter in July withdrawing entirely.
John Tobler, a spokesperson for Ardoin’s office, said the office had conversations with ERIC officials before it left, but did not make Ardoin available for an interview and declined to answer specific questions about the move.
The announcement from Ardoin’s office about the suspension alleged: “concerns raised by citizens, government watchdog organizations and media reports about potential questionable funding sources and that possibly partisan actors may have access to ERIC network data.”
In a statement at the time, Ardoin said he spoke with “election attorneys and experts,” but did not identify those people, nor the watchdog groups and media reports. Ardoin’s campaign website says he “demanded answers from ERIC … to keep Louisiana’s elections secure,” linking to a brief local news article from January about the announcement.
On the campaign trail, Allen more closely echoed the postings from Gateway Pundit website: He said he opposed ERIC because it was a “Soros-funded, leftist group,” referencing the prominent liberal donor George Soros.
The group is entirely funded and controlled by member states, after receiving initial startup support from The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012.
Despite the two states leaving the organization, ERIC still broadly maintains bipartisan support. Republican officials have praised ERIC for helping their states remove from the rolls voters who have either moved out of state or died, and for its use as a backstop to catch people who potentially cast ballots in two different states in one election.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted ERIC by name in a summer press conference as helping to catch potential cases of double voting. (DeSantis announced the state would join ERIC in 2019.) And one of its biggest proponents of the program was Allen’s predecessor, now-former Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who regularly defended the value of ERIC after Allen raised it as an issue on the campaign trail.
“ERIC does something that no other entity is capable of doing,” Merrill, a Republican, said in an interview in November, following the midterm elections. “The people who have complaints about ERIC and who have concerns about ERIC, don’t understand ERIC.”
Trey Grayson, a Republican and former Kentucky secretary of state who remains active in the election administration community, said in a text that he was a “big fan” of ERIC and that it was an “important tool” to maintain accurate voter rolls. He said it was disappointing to see the two states leave the group.
“I especially find it disappointing because in general we Republicans tend to care more about cleaning up the voter rolls,” Grayson wrote. “And these Republican secretaries are shooting those efforts in the foot with their decisions.”
Officials from other member states also expressed displeasure over the exit of Louisiana and Alabama. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said he was “disappointed with the decision because I think the more members there are in ERIC, the stronger ERIC is.”
The scuffle around ERIC is just one point of agitation between election officials. Recent public meetings of the National Association of Secretaries of State, a longstanding, bipartisan organization, have showcased the tension growing within the group. Sessions at NASS meetings now focus on the increasingly fraught task of ensuring the safety of election officials from physical threats, and there has been public chatter about the risk of insider threats to election offices.
And a few sessions have triggered sharp disagreements among secretaries that, at times, have gotten heated. That could continue to grow, with several newly-elected secretaries in red states who have at least questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election now eligible to join the organization, Allen among them.
But Simon — who is set to assume the NASS presidency in the summer of 2024 and helped lead a near-unanimous NASS resolution for election audits in 2021 — said he was still hopeful that there would be plenty of room for behind-the-scenes election cooperation to survive and thrive.
“I actually have thought about that,” Simon said when asked if the tension around ERIC could metastasize into something more. “We might have differences, including on this issue, but I really don’t think it changes the fundamentals. … So I don’t see this as a body blow to cooperation among secretaries of state of varying political viewpoints.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“They’ve almost changed the rules,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told POLITICO. “[Are] we going to continue that pattern? Look, we want to get as much information as we can get, and they’ve written a new playbook, so we’ll have to talk about it as a committee and as a conference.”
Republican leaders are already navigating intra-party tensions over which tactics to embrace. They are under fierce pressure from their right flank and the party’s base to go scorched-earth against the Biden administration — with some already agitating for impeachments. But centrists and institutional-minded Republicans, fresh off the sting of a disappointing midterm, are warning that carbon-copying Democrats isn’t the way to go.
“I think mostly what the Democrats did as precedent is weaken Congress … I don’t think they did a very good job,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who is joining the Oversight Committee. “If we get into a tit for tat — I don’t think that will serve Republicans, Congress or the American people well.”
In some ways, it’s a challenge Congress faces every time the House changes hands. Lawmakers intensely rely on precedent, taking inspiration from their predecessors regardless of party or even if they previously railed against it. To Hill veterans, it’s almost a cliche: when one Congress deploys an oversight tactic, it becomes part of the toolbox for every subsequent Congress — particularly if it is tested and approved by federal courts in D.C.
