Stories written by Umar Manzoor Shah

Seeing Through the Smog: Can New Delhi Find a Way to Limit Air Pollution?

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Ankita Gupta, a housewife from south Delhi, is anxious about whether she should send her 4-year-old daughter to kindergarten. Outside visibility is poor as smog — a combination of emissions from factories, vehicle exhausts, coal plants and chemicals reacting with sunlight — has settled over the city, surpassing dangerous levels.

For Some in Kashmir Marriage Equates to Sexual Slavery

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Haseena Akhtar was only 13 when an agent told her parents that they could earn a good amount of money by letting her marry a Kashmiri man. The man was, however, three times older than Akhtar, the agent said.

50 Days of Kashmir Under Lockdown – in Pictures

By Umar Manzoor Shah and Umer Asif
It is 50 days into the lockdown in Kashmir since roads were blocked off, schools shut, and internet and communication services stopped.

As Fathers Die, Kashmir’s Children Become Breadwinners

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Mubeen Ahmad was nine years old when his mother sold him into service to a mechanic for the petty sum of few thousand Indian rupees. His mother had found it hard to support the family after his father, a labourer, was killed during one of the anti-India protests in Jammu and Kashmir in 2008.

Kashmir’s Fisherwomen Live Between Hope and Despair

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Much has changed since Rahti Begum, a fisherwoman in Kashmir, now in her late 60s, first began wandering the streets with a bucketful of fish on her head. She was 17 when her father roped her into the business that became the source of her livelihood for the remainder of her life.

Kashmir’s Farmland Plowed Under in Wave of Urbanization

By Umar Manzoor Shah
In central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, 40-year-old Javaid Ahmad Hurra remembers vividly how his small hamlet used to be lush and green when he was a child. It is now subtly turning into a concrete jungle, with cement structures dominating the scenery.