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The unemployment rate in Jammu Kashmir has recorded a spike of over 6 percent for the month of March against February, which is the third highest in states and UTs across India. Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), monitoring monthly unemployment in India, has put Jammu Kashmir's employment rate at 23.1 percent in the month of March against 17.1 in February. The monthly figures of the unemployment rate maintained by CMIE since 2016 show that in August 2022, unemployment reached its highest over the years when it jumped to 32.8 percent. In the month of December, unemployment went down to 14.8 per cent against the 22.4 per cent unemployment rate in November. With 1.5 per cent, Puducherry has the lowest unemployment rate followed by Indian state of Gujarat with monthly unempl...

Kounsar Bashir At 6:40 pm on Wednesday, a minor girl left her home in the remote Khurhama Zab area of Lolab in north Kashmir's Kupwara district and informed her parents that she would go out to play. Hours later, her throat-slit body was found outside her home and her head buried under a cement bag. Jammu Kashmir Police has said that that police will soon crack the murder case of the 8-year-old girl and that the killer will also be behind the bars soon. However, as of now, the Police have urged the locals to cooperate with them in the investigation and share input, if any, with the police. Around 8 PM on Wednesday, a sudden noise created alarm in the Khurhama locality. As the locals gathered, Haji Salam, the grandfather of the girl informed the locals that the 8-year-old (name ...

Kashmiri research scholar Ishaq Ahmad Magray recently accomplished his Doctorate in Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Jawaharlal Nehru University. According to Awaz's report, Ishaq Ahmed Magray who is visually impaired hails from the Handwara area of north Kashmir's Kupwara district. Due to his visual impairment, Magray's path to academic excellence has been fraught with many difficulties. But ultimately, his unwavering spirit and resolve to overcome all challenges allowed him to accomplish this amazing feat. After earning his undergraduate degree in History from the Hindu College in Delhi in 2008, he started his pursuit of higher education. His dedication to learning and love of history inspired him to enroll at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Dehradun, where he s...

Safoora Hilal/ Suhail Dar Ali Mohammed Dar, 51, a resident of Budgam had a small rice field before he lost it to a road widening project launched by the then Government. His fields, he says, produced sufficient rice to feed his family, but two decades after, Ali Mohammed Dar is running from one private store to the other to buy rice to feed his family. He looks at an old mud structure, where he says, a few decades ago, his forefathers stored rice. "This traditional storage structure was used for storing food grains and it never had less than half of it filled with rice. Look at how it is now, we have to literally beg for rice," he said. ALSO READ: ‘Not beggars who need freebies’, say locals as food grain supplies to Kashmir are drastically reduced As the month of Ramadhan is being ...

Amid Ramadhan, the Jammu Kashmir administration has woken up to the exorbitant food prices in the region and issued a rate list of vegetables and fruits. Department of Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs has fixed rates for vegetables and fruits to avoid overcharging. Officials of the department said that strict action would be initiated against the violators of the rate list issued by the Jammu Kashmir admin. "Raids will be conducted in markets throughout the month of Ramadan and anyone found violating the rate list will be booked under law," an official of CAPD told The Kashmiriyat. He said that during Ramadhan the shopkeepers charge extremely high rates, when the shopkeepers around the world offer discounts in this month. "Nevertheless," he said, "we request the general ...

Confusion prevailed in the Kashmir valley after a late-night announcement by the Ruat e Hilal Committee of Pakistan that Ramadhan will commence on Thursday. For ages, Kashmir has followed Pakistan's Ruat e Hilal Committee for starting its Ramadhan and Eid and the other months of the Hijri calendar, however, the crescents other than that of Ramadhan and Eid ul Fitr hardly make any debate. Ramadan, like all lunar months globally, begins the day after the first sighting of the sliver-thin new crescent moon, visible up to an hour after sunset on the appropriate evening. The orbit of the moon around the earth is such that it can take up to three days for the whole world to actually see the crescent for the first time each month, even after clouds have cleared. Kashmir's Grand Mufti, Nasir...

The Court has framed charges against Kashmiri Journalist Fahad Shah and Aala Fazili, a Srinagar research scholar in 'Anti-National' write-up case. In a statement, SIA said, On 16.03.2022, Special Judge designated under NIA Act, Jammu Sh. Ashwani Kumar framed charges against two accused namely Abdul Ala Fazili and Peerzada Fahad Shah in a State Investigation Agency (SIA) investigated case FIR No. 01/2022 of PS SIA Jammu. The case pertains to an information received by PS CIJ (SIA Jammu) on 04.04.2022 along with a copy of an article titled ‘The Shackles of Slavery Will Break’ written by one Aala Fazili and published in the digital magazine (portal) ‘The Kashmir Walla’ through its Editor-in-Chief cum Director Peerzada Fahad Shah. The duo accused under an active conspiracy and Pakista...

As the tourist season peaks in Kashmir valley, ticket to the valley has skyrocketed, causing anguish among the people associated with the tourism industry. Delhi to Katmandu (Nepal) is nearly half of the price if you want to fly to Srinagar from India's capital city. The same has caused anguish in the tourism sector of the valley. On 22 March, 2023, the prices for tickets from New Delhi, India to Kathmandu Nepal on Goibibo.com start from 5,109 INR and on the same day, the tickets to Srinagar cost 11, 221 INR. In fact, the tickets to Abu Dhabi cost around the same amount. The issue has existed for quite a long time. In 2019, Omar Abdullah taking a dig at the Government over the heightened prices said, "These are the fares people traveling out of Srinagar are being forced to pay. Ya...

In the wee hours of July 18, 2020, an encounter raged in the Amshipora area of Shopian. Conducted jointly by Indian Army's 62 RR, and Jammu Kashmir Police, the encounter ended after three were killed. Following Standard Operating Procedures, the bodies were handed over to the Police who called in some families from the Shopian district of south Kashmir to identify the three slain. On July 19, The Kashmiriyat reported that five families of active militants were called for the identification of the trio, however, they denied them being their kin. Later in the day, the bodies were transported to north Kashmir and buried there as unidentified militants. By then, department inquiries had been initiated into the encounter and the process of identifying the trio was going on, however, no ma...

Social media users in Kashmir are expressing their anger on Twitter and other social media platforms over the selection of APTECH company by the LG-led administration for conducting the Jammu Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB) exams. APTECH has been penalized by the supreme court and is on the blocklists of various states including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. In fact, in 2020, the Mumbai-based company was given a contract for conducting recruitment exams for the 643 posts under the irrigation department. The private firm conducted exams for 397 posts in the first phase with large-scale anomalies in February 2020. Following that, Gauhati High Court stayed the declaration of results of the examinations to select section assistants for the Assam irrigation department. ...