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Posts published in “Favourites”

Outsiders in their own land

Avtar Singh’s cataract-ridden eyes betray him. He is happy talking to the group of friends he has invited home, but he cannot help stealing fond glances at the lush green fields and trees he has grown single-handedly in the heart of a salt desert. Some consider the 92-year-old Sikh rude.…

Missing evidence

Thirty years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, there is no justice in sight for the survivors of the world’s worst industrial disaster. To make matters worse, the authorities have no forensic evidence of the disaster. It would have proved to be the most crucial evidence in the ongoing trials and…

Bhakti divide in Brajbhoomi

“Neither the cities, the cultured lands nor the villages or their houses are ours. We are the forest people, dear father, and will always live in the forests and the hills” — Sri Krishna (Srimad Bhagvatam, Chapter 10, Canto 24, Verse 24) KRISHNA, the god in Hindu mythology, is said…

Flood warning: lost in translation?

After the extreme rains that caused floods and claimed over 200 lives in the state, Jammu and Kashmir got some respite on Tuesday as floodwaters began to recede. But the Met office has now forecast more rains in the region in the next 48 hours, which may hamper ongoing rescue…

Unplanned urbanisation, encroachment blamed for Srinagar flood

In flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, the streets of the state’s summer capital, Srinagar, resemble surging streams. River Jhelum has been flowing 1.5 metre above the danger mark. Chief engineer with Flood Control and Irrigation Department, Javid Jaffer, says that the state’s river and flood channels could carry 65,000 cusecs (cubic…