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Srinagar: The Meteorological Department has predicted a 2-day wet spell in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, beginning Tuesday afternoon.

Deputy Director MeT, Mukhar Ahmad said that a fresh spell of intermittent light to moderate rain in plains and snowfall in higher reaches of J&K and Zojila, Drass and some areas of Zanskar region of Ladakh are most likely to occur during Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday.

Srinagar: After suffering heavy losses by 2014 floods, Mohammad Sharif, 40, had pumped all his savings into his travel agency.

Little did he know that he would face darkest face of his life, four years after when tourism sector was shattered in Kashmir. This followed Centre’s advisory on August 2 when Centre asked tourists to leave Kashmir citing militant threats.

“I have not earned a single penny for last eight months. I am not able to pay fees to coaching institute where my class 9th daughter studies,” Sharif said. He had 50 bookings that got cancelled between August and September last year. “This could have fetched me over Rs 6 lakh,” he lamented.

He told Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS) that the economy has again shattered by lockdown on COVID-19. “Business sector has been badly hit in Kashmir. Some people associated with tourism sector have not earned a single penny for last eight months,” he said.

The region faced a loss of ₹ 17,800 crore in the 120 days after August 5, according Economic Loss Assessment Report by the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries. As per the KCCI report, over 5 lakh people have got unemployed post August 5.

“Now the lockdown to contain COVID-19 has shattered our economy. Kashmir economy is fighting for its survival since August,” said a hotelier who wished not to put his name.(KINS)

Rajouri police registers rape case

Rajouri: In a surprising incident, an unmarried girl and her new born baby died soon after a surgery following which police have started investigation into the matter besides registering a case of rape.

According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the case has been registered in Kalakote police station of Rajouri district. Official sources said that a nomadic girl, aged about 19 years, was brought to Kalakote hospital on Saturday morning with complaint of abdominal ache and doctors in hospital during treatment ascertained that the girl, unmarried, is pregnant and is having a seven-month-old baby in her womb.

“The girl was shifted to Rajouri hospital but was referred to Jammu where she was operated upon through on Saturday late evening but her new born baby died while the girl also breathed her last later,” said official sources, as per KNO.

“Team of police station Kalakote visited Jammu where medico-legal formalities, post mortem examination and DNA samples were conducted for further investigation.

“They said and added that bodies have been handed over to the legal heirs for last rites. Meanwhile, police have registered a case of rape under section 376 IPC in Kalakote police station. “Case of rape have been registered against an unknown person for rape of the unmarried girl,” said officials—(KNO)

Srinagar: Prominent social worker and Aash chairperson Qurat ul-ainn Masoodi today raised questions on administrative bodies regarding the involvement of NGOs in distributing materials amidst lockdown. Administration no doubt is working round the clock to controll the spread specially our DC Shahid Iqbal and is leaving no stone unturned to contain the virus but I think that for today’s incident where head of a NGO was tested positive, administration is to be held responsible. It is the responsibility of the governing bodies to ensure the safety of public, so I believe that if administration is involving any NGO, they should make sure that these volunteers are donned in PPE and get tested first and only then should they be allowed to help on ground. Otherwise they can help by collecting and distributing financial aids to the needy people while staying at home.
Whole world today knows that covid-19 is a highly contagious disease even if the mortality rate is quite below the infection rate. And once infected the person acts as a carrier of disease and makes a lot of people to fall prey to it while still showing no symptoms. So people should tread carefully and responsibly as even a slight lapse of preventive measures on our side is surely going to cost a lot of lives. In case of this NGO head who was tested positive for covid-19 and was highly active in supplying door to door servicers, now we don’t know what is in store for us in coming days and how many people have contracted this virus from him and to how many more would they spread this disease.
I wonder why this person, who is under the delusion that by helping the downtrodden amidst current crisis he’s acting as a responsible person of the society is withholding information regarding his travel. Why don’t people understand that they are endangering not only their lives but the entire society with these high risk endeavours like food kit distribution scheme as the virus can sustain on the food packets for three days. We should leave these task to the people who are better equipped than us when it comes to limiting the spread of this contagion. Using these schemes and providing help in this manner is proving to be counter effective as is clear by this new case.
Administration should also be stringent with NGOs who want to help. And I am appealing the administration that they should test such persons and if the reports are negative then and then only should they be given permission for helping. Otherwise we are just going to make situation worse for us to handle. The current situation is way more challenging than initially interpreted and every step should be taken with utmost care.
I myself am a NGO head, working on a tight schedule in present times, for the betterment of downtrodden people but not at the cost of lives of other people. I abide by the government orders and hence am currently working from home. In times like this we have to get our priorities straight and to contain this virus should top the list of each one of us.
It has been my stand from day one as l have been shouting and appealing to the NGOs to act responsiblly because if a person doesn’t take necessary precautions then irrespective of what their intentions are they are doing bad for the society and will be remembered for that only. So if you don’t belong to essential services, yet want to contribute towards this cause then be wise and act maturely by doing it from the safety of your home.
I leave it for you to decide whether you want to be a COVIDIOT and wash down the drain all efforts made by our essential service providers or you want to respect their efforts by staying home.

