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Jan 4, 2025 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
If no spin is given to it, Omar Abdullah’s meeting with the local press was a mild ripple in the frozen waters of the local media. At least there was some talk. No matter what that was. No electrifying news, or a sensational revelation, can come from anywhere right now in Kashmir. As things stay in a state of dead freeze, a free conversation in an unencumbered atmosphere is like a stroke of warmth.
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Dec 28, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
Christ is a temporal mark- After and Before Christ. For the politics in India, Manmohan Singh serves as a reference – After Him and Before Him. Christ, his christian followers believe, was crucified. The politics Manmohan Singh represented and conducted, was also crucified. His personality, his demeanour, his ideals – all this is a misfit in the new age India.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
With the change of examination session from March to November, the schools across the valley went into exam-mode, and most of the schools are now almost done with these exams. The students will, in a matter of days, find themselves promoted to new classes. With exams finished and the winter set in, it is time for vacation. Vandae Zchutti. But it is not the winters that earn you vacation; it is the government order that authenticates the arrival of winter, hence vacation.
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Nov 30, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
Looks like National Conference decided to perform Umrah. Good. But it is not parties that perform a certain worship it is persons that connect to the divine. Umrah is an obligation for an individual not for a party, much less a political party. God in any case knows all, sees all; who are we relaying these pictures and videos to! When light falls on a worshipper it doesn’t illuminate, it fades. But this is not something specifically true for Omar and his team.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
Last week, the Private Schools’ Association JK arranged an interaction with some of the people’s representatives in the present government at the Conference Hall of the Institute of Hotel Management, Srinagar. For many, it might sound like a routine event that ends up with a news story in the local media or some sound bites in the social media. May be it is actually that, but there is another way of looking at it.
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
Devandar Singh Rana died at such a young age, 59. Anyone who has seen him, enjoyed his company, if only for a while, can vouch for his vivacious personality. To his family it is a shock indescribable. To his friends, in politics and outside, it must be a lingering wound. First condolence. Across the Line, Moulvi Muhammad Ahmed Shah passed away. He was the son of the iconic figure of Kashmir’s socio-religio-political landscape, Maulana M. Yousuf Shah.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
As Kashmir silently celebrates the decision to shift the school exam session back to November, can one turn around and ask a simple question: Why was it dragged to March in the first place? While the credit goes to the present civilian government to immediately realise the need to restore the factory settings in case of the examination session, those who inflicted this injury on us must feel the twitch of guilt. What on earth did they gain by putting the students to trouble for the last two years?
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Oct 26, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
What does the killing of seven innocent people at Gagangeer, Kashmir, signify? Many things. First, it is neither the opening nor the closing of such heart wrenching events. We have had many before, and the bad news is that we will have many hence. As long as the reasons for discord, and the architecture of justification are there, blood will flow. The killing of these seven innocents is not an event but a phenomenon. Gagangeer is not a spot, but a pointer to geopolitics.
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Oct 19, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
This election was a people’s statement. It was not about Omar Abdullah. It was certainly not about National Conference. It was a silent substance in the people of Kashmir that spoke and created a political space for Kashmir. Omar Abdullah and National Conference are the visible political bodies floating in that space. The first thing anyone in Omar Abdullah’s position should do is to internalise this truth, and be faithful to it. His statements till now indicate an affirmative response.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
greaterkashmir.com | Mehmood ur Rashid
When the focus should all be on the restoration of the statehood for J&K, something else is taking the centre stage. When all political energies should be marshalled to reclaim the political rights of the people of J&K, something else is presented as an emergency. The most disempowered entity in the entire India right now is this small population, surrounded by mortal fears of political annihilation – Kashmiris.
