Author: hamid

The Kashmir Monitor

New Delhi/Tehran: A large number of Indian pilgrims in Iran have tested positive for coronavirus and will stay back for medical treatment in the country till they recover.

The overall death toll crossed 700 and infections rose to around 25,000 across Iran on Sunday. Iran is one among the worst affected countries with most cases and fatalities from coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan city of China.

Top official sources, without specifying any numbers, said that a considerable number of Indian pilgrims have tested positive in Iran.

“The pilgrims are mostly in senior citizen age group and therefore vulnerable. Since they have tested positive, they will stay back, go through the medical treatment and quarantine as per the international standard protocol for coronavirus patients,” an official told IANS.

There are over 6,000 Indian nationals in various provinces of Iran. Of them, there are about 1,100 pilgrims mainly from the union territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir and the state of Maharashtra and nearly 300 students primarily from the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. Around 1,000 fishermen from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat and others stay in Iran earning their livelihood and for religious studies.

As per a video recording accessed by IANS, Indian representatives are constantly meeting Indian nationals stranded in Iran. In one such meeting between Indian representatives and Kashmiri pilgrims in Iran, it was revealed that hotels are evicting pilgrims for overstaying and for not being able to pay their dues.

The government said it is making arrangements for further evacuations as the test reports come. “Those who are testing negative are being evacuated by the government,” the official said. India has also sent trained medical teams have to Iran to help and treat Indian nationals.

So far, the government has evacuated around 400 Indians including 53 who returned on Monday, from the Iranian cities of Tehran and Shiraz. Upon their arrival, they went through a preliminary screening at the airport in New Delhi and were then sent to the Army Wellness Centre in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer.

The news of their return to India was tweeted by external affairs minister S. Jaishankar on early Monday. “Fourth batch of 53 Indians — 52 students and a teacher — has arrived from Tehran and Shiraz, Iran. With this, a total of 389 Indians have returned to India from Iran,” Jaishankar tweeted.

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

India Today

person who had recently traveled to India from Saudi Arabia has tested positive for novel coronavirus. This is the third positive case in Jammu and Kashmir.

“One more case confirmed positive. Travel history to Saudi Arabia. Had reported high viral load earlier. Total 3 positive cases now,” Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary of Planning Development & Monitoring Department in Jammu and Kashmir administration informed via a tweet on Monday.

Earlier in the day, the administration imposed Section 144 in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal district to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

District Magistrate Shafqat Iqbal imposed the ban on the assembly of four or more people in any public place and it will remain in place till March-end, according to an order.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country rose to 114 on Monday, with Odisha reporting its first COVID-19 patient and a new case each in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala, according to the Union Health Ministry.

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Advises Farooq Abdullah To Seek Substitute For Article 370

Srinagar | Congress leader and former union minister Prof Saifudin Soz Monday said that the challenge for J&K leadership was not the restoration of statehood but finding a substitute to the abrogated Article 370 of the constitution.

“The crucial question is not the restoration of statehood which the BJP itself wants to happen, but, seeking, at least, a close substitute to the abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution of India,” Soz said in a statement to Kashmir Observer.

“I rang up Dr. Farooq Abdullah”, Soz said adding I welcome his release and hope that he would realise, in full measure, his role at the present day Kashmir’s ‘cross road situation’.

“As the people know, we have fallen to bad times. So, we must close our ranks and realise our joint responsibility for future”, he said.

“The moot point for mainstream leadership of Kashmir is to ponder over why the Centre put the entire mainstream leadership either in jail or under house arrest since August 5, 2019, when it abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution of India, unilaterally”, Soz said.

He said it was incumbent upon the mainstream leadership, particularly the National Conference, to adopt a mechanism to sort-out issues with the Centre so that “things don’t go awry in future”.

“If the constitution of India offers accommodation to the resolution of Kashmir issue, then, the Union should take steps to revive the democratic process in Kashmir. It is only then that the electoral process can be undertaken at some point of time in future”.

“It is the Centre that has to come clean on how the state’s constitutional relationship with the Union can be strengthened as a ‘Cooperative and Collaborative Effort,’” Soz said

Budgam, Mar 16: A 13-year- old boy died after a portion of a wall of panchayat Ghar collapsed and fell on him late on Monday l evening at central Kashmir’s Budgam district

According to wire service–Kashmir News Observer (KNO), an official identified the deceased as Mehraj-ud-din Sheikh son of Bashir Ahmed Sheikh, a resident Sutharan ,Khag area of Budgam.