Srinagar, Apr 12: When Covid-19 pandemic is holding tight grip on Jammu and Kashmir and rest of the world, Principal secretary and Government spokesman Rohit Kansal and Deputy commissioner Srinagar Shahid Chaudhary has earned fame and name they had ever before in the general public.

Kansal is Principal Secretary in the government’s planning and information department but ever since he was given the role of government’s spokesman he came more into limelight for sharing government information face to face with media.
“Kansal tweets every day about the number of positive Covid-19 cases in J&K. His twitter handle has crossed the one’s expected number of followers. He is the only person whose tweets are considered as “right from the horse’s mouth.” one of the government officials told KINS.
“For his tweets, there is no need to confirmations any more. But apart from his role of putting the exact and correct information into the public domain, he does some good work silently,” the official maintained.
Sources told KINS that a positive Covid- 19 patient admitted here in one of the hospitals called him on Saturday evening expressing concern over the lack of arrangements and to the surprise of many, within barely an hour, Kansal redressed the issue by asking the concerned to take up steps and put things right.

With all eyes on Kansal these days, he is of a jolly nature too as his twitter account suggests that he even responded to a song shared by one of the twitter user on restoration of 4 G services. Kansal is acting like a true solider in the fight against pandemic.
Facing the challenge in his own style is another warrior—Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Shahid Iqbal Chaudhary who is on the frontline of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

From managing medicines including lifesaving drugs to the needy, poor, diabetic and cancer patients, Dr Shahid is playing every bit to ensure there is a robust contact tracing in Srinagar district so that there is no further spread of the pandemic.
He also ensures that all entry and exit points in Srinagar’s read zones are sealed and there is no movement. He is employing all the innovative means to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Of late, he has sought media’s support in spreading correct information and carrying reports about how dangerous concealing the travel history can be.

A source close to Dr Shahid told KINS that the DC sleeps at 2 in the night and at times he doesn’t sleep at all given the amount of pressure and work he is facing. He has been praised by none other than Minister of State in the Prime Minister Narendera Modi’s office, Dr Jitender Singh, who responded to one of the tweets by Dr Shahid, by writing: “keep it up.”
Sources said that Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, Finance Secretary Dr Arun Mehta, Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education Atal Dulloo, and others have so far also marshalled all government resources quite efficiently. (KINS)

Srinagar: Hajj and Umrah business industry has been suffering heavy losses amid the lockdown to contain COVID-19.President Jammu Kashmir Association of Hajj & Umrah Companies ( JKAHUC ) in statement to Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS) said their downturn started from lockdown on August 5 when the entire industry was busy in operating and managing Hajj in Saudia.

“We the Tour Organizers of J & K got caught in extremely vulnerable situation when we were with groups in Saudi Arabia. Every organization irrespective of nature of work while in operation needs to have flawless support system. Leaving aside Internet and phone services, imagine the situation when we were not even having Banking facilities,” he said.

The statement said several groups were supposed to leave on 5th and 6th of August, and there was complete chaos and confusion. “Friends and relatives of aspiring pilgrims were left with pain and depression instead of happiness and celebrations. They were left with apprehensions of uncertainty and ambiguity about this life time journey. People somehow managed to reach airports.

Most of the aspirants are old aged and usually depended on their families about arrangements of travels, weather packing of their baggage or arranging cash for them. But this time they didn’t get time to do all these arrangements and responsibilities shifted to organizing companies with obvious and uncontrollable reasons,” the statement said.

“When travel groups in general and Hajj & Umrah Travel group’s in particular reach any foreign destination, first thing after passport control, customs and baggage collections their first and preferred Rendezvous is Cellular Companies for procuring mobile sims to get connected with their near and dear ones. But this time nothing such has happened as we all were knowing by then that we may not be able to connect back home.

We somehow managed to perform Hajj though with severe difficulties, without any support system from our back offices, without financial support which is essential part while organizing Group Tours,” the statement reads.

