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  Basit Shah Wular Lake in north Kashmir is once again dotted with vibrant pink lotus flowers, a sight not seen since the devastating floods of 1992. For the local community, this is more than just a visual spectacle; it is the return of a lost livelihood and a piece of cultural memory. “I never thought I’d live to see this again,” said 62-year-old Ghulam Nabi Lone, a lifelong resident of Banyari village who once harvested lotus stems, known locally as nadru, with his father. “These flowers were once part of our everyday lives. When they disappeared, so did a part of us.” The return of the lotus to one of South Asia’s largest freshwater lakes has been made possible by years of conservation work by the Wular Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA). Their efforts t...

A bizarre claim has gone viral on social media, alleging that a teenage boy in South Kashmir’s Shopian district sold his neighbour’s cow to buy a gift for his girlfriend. Shared widely by social media news pages across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the story was framed with catchy captions and meme-style visuals that played into popular stereotypes and emotions, a strategy increasingly used by engagement farmers to draw likes, shares, and clicks. However, upon verification, The Kashmiriyat found the claim to be completely fabricated. The news has not been reported in any official channel, nor has any complaint been filed in any police station in the Shopian district. “There is no report of any such incident having taken place anywhere. This is fabricated news, and people should ...

In urban areas of Jammu  Kashmir, the average number of meals consumed per person per month has dropped from 77 in 2022–23 to 71 in 2023–24, according to the recently released Nutritional Intake in India (August 2022 – July 2024) report by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation. This significant fall, almost one-and-a-half meals per week which highlights a worrying trend in the region’s nutritional and food security landscape. The data, accessed by The Kashmiriyat, further shows that calorie consumption has weakened in the region’s urban sector. The share of urban households with high calorie intake (≥2790 Kcal per consumer unit per day) declined from 36.5% in 2022–23 to 36.5% in 2023–24, showing stagnation, while those consuming lower levels (below 1860 Kcal) increas...

5.84 lakh trees were cut in Jammu Kashmir over the last five years, from 2020 to 2025, as part of an anti-encroachment drive along the Jhelum river system. The information, obtained through a query filed by Srinagar-based activist M.M. Shuja, further revealed that a total of 6.33 lakh trees had been identified for removal following an internal assessment conducted by the office of the Chief Engineer of the Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) department in Kashmir. As per a report by The Wire, these trees, most of them poplars, were spread across the river’s entire course in the Valley—from its origin at Verinag in South Kashmir to Boniyar in Baramulla, where the Jhelum exits into Pakistan-administered territory. "Of the trees removed, the department’s Sumbal division alone acc...

In a major breakthrough, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday arrested two more operatives in the expanding case of illegal human trafficking through the so-called "donkey route", a perilous smuggling corridor used to ferry Indian nationals to the United States. The arrests followed raids in Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, tightening the net around one of India’s most disturbing trafficking networks in recent history. Sunny, known as Sunny Donker, was arrested from Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, while Shubham Sandhal, alias Deep Hundi, was held in Delhi's Peeragarhi area. Both are alleged to be close aides of Gagandeep Singh alias Goldy, the key accused who was arrested in March. Singh, based in Tilak Nagar, had been operating a global network that sent Indian citizens to...

In the saffron fields of Pampore, Kashmir, every autumn morning begins with a quiet ritual. Farmers, many of them women wrapped in woolen pherans, step barefoot into rows of purple blossoms just before sunrise. They bend low, collecting Crocus sativus flowers by hand—three fragile red strands hidden inside each bloom. These stigmas, when dried, become saffron—the most expensive spice in the world, known not only for its aroma and hue but for a long list of therapeutic benefits that modern science is just beginning to validate. For centuries, Kashmiri families have revered saffron not merely as a luxury ingredient but as medicine. It is added to warm milk for children, brewed in kehwa for elders, and mixed with honey to relieve cold and cough. While these remedies were passed down withou...

An image has gone viral on social media claiming that a 21-year-old man named Mohammed Irfan from Haryana married his 65-year-old grandmother, Sultana Khatun. The post, widely circulated by meme pages and Instagram accounts, has generated a wave of Islamophobic commentary and ridicule online. What is especially troubling is that these types of narratives don’t emerge from meme pages alone. Over the past year, mainstream media channels including Aaj Tak, Zee News, News24, TV9 Bharatvarsh, and Times Now Navbharat have repeatedly amplified similar fake or dramatized videos involving so-called “unusual” Muslim marriages without any verification. A prime example is a viral video showing a 21-year-old man with a 52-year-old woman, widely misreported as a real wedding. This video was act...

A man accused of theft was paraded through the streets of Jammu on Tuesday, wearing a garland made of shoes and briefly seated on the bonnet of a police vehicle, in an incident that has drawn sharp criticism and prompted an official inquiry. The incident occurred in Bakshi Nagar area, outside a hospital, where the man—identified as a Kashmiri resident and a known repeat offender—was apprehended by locals and police. According to Station House Officer (SHO) Azad Manhas, the suspect is part of a recently busted criminal gang and was allegedly under the influence of drugs at the time of arrest. The situation escalated when a local man, recently robbed of ₹40,000 while buying medicines, spotted the accused and confronted him. A scuffle broke out, during which the thief allegedly attacked...

  On June 17, the Israeli military once again came under fire after uploading a map on X (formerly Twitter) that incorrectly showed Jammu and Kashmir as part of Pakistan. The post, intended to depict Iranian missile ranges, mirrored a similar error made just days earlier. The mistake was swiftly highlighted by fact-checker Muhammad Zubair of Alt News, following which the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) deleted the post without issuing a fresh apology. https://twitter.com/zoo_bear/status/1934935545882591317 The incident marks the second time in four days that the IDF has posted an inaccurate map of India, sparking criticism across Indian social media. Many users tagged Israeli officials and demanded accountability, calling the repeated error disrespectful to India’s territoria...

This World Environment Day, the Chenab Valley hills of Jammu echoed not with government slogans, but with the rustle of young Chinar leaves—planted by a retired professor determined to give the iconic Kashmiri tree a second life. Prof. Syed Zaheer Abbas Hashmi, former principal of Government Degree College Doda and ex-Controller of Examinations at Cluster University Jammu, has spent the last 16 years planting thousands of trees across the region. His most remarkable effort: reintroducing the Chinar, once abundant in Kashmir but now in decline due to urbanisation, road projects, and ecological neglect. While the Jammu Kashmir Forest Research Institute recently launched a ‘Digital Tree Aadhar’ initiative to geo-tag and monitor Chinars, Hashmi’s mission began long before. Since 2008, he...