“Turnabout is fair play, and they were warned this at the time — on everything from kicking members off committees … two impeachment efforts, everything else,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said about the possibility that Republicans use Democrats’ tactics against them.
Democrats acknowledge that they approached, and even expanded, the outer limits of Congress’ investigative powers. But they say investigating an attempt by Trump and his allies to derail the transfer of presidential power, and the violent attack on the Capitol that followed, called for them to push the boundaries.
Doug Letter, the top lawyer for the House under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and an architect of the legal battles to empower the Jan. 6 select committee, defended the panel’s investigative tactics that lawmakers had previously used only sparingly.
“It’s hard to think of a whole lot of congressional investigations that are going to be like the January 6th one, that are going to need that kind of stuff,” Letter said in an interview, pointing specifically to the panel’s voluminous subpoenas for phone records from third-party carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile.
But he also said that he anticipated Republicans would seek to deploy their own battery of oversight tools, some likely aided by the battles Letter himself won on behalf of the Democratic House.
“We obviously live in a democracy,” Letter said. “Those are the people in power.”
In court filings, Letter emphasized Congress’ broad ability to conduct investigations into matters of national significance. He frequently defended the panel against dozens of lawsuits brought by figures like former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the Republican National Committee and Trump himself.
Time and again, judges agreed that the panel was operating properly on matters of grave national significance.
That included last year, when then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) unsuccessfully argued in an amicus brief for Trump ally Steve Bannon that the committee shouldn’t be granted certain powers as he had not appointed any members to it — a result of McCarthy’s decision to boycott the panel after Pelosi tossed some of his original picks.
Republicans’ tactical options aren’t limited to those the Jan. 6 committee deployed: Democrats booted Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from committees for incendiary rhetoric aimed at colleagues. (Both Greene and Gosar will sit on the Oversight panel this Congress.) Democrats also subpoenaed and won a legal fight to obtain Trump’s tax returns.
A House Democratic aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly, predicted Republicans will use some tactics against them but warned the “flip side is true as well.”
“Republicans set the playbook, and Trump set the playbook, for how to defend against some of this, get it in court and tie it up. … That sword cuts both ways from them. I’ve been around the Hill long enough to know what goes around comes around,” the aide added.
So far, Republicans have embraced two plays Democrats used: First, McCarthy is vowing to prevent Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from getting Intelligence Committee seats, something he can do unilaterally as speaker due to the nature of that panel. He’s also promised to keep Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from getting a Foreign Affairs Committee seat, which will likely spark a House floor showdown.
Secondly, Republicans green-lit a sprawling select subcommittee that will probe the “weaponization” of the federal government, including current federal investigations, the Justice Department, the FBI and the intelligence community. The controversial panel, a demand by some of McCarthy’s hardline detractors during the 15-ballot speakership fight, will be under the stewardship of Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
McCarthy, for now, says Democrats will get to pick their members for that panel. Under the rules for the “weaponization” panel, Jordan and New York Rep. Jerry Nadler — the top Democrat on Judiciary — automatically get seats. Then of the 13 additional members McCarthy names, five are in consultation with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
“The other side will get to name their members on the committee. It won’t be handpicked by me and denying the Democrats their voice,” McCarthy has told reporters.
Another area to watch will be how Republicans use their subpoena power, both in compelling witnesses and obtaining records from third parties.
Comer noted that he thought Democrats have “set a lot of precedents,” pointing to both their use of subpoenas and their use of contempt of Congress.
Both Bannon and former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro faced federal charges for defying subpoenas from the Jan. 6 select committee. DOJ declined to prosecute two others held in contempt by the House: Meadows and Trump social media adviser Dan Scavino.
While Democrats focused on phone records, Comer has his own target: bank records, which he noted it’s “very likely” he will need to subpoena. He’s already re-upped his request to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for so-called suspicious activity reports tied to the president’s son, Hunter, and a network of associates. The financial reports, filed routinely by banks, often don’t indicate wrongdoing but can be a basis for further investigation.
“We want specific [financial] transactions,” Comer said. “I don’t want this thing to keep growing and growing and they never end.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“We don’t have a Fox News in Spanish, and that’s what Americano intends to be,” said the network’s CEO and founder Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo. He said he has listened to Hispanic Republican leaders lament for 25 years about the need for something like it, but no one ever took serious action.
