6 Armymen court-martialled in Machhil case - The Hindu

6 Armymen court-martialled in Machhil case - The Hindu

Kashmir gets a dream ropeway - The Hindu

Kashmir gets a dream ropeway - The Hindu

Kashmir gets a dream ropeway at Koh-e-Maraan

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR (December 23, 2013): Twenty-five years after the authorities conceived the Valley’s first ropeway and created the Jammu and Kashmir Cable Car Corporation [JKCCC] to boost tourism at Gulmarg, Kashmir got its second tourist-carrier on Monday. Three Ministers of Omar Abdullah’s government— Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Mian Altaf Ahmad and Ali Mohammad Sagar­— dedicated the 594-metre monocable ropeway in an ambience of enthusiasm to the residents of Srinagar.

Minister of Environment Mian Altaf said that the Rs 6.50-crore ropeway would ferry devotees, particularly the aged and infirm, daily from the sprawling Malkhah cemetery to the revered saint Sultanul Aarifeen Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom’s shrine and back. The 16^th century saint’s splendid shrine is resting on the foothills of Koh-e-Maaraan [the hillock of the snakes], commonly known as Hari Parbat, overlooking the old city.

Valley’s largest Gurudwara Chhattipadshahi as also the Kashmiri Pandits’ spiritual rendezvous of Sharika Devi —seat of the 18-armed goddess Sharika Bhagwati, the presiding deity of Srinagar city— are both on the foothills. Mughal emperor Akbar and his successors had set up the capital Naagar Nagar around the same hillock where the festival of Badamwari was an annual feature of the spring celebrations until 1980s. Akbar’s fort, now in dilapidated condition and occupied by paramilitary forces, is the highest viewing point over the city.

JKPCCC Managing Director Tufail Matoo told The Hindu that the Makhdoom Sahib ropeway had been planned in the thick of a street turmoil in 2010. Its commercial operation missed several deadlines but finally became a reality. With eight celluloid-body cabins, four incoming and four outgoing, it will carry 16 passengers either way, for a return journey at Rs 100 each. “We are expecting 1,500 passengers and revenue of Rs 1.50 lakh every day”, Mr Matoo said. Each cabin has the capacity for four passengers.

Mr Matoo said that ropeways were high financial viability ventures in tourist States like Jammu and Kashmir. With an investment of around Rs 30 crore, JKPCCC commissioned Asia’s highest and the longest (4.9 km) and the world’s second highest altitude ropeway, Gulmarg Gondola in May 2005, seven years after completion of its phase-1. “With 6.70 lakh visitors, it fetched us Rs 34 crore in 2012. This year, over 6 lakh tourists have enjoyed a ride on Gondola from Gulmarg to Apharwat (13,400 ft) and the revenue has crossed Rs 32-crore mark”, Mr Matoo said. From January 1^st week, Gondola would mostly carry the skiing enthusiasts from all over the world to the famous alpine slopes of Kongdori and Apharwat.

END

J&K official fired for bungling MBBS entrance exams

 

Mushtaq Peer was not arrested allegedly thanks to pressure from a senior Congress leader

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR: Government of Jammu and Kashmir has terminated the post-retirement service of the former Chairman of Board of Professional Entrance Examinations [BOPEE] Mushtaq Ahmed Peer on account of his prima facie involvement in the multi-crore question paper leakage scam and acquisition of properties worth over Rs 10 crore in the last three years.

 

General Administration Department’s order No: 1551, issued on November 14 and confirmed by the Cabinet on November 19, did not mention the reason of Mr Peer’s abrupt dismissal. “The contractual appointment of Prof. Mushtaq Ahmad Peer, as Consultant, ordered vide Government Order No.1326-GAD of 2012 Dated 13.12.2012 read with Government Order No. 833-GAD of 2013 dated 31.5.2013, is hereby terminated with immediate effect”, said the order.

 

Following his retirement as Chairman of BOPEE, Mr Peer had been engaged for a term of two years for providing consultancy to the government on the proposed fast track recruitment of class-4 employees.

 

Well-placed sources in the Omar Abdullah government revealed to The Hindu that the top corridors of power decided to terminate the consultant’s service weeks after the High Court entertained a Public Interest Litigation and directed the Crime Branch to hold a transparent inquiry into the allegations of manipulating the MBBS selections against him. As Mr Peer’s involvement was established and FIR registered, the State government dismissed the consult “to stave off a huge embarrassment”.