The statement says after completion of Hajj, first thing they do is to make advance bookings with Airlines International/Domestic, Hotel Bookings and Renewal of Umrah Licence with Ministry of Hajj (KSA) and many other arrangements for upcoming season.

“This time we couldn’t do anything because of lockdown and disruption of phone and internet services. Come December when things slightly ease out, there were limited movements of people in markets. People approached Umrah companies for Umrah packages and as most ofus have made packages on assumptions as we were not having any access to prevailing market due to internet disruption. On purchasing tickets both international and domestic for upcoming months we were caught between devil and deep sea,” the statement said.

The cost of tickets as per the statement have gone all time high, without having done any advance preparedness for upcoming season we had to face heavy losses while purchasing these tickets and even we had to pay extremely higher rates for accommodation leaving us in heavy debts this year .The statement said COVID19 was the last nail in coffin when1st March 2020 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia put all Umrah activities on halt. “Groups supposed to leave on and after 1st March were told to cancel the tour. All advance bookings were cancelled and simultaneously all advance purchase from service provided for upcoming months got cancelled thus leaves us Penney less,” the statement said. They said their next hope of business was Ramadan, but few days before Saudi Arabia including other countries worldwide are extending lockdown making it obvious that we have lost this opportunity too.

“Now we have Hajj which is yet to come, some days before I called one of my service providers and asked his observations regarding Hajj, he reminded me one important aspect of Saudi Authorities precautionary measures. Every year all Hajj / Umrah aspirants worldwide are told submit a valid vaccination certificate with a Quadrivalent (ACWY) meningococcal vaccine administered no less than 10 days prior to arrival to Saudi Arabia. So in that case how it is possible Saudis will allow more than 2.2 million people to come inside their country without having Vaccine for CORONA.

Therefore it seems Hajj may be another and biggest tragedy of COVID19 besides human losses. ”It is Hajj operation which is feeding us throughout the year, especially for our establishments, salaries to our staff and other necessary expenses incurred.

KCC&I in its loss report in the month of November 2019 have made assessment of loss to this Industry around 200Crores. Since then there has been many more developments which have added to this loss many folds and now by PANDEMIC losses will be unbearable. Entire industry is on verge of Closure due to these losses and will leave thousands Jobless and in critical situation,” the statement said. They have urged Government that this sector needs to take care off.

“Our major issues and challenges are: Rents of our premises, salaries of our staff, taxes, levies and compliances, electricity and water bills, necessary establishment costs, to keep industry on breathing mood we need 10% to 20% of our annual turnover as capital infusion. ”

Worldwide people in general and business community in particular are looking towards their respective Governments. These entire stimulus, financial and economical packages are not any favor to the people. during good times people pay to their government in shape of Taxes and other charges to make nations float and Governments run , similarly during these rough times which is worst ever inlast century,

Governments have duty to pay back to the people to keep them surviving.
These governments of the day need not to do it as favor or goodwill, but duty with Compassion, Empathy and feeling for humanity,” the statement added. (KINS)

“Antibody testing will tell us how much of the population is now immune to the novel (new) coronavirus and that would decide lifting of lockdown restrictions,”

Srinagar: With uncertainty about how and when to lift the coronavirus lockdown, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Sunday said mass antibody testing is the key to determine when the lockdown could end.

“Antibody testing will tell us how much of the population is now immune to the novel (new) coronavirus and that would decide lifting of lockdown restrictions,” said DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan.
“The immune testing, which only requires a drop of blood will enable us to check in minutes the presence of antibodies in person’s blood which indicates that the person had infection and is now immune to the virus,” he said.
“A positive test for antibodies means the person would be able to return to work without the risk of getting infected or spreading the disease,” he added.

Dr Nisar said if enough people have developed antibodies – more than 50 percent, we have achieved herd immunity and the epidemic will fizzle out on its own as the virus will not be able to find a host to spread within the population.

“If we prove we have high level of immunity then we will be able to lift the lockdown sooner,” he said.
Dr Nisar said the current lockdown cannot go forever. At some stage we will have to strike a balance between ensuring public safety and getting the nation running again.

He said in 2009, there was an epidemic of swine flu (H1N1). It came in and stayed for 2 to 3 months and spontaneously disappeared. It went away because of a certain level of herd immunity that was produced.
“We expect that Covid-19 will head that way,” Dr Nisar said.

“Sudden end to all confinement measures at this point of time would risk exposing untold number of people to the virus. This would lead to second wave of infection that would do away all the good work that has been done so far,” he said.

“Key to preventing a second wave of infection is sequential and differential containment. This is important because the peak of the epidemic is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, as the virus spreads differently in different regions,” said Dr. Nisar.