'A 65-year-old man infected with the coronavirus died at a hospital in Srinagar on Thursday morning, recording Kashmir’s first recorded death due to the deadly disease. "Despite our best efforts, the COVID-19 positive patient at Chest Disease Hospital passed away due to cardiac arrest. The patient had a medical history of prolonged illness with Sugar, hypertension, obesity," a doctor said...'
'On 15 March, the union ministry of home affairs sanctioned the appointment of Baseer Ahmed Khan, Kashmir’s divisional commissioner, as an advisor to Girish Chandra Murmu, the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Baseer is accused of being involved in a multi-crore land scam in 2009. A case against him regarding the matter remains pending with a special anti-corruption court in Baramulla. His elevation brings into question the Narendra Modi government’s promise of corruption-free governance in Jammu and Kashmir post the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution...'
'Health workers on duty in villages and district hospitals across rural Kashmir lack personal protection equipment (PPE), making them vulnerable to infection and crippling their ability to work normally amidst the coronavirus outbreak. PPE consists of gloves, masks, eye protection device, and the hazmat cover-all suits worn to protect health care workers from getting infected. These workers pleaded that rural hospitals be supplied with better protective gear to enable doctors and paramedical staff work smoothly.
'As the first COVID-19 case was officially confirmed from Srinagar on Wednesday and the Valley was subsequently locked down again, the doctors, healthcare workers, researchers and students in Kashmir are taking to social media to raise concerns about restricted information due to slow speed internet. They’re demanding restoration of full-speed 4G internet so that people can be better informed and get critical information about the coronavirus pandemic. “This is so frustrating. Trying to download the guidelines for intensive care management as proposed by doctors in England.
'Exactly twenty years ago, on 20 March 2000, thirty-five Sikh men were massacred by armed assailants in Chitti Singhpora village in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district. Nearly everyone in the village recalls the evening in the exact same way: the assailants turned up at around 7:30 pm, lined the men up in front of the two central gurdwaras on the pretext of a routine ‘crackdown’, shot them dead, and disappeared into the night. Hidden amongst lush apple orchards, the village is hard to find, except for a yellow banner marking its entrance.
'Set up to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the quarantine facility in Srinagar is rather, an invitation to disaster. While over a dozen people are crammed into a single room with little facilities, those having “connections” easily bypass the screening and quarantine at Srinagar airport. The selective quarantine triggered protests at the airport on Thursday while police cane-charged few of the visitors flying into the valley and their relatives waiting for them at the airport...
'Something sinister is cooking, looking at the urgency with which the Bhima Koregaon case has been shifted from the Pune Police to the Centre, under the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The arrests that have happened under the current regime are neither random nor to do only with resisting the current regime. The Supreme Court’s rejection of bail pleas by Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde has serious consequences not just for human rights but also signalling the changing landscape of political discourse.
'Amid looming coronavirus threat, people in Kashmir are frantically searching on Google to find out information on Covid-19, but the low-speed internet comes in way. After the closure of the schools and colleges in the wake of coronavirus scare, the students find it hard to study online, courtesy low speed internet... A senior doctor from SMHS on the basis of anonymity said that “Kashmiris are furiously Googling to seek information about coronavirus, but unfortunately the law speed mars them.”...
'Nasir Khuehami, a 24-year-old student from Bandipora in Kashmir, has travelled to and stayed in Delhi many times. However, this time when he came to rent a flat in Delhi’s Batla House, a bizarre turn of events greeted him. Nasir is preparing for competitive exams. On March 5, when Nasir went to look for an apartment, he knew enough about religious discrimination to know that he should look for a flat in a Muslim-dominated locality. However, what he had not accounted for was discrimination by fellow Muslims...'
'The family of the Srinagar couple arrested on Sunday from south Delhi for alleged links with the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) and instigating protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act(CAA) said on Monday said that the two are being framed.