 

The sources revealed that the Crime Branch decided to arrest and interrogate Mr Peer but a political intervention foiled the move. “A senior Congress leader, who has been instrumental in Mr Peer’s out-of-turn and backdoor promotion, exerted a lot of pressure and warned the officials against his arrest. It was then decided that he would be simply summoned and questioned”, said an official.

 

Inspector General of Crime Javaid Gillani, however, refused to endorse. “He actually turned up voluntarily to face the questions. We have asked him to return for further interrogation on Thursday”, Mr Gillani asserted. He confirmed that the Crime Branch conducted raids on Mr Peer’s acquisitions and land holdings and seized “a lot of incriminating material”.

 

Huge acquisitions

 

The IGP said that Mr Peer had “sold off question papers to some brokers for Rs 65 Lakh who in turn earned Rs 5 crore by collecting money from their clients” in just the 2012 session. “These candidates secretly wrote their exams with masse copying at a private hotel on the Boulevard. We have found 12 of them among the top 30 candidates in the order of merit. Money has been paid by cheques”, Mr Gillani said.

 

The accused has been found to have purchased over 10 kanals of land in Ganderbal, a built-up house in the posh Tawi Vihar area of Sidhra in Jammu, some properties at Pahalgam, besides three flats in Jammu and New Delhi — all in the last three years.    

 

Shower of favours

 

While as Estates Department has allotted an independent house to Mr Peer in Jammu, Department of Evacuees’ Properties has transferred ownership of another house to his name. He and his wife have been granted several service extensions after their retirement. Sources said that a senior Congress leader had put the government under tremendous pressure to appoint Mr Peer as Vice Chancellor of Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipore, at the retirement of Dr Abdul Rashid Trag in February 2014.

Mr Peer and his family were not accessible on telephone on Wednesday.

 

END

BJP, PDP hand-in-glove to grab power in J&K, alleges Omar

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR: The ruling National Conference’s (NC) acting president and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday alleged that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was “in nexus with Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to grab the power through illegitimate means in Jammu & Kashmir.”

While addressing a public meeting in the opposition PDP’s stronghold at Kellar, in Shopian district of South Kashmir, Mr. Abdullah asserted that there was a discernible chemistry between the PDP and the BJP. He said the two political outfits of “communal orientation” had an eye on the power in J&K and both had stakes in a communal divide ahead of the next year’s Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. He cautioned the NC cadres against the communal forces’ attempts to subvert peace and tranquility.

“There’s definitely a hidden contact between the PDP and the BJP. Mufti Sayeed’s secret meetings with the close associates of Lal Krishna Advani and his close contact with Narendra Modi has surfaced and exposed the PDP’s ideology and strategy,” Mr. Abdullah asserted. “They are running with the deer and hunting with the hound. But take it from me today their boat is destined to sink under the weight of this party’s own duplicity and hypocrisy.”

Mr. Abdullah referred to the two elections in the State’s Legislative Council in the last nearly five years of his regime and claimed that the members of the BJP, Kashmir-based PDP and Jammu-based National Panthers Party had voted for common candidates.

For the second time in a week, Mr. Abdullah pledged that the NC’s friendship and association with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition at the Centre was firm and irreversible.

He referred to one of Mr. Sayeed’s purported statements in the recent past and said the NC would never ask the electorate to return 40 seats in the State Legislative Assembly “for resolving the Kashmir problem.” “I have been saying it since day one of the campaigning in 2008 that the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections have got to do nothing with resolution of the Kashmir problem. This is essentially a political problem that needs a political resolution to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders,” Mr. Abdullah said.

He asserted that the 24-year-long militancy in the State was “purely political” and claimed that the Kashmiri youth had not picked up the gun for elections, development, employment or governance. He implored the separatist leadership to “shun rigidity” and respond favourably to the Centre’s offer of an unconditional dialogue and peace process.

“There are no other options left. Violence definitely is not the way-out,” Mr. Abdullah said.

Meanwhile, addressing a rally at Mendhar in Jammu on Sunday, Mr. Abdullah’s confidante and the NC’s Jammu chief Devender Singh Rana said: “Mufti Sayeed is using a former Director of IB, who advises the BJP on security matters, a women social activist running an NGO and close to Mehbooba Mufti, and a Delhi-based senior journalist who happens to be Mufti’s close friend, as conduits between the PDP and the BJP. Snubbed by the Congress, the PDP is now building bridges with the BJP.”

END

Website Link:

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/bjp-pdp-handinglove-to-grab-power-in-jk-alleges-omar/article5361331.ece


 

Dear friends

Having been heavily preoccupied with my professional assignments, I regret I had no time to update this blog since April 2013.