Garcia-Hidalgo, who worked as a Hispanic surrogate for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign after a career in telecommunications with Tyco, AT&T and Sprint, said he wants to “blow up” the traditional ways in which conservative Hispanics interact with the media, which he said consisted of going on liberal-leaning networks to “apologize for being Republican, bow your head and take a beating for an hour.”
Americano started with a suite of radio shows out of Miami, where it remains headquartered, but plans to have a presence on television and radio in battleground states across America in the next year, in addition to driving Spanish-speaking audiences to its online and streaming platforms.
To date, Americano Media has raised $18 million from its first three investors, and is set to complete its first and only round of equity investment this spring to generate another $30 to $50 million, Garcia-Hidalgo said. Thomas Woolston, a northern Virginia patent attorney, and Doug Hayden, a San Jose, Calif.-based investor, were the first to provide capital; Americano declined to disclose the third investor.
Americano is taking every opportunity it can to build a profile in conservative political circles. The network aired live from CPAC Dallas in August. In December, they set up a massive booth on radio row at Turning Point’s AmericaFest, featuring a “No mas fake news” display that delighted attendees at the Phoenix Convention Center who lingered nearby to watch a cast of conservative celebrities give interviews. As a sign of their growth, the network has scored recent interviews with Trump and several top elected Republicans, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mike Lee (Utah), and Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Steve Saclise (La.), along with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Ultimately, however, the Spanish language network’s intended audience isn’t the type of conservative diehards who attend political conferences or tune into Steve Bannon’s “War Room.” It’s working-class Hispanic people living in America, who prefer to speak Spanish, aren’t particularly ideological and who lack options for commentary on the news of the day.
“Hispanics are normies,” said Giancarlo Sopo, a GOP strategist who led the 2020 Trump campaign’s Hispanic marketing efforts.
Strategists behind Americano’s expansion efforts say they believe there is a limit to the GOP’s gains with Latinos in recent years. The low-hanging fruit has already fallen, they say, requiring Republicans to do a bit more work to pick off remaining centrist voters, something Americano intends to do by offering a combination of fairly straight news, mixed with conservative commentary and eventually entertainment offerings.
Democratic operatives, who have long warned that the absence of more robust investments in Spanish media could have boomeranging effects, acknowledge that targeting that type of niche audience could be a highly effective plan.
“There is an information war in Latino and bilingual communities in this country,” said Tara McGowan, the founder and publisher of the Democratic-aligned Courier Newsroom network, who has been vocal about the left needing to build new, progressive media outlets. “It’s a very smart and very alarming move by conservatives to double down on their investment in Americano Media.”
Americano’s venture mirrors that of the liberal Latino Media Network, which in June announced the purchase of 18 Latino radio stations around the country. One of those stations, Miami’s Radio Mambi — a longtime fixture in the conservative Cuban-American community — lost several prominent hosts to Americano Media after the sale was announced. Lourdes Ubieta, Dania Alexandrino and Nelson Rubio are among those who made the switch to Americano. Most of Americano’s hosts, producers, directors and technicians came from Univision, Telemundo and CNN en Español, according to network officials.
Mayra Flores, the Republican who flipped a South Texas congressional seat in a June special election, becoming the first female Mexican-born House member, has recently signed a contract to become one of Americano Media’s senior political contributors. Flores lost reelection in November after redistricting made the seat more Democratic.
Other top executives at the startup include Michael Caputo, a longtime GOP operative who advised Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and briefly served as an official at the Department of Health and Human Services at the start of the Covid pandemic, and Alfonso Aguilar, who led George W. Bush’s citizenship office, is serving as Americano’s political director.
After years of trying to get a news network off the ground and creating a lineup of podcast talk shows, Garcia-Hidalgo launched Americano in March as a partnership with Sirius XM’s Latino variety station. The strategy, he concedes, was not to reach the small number of Latinos listening to satellite radio, but to grab the attention of investors and top radio network executives. Americano pulled its lineup from the satellite channel in October and moved over to a Miami-based Audacy radio station.
The network’s ambitions are broad. By the end of this year, Americano plans to be on 25 radio stations. They’ve added content to every major streaming platform, and have built a digital news website and phone app. They’ve spent several million dollars building studios to launch new television programs, with plans underway to be on cable in every major battleground state ahead of the 2024 election, and in Puerto Rico in the coming weeks, Garcia-Hidalgo said.
