OPINIONS

In recent days, the detention of Aam Aadmi Party legislator Mehraj Malik under the Public Safety Act has drawn wide attention from across India. The detention is more than a legal or administrative event. It is a prism through which one can study the contradictions of power in Jammu Kashmir. Malik’s confrontation with bureaucracy, his abrasive tone, and his political style have been cast as the problem. But the real discomfort lies elsewhere: Malik unsettles the established relationship between power and privilege. He represents, in a literal and symbolic sense, the poor. Critics often describe Malik as harsh, unrefined, even combative. But here arises a question: is the language of the poor to be judged by the standards of the privileged? To demand that a man stripped of subsidised gas...

Syed Murtaza In Kashmir, contradictions often emerge in the most unexpected ways. A Srinagar-based news agency recently made a startling misstep: in commenting on a video of senior Shia cleric Aga Syed Mohammad Hadi criticizing Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the channel labeled the prominent religious leader an “RSS Molvi,” implicitly siding with the CM. The irony is sharper because this same channel has long been a key player in censorship, a practice Omar himself frequently critiques. If any new media outlet were openly aligning with the right wing, it was this one. This is Kashmir for you. The twists do not end there. On social media, former critics of Aga Hadi; Kashmiris who previously opposed him for his Shia identity even when he was speaking on Muslim unity, Gaza, and the digni...

Across India, and more acutely in Kashmir,  the lived realities of poor street vendors are being erased. Bulldozed, beaten, branded encroachers. Despite their foundational role in the local economy, they are criminalized in the name of urban order. Towns that grew around them are now trying to grow without them. In the official narratives, vendors do not build the city, they block it. The government says vendors clog the roads, block ambulances. Yet it is never the VIP convoys, the luxury SUVs with tinted windows, the illegal parking of government vehicles, it is always the poor. The rhetoric is tired but effective: “beautification,” “development,” “public good.” Their homes and stalls are wiped out, and a press note is mailed out. Often, the headlines are already ready. In urban spa...

Yesterday's incident involving a doctor at a major hospital in Kashmir being slapped by an attendant has generated strong reactions. For many, it became more than a case of assault. The incident has turned into a mirror reflecting the many fractures in the region’s healthcare system, exposing not just patient frustration, but also the exhaustion and vulnerability of overworked medical professionals. A senior resident doctor from Srinagar, requesting anonymity, described the pressures doctors face daily. “We are working 16 to 18 hours a day, with hardly any breaks or time to breathe. Sometimes we go entire shifts without meals or even water. I know some of us falter in our duties. But the system burns us out.” He explained that what is often perceived by patients as arrogance is, in m...

While Srinagar’s elite gather in lakeside cafes and officials update press notes about "beautification drives," a Dutch woman’s lone boat cuts through Dal Lake every morning — not in search of peace, but of trash. Ellis Hubertina Spaaanderman, 69, has lived in Kashmir for over two decades. But it’s only in recent weeks — after her videos of cleaning the Dal Lake with a rake and her bare hands went viral — that the city has been forced to look in the mirror. It’s not a pretty reflection. Floating bottles. Wrappers clinging to lotus stalks. Animal waste from Eid dumped into drains. Stinking mounds of garbage rotting in the heart of the city. This is the Srinagar locals step over — or film and forget. But Ellis refused to look away. “I didn’t come to Kashmir to watch it die in silence,”...

Meer Irfan The healthcare system in Jammu Kashmir has long faced scrutiny, but in recent months, allegations of medical negligence—especially affecting underprivileged patients—have intensified. At the forefront of this campaign is Mehraj Malik, MLA from Doda and Jammu Kashmir's Aam Aadmi Party chief. Malik has consistently alleged that government hospitals, particularly Government Medical College (GMC) Doda, systematically fail the poor while serving the affluent with ease. In multiple social media videos, Malik has highlighted disturbing stories of patients allegedly mistreated or subjected to unnecessary procedures. One case involves a patient who underwent eye surgery at GMC Doda, only to be told later by doctors in Amritsar that the surgery was not medically required. The ...

In Kashmir, the street vendor remains a foundational yet criminalised figure. From the lanes of Srinagar to the congested alleys of Anantnag, these workers—some of the Valley’s earliest traders—helped shape its market economy long before multi-storey complexes and branded storefronts redefined what commerce looked like. But with urban transformation came selective erasure. Today, many of those who laid the first stones of Kashmir’s trading culture find themselves without a legal place to stand. Street vendors in Kashmir exist in a legal vacuum. Despite contributing to the region’s informal economy in vital ways—through food vending, clothing sales, mobile repairs, or vegetable carts—there exists no comprehensive policy or registration mechanism to protect their rights. The Stre...

Over the past several days, television sets across India have been inundated with what appears to be a coordinated barrage of reportage from Kashmir—framed as “ground zero” journalism, but in reality, they are defamation drills, systematically orchestrated to distort. From sunrise to sundown, reporters descend upon Lal Chowk—Kashmir's symbolic nerve center—not to listen, but to extract quotes that fit pre-scripted storylines. The interviews are carefully framed, edited with precision, and then served to the nation as evidence of a “truth” that aligns perfectly with the prime-time spectacle. But this is not truth-seeking journalism. This is theatre. What is most unsettling is not the presence of bias—every system of reportage carries it to some degree—but the deliberate manufacture...

In a rare and scathing attack, Jammu Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah recently lashed out at sections of the Indian media for fanning anti-Kashmir narratives. Reacting to the silence observed at Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid over the Pahalgam killings — a solemn moment that many TV channels deliberately chose to ignore — Omar called out these "besharam" (shameless) platforms for their cowardice and TRP-driven distortions. His anger is justified. It is now an undeniable fact, widely acknowledged both nationally and internationally, that sections of India's mainstream media have mutated into aggressive fake news factories. Reports by organizations like Reporters Without Borders (RSF), The Washington Post, The Guardian, Al Jazeera,  and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), have repeate...

As the Jammu Kashmir Assembly convenes for its first budget session since 2018, tensions are already brewing, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cautioning against what it calls "anti-national" resolutions. The warning comes amid reports that Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference has proposed a resolution against the abrogation of Article 370, an issue that remains central to political discourse in the region. The Assembly, which reconvened last year after a decade-long hiatus, had already witnessed chaos, with MLAs physically clashing during the inaugural session. With political divisions deepening, the upcoming budget session is expected to be just as turbulent. During an all-party meeting chaired by Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather, BJP leader Sunil Kumar Sharma insisted that no "uncons...