Now that nearly 1.10 lakh views have been recorded despite this blog being inactive, I am planning to update it with all of my stories since the day I joined The Hindu on November 14, 2012.

Best wishes

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
Senior Assistant Editor
The Hindu

British woman found dead on houseboat

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Apr 6: A 22-year-old woman from Manchester, U.K. was found dead at her houseboat on Dal Lake here in the morning on Saturday.

Srinagar Senior Superintendent of Police Syed Ashiq Bukhari said that the young British tourist had been staying at New Beauty houseboat on Dal Lake since February last week. Police on Saturday received information about her death.

According to the SSP, the team of doctors that conducted the post-mortem examination on her body at Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Hospital of Rainawari observed as many as 45 marks of violence and wounds. The woman’s clothes were found torn.

“Doctors have taken samples and it would take them some time to ascertain whether the woman had been raped and killed. We have preserved the body at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura,” Mr. Bukhari toldThe Hindu.

The SSP said that Police Station Ram Munshi Bagh registered the First Information Report and flashed a radio signal to all the barriers and Police posts on Srinagar-Jammu highway to intercept and check all the outgoing foreigners.

He said that immediately the only suspect in the case of the woman’s “possible rape and murder” was a Dutch national, Richard Calliper Dennis (43) who was staying in another room of the houseboat after his arrival on April 4 but was missing.

A police party intercepted a taxi carrying the male tourist from The Netherlands from Srinagar to Jammu, a mile short of Jawahar Tunnel on the 300 km-long highway. The taxi was seized and the “fleeing tourist” and the driver were detained.

Police sources said Dennis admitted to the “murder” during sustained questioning.

END

The Hindu web link:

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/british-woman-found-dead-on-houseboat/article4590320.ece

Kashmir’s dream hospital has seen 12,860 deaths in last 5 years: CAG 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR: Apr 6: Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), ambitiously created by Kashmiri political icon Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah before his death in 1982, till date has “no roadmap to achieve excellence in medical research.” 

It has neither been formulated nor presented in any of the governing body meetings, said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India’s Report tabled in both Houses of Legislature in Jammu on Friday.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is the Chairman of the SKIMS governing body that performs the role of the cabinet for the semi-autonomous super-specialty hospital and the deemed university. Post-graduate and post-doctorate courses, including MCh and DM are conducted at the State’s most crowded hospital that had been primarily designed as a tertiary care hospital. 

“The research activity has been restricted just to payment of monthly clinical research allowance of Rs. 2,500 to the faculty members without verifying the eligibility conditions for the allowance,” the CAG report observed. It has noticed 40 per cent shortage of faculty at SKIMS and even higher 56 per cent at its affiliate SKIMS Medical College Bemina in March 2012. There is a shortage of over 32 per cent in medical, paramedical and nursing staff. “No staff was posted for the critical care department of the Institute having a bed strength of 12, which was raised to 60 in January 2012.”

The CAG further observed: “The system of drawing of samples of drugs for testing to ensure procurement of quality medicines and drugs is not in the Institute. The drug quality control laboratory stopped functioning since November 2003 and Rs. 1.40 crore released during 2009-11 to set up an advanced quality assurance laboratory was lying unspent in a civil deposit. Physical verification of drugs and surgical instruments had not been conducted since June 2008.”

Even the one-time much-hyped Genetic Centre has been found to be a failure. “The advanced centre for human genetics and local area networking systems could not be established due to the improper planning despite an investment of Rs. 12.12 crore made thereon,” the CAG report said.

Hot on the heels of over 4,000 deaths at SKIMS last year, the CAG has noticed that 12,860 hospitalised patients died in 2007-2012 period, as many as 7,875 after 48 hours of their admission.

Even the emergency medicine department has been found to be “not fully equipped to deal with cases of road traffic accidents having multiple organ injuries including orthopaedic injuries. Ambulances meant for patients have been found mis-utilised to the extent of 40 to 47 per cent during 2008-12.” 

The CAG report has also pointed out large-scale irregularities, financial embezzlements and a unique modus operandi of parking the plan funds without utilisation to hide them from lapsing at the end of the fiscal year. 

Replying to most of the half-margins, Director of SKIMS, Showkat Ali Zargar reportedly said he would “look into the matter.”

END

The Hindu web link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/kashmirs-dream-hospital-has-seen-12860-deaths-in-last-5-years-cag/article4585689.ece