“The most underserved news consumer is a center-right Spanish speaker,” Flores said in an interview, noting that many of those fairly conservative Latinos in South Texas have traditionally voted Democratic, though some have begun to leave the party, data show.
While heavy on conservative commentary, Americano does feature liberal guests. On one show, Democrat Jose Artistimuño, a former Democratic National Committee press secretary who worked in Barack Obama’s administration, debates Republican Jimmy Nievez each evening. The network says they’re in the process of adding more Democratic commentators to their roster.
“It’s definitely a space that needed to be filled, and I’m saying that as a Democrat,” Artistimuño said of the lack of Republican-versus-Democrat talk shows in Spanish. “I may not agree with all the policies that Americano supports, but that’s OK. In order for democracy to work, both sides need to talk to each other and debate.”
Latinos in America are still more likely to favor Democrats. But those margins have shrunk dramatically in recent years.
CNN exit poll data in November found that Democrats’ lead with Latino voters has narrowed by nearly 10 percentage points since the 2018 midterm election, with 60 percent supporting House Democratic candidates this fall and 39 percent GOP. Four years ago, 69 percent of the Latino electorate backed Democrats and 29 percent Republicans, the exit polls found.
“The biggest challenge Republicans have had is they usually engage Hispanics from a perspective of electoral politics, just to get their vote, and they usually do it three months before an election,” said Aguilar, Americano’s political director. “It’s very difficult to build confidence in a community when you arrive so late.”
One of the problems still facing Republicans has been reaching Latinos who primarily speak Spanish.
Sopo, whose work includes GOP advertising to Latinos, noted that his firm, Visto Media, conducted a poll for a client this fall that found Democrats held a 40-point lead on the midterm ballot with Hispanics who receive all or most of their news in Spanish. That number fell to a 13-point lead with Hispanics who prefer English news sources.
There are also challenges to successfully capturing an audience of Latino viewers hailing from different countries, Sopo said. Content that appeals to Cubans in Miami isn’t always what Mexicans in Texas are interested in. A mix of culture, news and conservative commentary, Sopo said, is likely a “formula for success with Hispanics,” and something that isn’t widely available.
“If they want to broaden out and grow the tent, the programming has to look more like Fox and less like Newsmax and OAN,” Sopo said, referencing two further-right TV news channels. “Straight news, combined with conservative commentary, and you add some entertainment, which they’ll need for that demographic.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Srinagar, Jan 23: The Government on Monday constituted a Committee to enquire into the matter relating to the appointment of faculty members in Jammu and Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development (JKIMPARD) in “violation of rules”.
Headed by Financial Commissioner Chairman (Additional Chief Secretary), Home Department, the members of the committee include Director General, J&K Institute of Public Management, Administration and Rural Development, Secretary to the Government, General Administration Department, Secretary, Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and Director General (Codes), Finance Department, according to an order, a copy of which lies with GNS.
‘The Committee shall also enquire into the reasons for not previously reporting to the Government the irregular appointments of the faculty members in the Institute, which pre-date the term of the current Director General.’
Besides, it has been asked to enquire the number of meetings of the Governing Council required to be held under norms vis-à-vis the actual number of meetings held over the last five years and whether the matter involving “irregular appointments” was ever brought to the notice of the members of the Governing Council.
“The Committee shall also evaluate overall functioning of the IMPARD Over the last five years and submit its recommendations for improving work/academic environment, management efficiencies and institutional integrity on sustainable basis,” the order reads, the copy of which is with Global News Service, adding, “The Committee shall be serviced by the J&K IMPARD.” It has been asked to submit its report within one (01) month. (GNS)
Srinagar, Jan 23: Former minister and president Apni Party, Syed Altaf Bukhari on Monday said that they won’t allow an inch of Jammu & Kashmir’s land to be provided to outsiders.
Addressing a news conference, Bukhari, as per the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said the drive to retrieve state and Kahcharai land from the land grabbers must exclude poor people.
“Those who have grabbed a huge chunk of land can be dealt with strictly, but those who belong to the downtrodden section of the society must be excluded from the drive,” he said.
Bukhari, however, said that the land being retrieved will not be given to people from outside.