A police official confirmed the death of boy saying investigations into the death have been started—(KNO)

Srinagar, Mar 16: The first budget of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir is set to be unveiled in the Parliament on Tuesday.

According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer(KNO), Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present J&K UT’s maiden budget in the Parliament tomorrow at 12:00 noon, after question hour concludes.

“The budget will be approved by the Parliament before March 31 for the next financial year of 2020-21,” they said, adding that Parliament will also give its nod to five months’ budget of ongoing fiscal of 2019 -20 which was necessitated by bifurcation of the erstwhile state.

As per KNO, annual budget of Jammu and Kashmir was set to cross the figure of Rs one lakh crore and could be around Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

After bifurcation of the State, President of India Ram Nath Kovind gave authorization for utilization of funds in the UT , pending approval of the Parliament.

On December 15 2018, the State Administrative Council(SAC) headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik had approved Rs 88,911 crore budget for 2019-20.

The Parliament’s approval for budget is required because Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory is presently without an elected Legislative Assembly.

The J&K UT legislature will have powers to pass budget when there will be elected regime like Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry.

Post Parliament’s nod to re-organisation of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, the State authorities had started preparations for separate budgets for both the UTs.

They held threadbare discussions with officials of Union Home and Finance Ministries to finalize the budget—(KNO)

Srinagar, March 16: The novel coronavirus outbreak is very likely to endanger Kashmir’s already strained tourist sector before it even begins, tourism players as well as officials fear.

The first casualty for all practical purposes seems to be Asia’s largest tulip garden here on the banks of the Dal Lake – the flagship of Kashmir’s tourism.

Officials said that as novel coronavirus gets a grip of more states as well as countries from which Kashmir receives quite a number of domestic and internal tourists respectively, there are hardly going to be any sightseers for over 1.3 million tulips of 55 varieties and colours, spread in the 10-hectares garden situated on the foothills of Zabarwan Range with an overview of Dal Lake. This time around, 15000 hyacinth flowers, brought from Holland and also locally, were planted apart from 13 lakh tulip bulbs for added attraction in the garden, Director Floriculture Farooq Ahmad Rather told Global News Service (GNS).

“As of now, the situation is not good due to coronavirus and it is unlikely that people will visit the garden. We are waiting for directions, instructions/ advisory from the government,” he said.

A senior tourism official told GNS that Kashmir received 14805 domestic and 6432 foreign tourists in March last year. Similarly, he said, 53648 domestic and 8167 foreign tourists visited Kashmir in April last year. The tulip garden normally opens in the third week of March and remains open until the last week of April. It is one of the prime attractions for tourists in Kashmir.

“We were expecting a good number of tourists this season,” said a tourism official. “However, the immediate prospect looks very bleak,” he added.

The tourist department, he said, was expecting “a good a number of tourists” from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia besides other countries. “There is not going to be any arrivals, at least immediately, given the fact that all tourist visas have been cancelled till April 15 in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country,” he said, adding, “We fear it’s going to be a very difficult phase and it may end up as being the worst impact for the tourism sector in many years.”

The first half of tourist season last year was very reassuring for the tourist players and the tourism department with as many as 456525 to 428127 domestic and 28398 foreign sightseers visiting the Valley till July last year. The arrival came to naught for the subsequent five months following the Government of India’s decision to do away with the Article 370 of the Indian Constitution after more than 70 years.

On August 3 last year, two days ahead of the annulling of the Article 370, the government in an advisory asked all the tourists and Amarnath pilgrims to vacate Kashmir immediately. Thousands of tourists and pilgrims were evacuated followed by a massive security and communication clampdown, which has been eased since though not fully.

A tourist player told GNS that coronavirus spread has “dashed little hopes about any revival of the tourism sector.”

“To be honest, we were not expecting many foreign tourists to come given the advisories against travel by many countries and the advisories were issued even prior to coronavirus outbreak,” he said, adding, “Surely it is a big blow to the tourism sector by the spread of the virus and there is going to be a massive impact on domestic arrivals, at least for the next few months.” (GNS)

Watch Video:

Despite being invited to SAARC forum by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a coordinated effort against the global pandemic of novel coronavirus COVID-19, Pakistan didn’t let go an opportunity to somehow sneak the Kashmir issue in the conversation. Under the garb of precaution from Coronavirus, Pakistan asked India to lift restrictions from Jammu and Kashmir

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)