Kashmir

Got this news from Twitter. @FreeKashmir reported that Dr. Shah Faesal from Kashmir topped the IAS, and was complaining that “the news didn’t make it to the Indian media”. It would indeed have been surprising and disgusting if Indian media had…

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Kaul on August 7th, 2009

While reading the e-paper edition of Greater Kashmir (a daily newspaper published from Srinagar, Kashmir) today, I saw an interesting front page advertizement from Srinagar Municipal Corporation.

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Kaul on June 27th, 2009

News! Now US State Department has an office of Special Representative to Muslim Communities (SRMC), and Hillary Clinton has appointed Farah Pandith as its head. So, who is Farah Pandith?

According to the State Department press release,

Pandith, a Muslim, immigrated…

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Kaul on March 25th, 2009

This is awesome. I didn’t know Khushwant Singh’s column still regularly appeared on the Hindustan Times. I used to be a regular reader of his column “Malice Towards One and All“, and particularly liked the joke at the end of…

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Kaul on February 12th, 2009

Everytime I watch the infomercial about the Snuggie, a “blanket with sleeves”, it reminds me of the pheran, which was the basic garment and an essential part of my life growing up in Kashmir (North India). Nobody in Kashmir can live without a pheran, and it must have existed there for centuries, if not millenia. And here in the US, I see several companies claiming the blanket with sleeves was their idea.

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Kaul on February 21st, 2007

Today, an enthusiastic member of my community sent a link to this BBC news item around: Indian Idol creates Kashmir stir. Her accompanying message said, “This is great news!”. It made me happy too. Hundreds of Kashmiri kids had lined…

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Kaul on February 20th, 2007

Being a Kashmiri is a very important part of my identity, besides being an Indian, a Hindu (of the atheist kind), and a self-styled rationalist. Still, none of the posts so far on my blog has been addressed to the…

Continue reading about Democracy, not a “daemon-cracy”

Kaul on December 22nd, 2006

In March 2003, I went to India and included in my trip a brief visit to Kashmir – to the Kashmir of my birth and of my childhood and of my education. This was my first trip there with my…

Continue reading about We hold on tight