He further said that only five per cent land of J&K can be provided for industrial purposes to outsiders, but this law can be changed by the next government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Responding to the query, he said that he believes that Kuka Parrey father of Imtiyaz Parrey, who recently joined the Apni Party, was better than other politicians.
“Whatever Kuka Parrey did, he did at the face value and other politicians did the same behind the curtains, so Kuka Parrey was better than those politicians,” he said.
About Bharat Jodo Yatra, Bukhari said that he has not been invited to the Yatra—(KNO)
SRINAGAR: In yet another jibe on J&K’s former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad-led political party, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday called his party as the “Doda Azad Party” and added that it would soon become “Dead Azad Party.”
Talking to reporters, Ramesh said that Azad-led political party has now reduced to “Doda Azad Party”.
“It has now become Disappearing Azad Party. It is not only Disappearing Azad Party, but has now become “Doda Azad Party” as its influence is limited to Doda. It would soon become “Dead Azad Party”,” Ramesh told reporters, as per news agency KNO.
Ramesh, who has become vocal critic of Azad-led party, said that every Congress leader who had joined Azad-led party has now returned to the party.
“They have returned to the party after holiday of two months,” he said.
Jammu, Jan 23: In yet another jibe on J&K’s former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad-led political party, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday called his party as the “Doda Azad Party” and added that it would soon become “Dead Azad Party.”
Talking to reporters, Ramesh said that Azad-led political party has now reduced to “Doda Azad Party”.
“It has now become Disappearing Azad Party. It is not only Disappearing Azad Party, but has now become “Doda Azad Party” as its influence is limited to Doda. It would soon become “Dead Azad Party”,” Ramesh told reporters, as per news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO)
Ramesh, who has become vocal critic of Azad-led party, said that every Congress leader who had joined Azad-led party has now returned to the party.
“They have returned to the party after holiday of two months,” he said—(KNO)
Srinagar, Jan 23: As Jammu and Kashmir awaits snowfall and rains amid forecast by meteorological department, the minimum temperature fell below freezing point in the valley on Monday, officials said.
A meteorological department official here told that Srinagar recorded a low of minus 3.4°C against last night’s 1.0°C. Today’s minimum temperature, he said, was 1.1°C below normal for the summer capital.
Qazigund, he said, recorded a low of minus 1.0°C against 0.2°C on the previous night and it was 2.9°C above normal for the gateway town of Kashmir. Pahalgam, he said, recorded a low of minus 4.7°C against minus 6.3°C on the previous night and it was 2.8°C above normal for the famous tourist resort in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.
Kokernag recorded a low of minus 2.7°C against minus 1.9°C on the previous night and it was 0.9°C above normal for the place, the officials said. Gulmarg recorded a low of minus 9.6°C against minus 6.8°C on the previous night and it was 1.4°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 minus 2.9°C against minus 0.5°C on the previous night and it was normal for the north Kashmir area.
Jammu recorded a low of 6.5°C against 7.1°C on the previous night. It was 0.5°C above normal for J&K’s winter capital, he said.
Banihal recorded a low of 2.4°C (above normal by 2.7°C), Batote 2.1°C (below normal by 0.7°C), Katra 6.2°C (0.2°C above normal) and Bhadarwah 2.0°C (3.3°C above normal).
Ladakh’s Leh and Kargil recorded a low of minus 12.6°C and minus 16.6°C respectively, the official said.
Kashmir is under the grip of Chillai-Kalan, the 40-day long harsh winter period that started on December 21. It does not mean an end to the winter either. It is followed by a 20-day-long period called ‘Chillai-Khurd’ that occurs between January 30 and February 19 and a 10-day-long period ‘Chillai-Bachha’ (baby cold) which is from February 20 to March 1.
The MeT department has forecast “isolated” light rain and snow over Jammu and Kashmir during the next 24 hours.
“Widespread moderate snow/(rain in Jammu) & moderate to heavy snow over middle and higher reaches of J&K very likely from evening of January 24th to 25th,” he said, adding, “On January 26-28th, weather is expected to be partly to generally cloudy with light snow/rain at isolated places.”
From January 29-30th, MeT forecast widespread moderate to heavy rain and snow.
He said that in last 24 hours till 0830 hours Srinagar received 2.6cm of snowfall. Reports said that snowfall was also received from some upper reaches in the Valley. (GNS)
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