Soaring Temperatures Devastate Kashmir Farmers

The soaring temperatures this year in India’s northern state of Kashmir are proving calamitous for the region’s farming community.  The place, otherwise known for its emerald streams, lush green hills, and ice sheets, is reeling under heat attributed to climate change this year. The heat wave of such intensity has left most of the water canals dead and dry, plunging the already conflict-torn region into a frightening agrarian crisis.

For Some in Kashmir Marriage Equates to Sexual Slavery

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

It is 50 days into the lockdown in Kashmir since roads were blocked off, schools shut, and internet and communication services stopped.

The Costs of Heightened Conflict in the Himalayas

As a series of conflicts in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region come into sharp focus, sidelining local populations, the long-term environmental costs may leave the region degraded, poor and desperate.

Kashmir: How Modi’s Aggressive ‘Hindutva’ Project has Brought India and Pakistan to the Brink – Again

August is immensely important in the history of the Asian subcontinent, marking the month that India and Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947. Now, in 2019, it has once again proved momentous, when, ten days before India’s Independence day celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution.

Kashmir’s Fisherwomen Live Between Hope and Despair

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.

Students Under Siege as Schools Burn in India’s Troubled Kashmir

In the fading light of a November afternoon, 12-year-old Mariya Sareer bends over a textbook, trying to read as much as she can before it gets dark. It's been nearly five months since the seventh grader from Shurat, a village 70 kms south of Srinagar city, last went to school, thanks to a raging political conflict.

Cancer, Not Clashes, the Number One Killer in Kashmir

In an isolated ward of one of Kashmir’s largest government-run hospitals, 54-year-old Ashraf Ali Khan is finding it hard to sleep properly. His 15-year-old son, Asif, is sitting on a bench near the bed staring at his ailing father.

Haunted and Depressed: The Struggle of Orphans in Kashmir

In a congested classroom, 13-year-old Sahil Majeed is trying to copy on his note book what his teacher is writing on a white board with black marker pen.

Kashmir: Where a Pilgrimage Threatens a Delicate Ecosystem

As he struggled to find a section of the stream clean enough to rinse off his muddy shoes, Mohan Kumar, a Hindu pilgrim on his way to the holy Amarnath shrine in Indian-administered Kashmir, gazed with despair over the filth that lay thick on the landscape.

Kashmir Flood Carries Away Humble Dreams

Rafiqa Kazim and her husband Kazim Ali had a simple dream – to live a modest life, educate their four children and repay the bank-loan that the couple took out to sustain their small business.

Fatwa Comes Too Late for Kashmir’s Half-Widows

Forty-seven-year-old Shahmala’s husband has been missing since 1993. In India’s restive Jammu and Kashmir state, she is what is known as a half-widow, a woman who has no clue whether her husband is dead or alive.

Kashmiri Women Claim Their Rights

Mehnaz Bano (not her real name), a 37-year-old woman in a hamlet in Indian Kashmir, is living a “satisfied and peaceful” life ever since she secured her daughter’s property rights before her remarriage – though not without a long and tedious struggle following her first husband’s death.

Unexploded Shells Tearing Lives Apart

A vast and picturesque meadow called Tosamaidan, about 112 km west of Jammu and Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, has now become the rallying point for hundreds of villagers who want the artillery exercises being carried out there by the Indian Army to stop.

Pashmina Withers on the Roof of the World

The famed pashmina shawl that keeps the cold away – in style and at a price – could itself have become the victim of winter. Thousands of goats whose fine wool is weaved into pashmina have perished in extreme cold being associated with climate change.

Kashmiri Farmers Unprepared for Drought

Zareena Bano has had to skip school 17 times this year to help out on her family’s farm in Tangchekh village in the northern Indian state of Kashmir.

A Floral Touch to Employment in Kashmir

As a little girl, Rubeena Begum had big plans: she would become a doctor and secure a decent income working in one of the 30 hospitals in the Himalayan state of Kashmir in north India.

Explosives Shatter Lives in Kashmir

Aadil Khan and his two siblings had been playing as usual behind their house in the village of Diver, 110 kilometres north of Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, when they came across what they thought was a “plaything” laying on the ground. But no sooner had they picked the object up than it literally shattered their innocent lives into pieces.

Discord Now Strikes Male Bands in Kashmir

The girl band in Kashmir was silenced; the male bands are running into fears of another kind of silence.

Execution Sparks Unrest in Kashmir

“Give us his body; we want to give him a respectable burial…” this is the overwhelming demand across Kashmir following the hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru who was convicted for his role in the attack on the Indian parliament on Dec. 13.  2001. Nine people died in the attack.