Some of you may remember a presentation on Article 370 and the The Plight of Kashmiri Hindus that I gave at the House of Commons last year (March ’11). Yesterday evening, I created a short slidecast (slides+audio) from the few slides that depicted the appalling and miserable conditions in the camps that house the Kashmiri Pandits – refugees in their own home..The audio was recorded from the far end of a large room so it is faint and may require you to turn your volume all the way up…Any feedback …

Uplifting post of the week..in which small steps do make a difference.
Three days ago, on the post related to “distant” Assam, long-time blog reader Kaffir alerted us to a BBC news-report which had a map of India with the entire state of J&K lopped off (pl see comment #9). Here is a cached screenshot of the article (pl click to enlarge):

Kaffir subsequently wrote to the BBC:
I told them that the map was incorrect, that J&K was very much part of India, gave them a link to GOI website that …

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My series on “Saluting our Heroes” will remain incomplete without the inspiring and extraordinary acts of the “Param Veer”s of Kargil.  As I wrote on the occassion of Kargil Vijay Diwas, the conflict in Kargil involved the largest peace-time mobilisation of Indian troops of which 20,000 were believed to have been involved in actual operations in the harsh and inhospitable terrain.  More than 500 of our bravest lost their lives on this punishing battlefield, defending every inch of our territory. Two amongst these were Captain Manoj …

Many of you must have read/heard about these two fairly “popular” myths about J&K:

“Kashmir is the ‘most heavily militarized zone’ in the world” or its variations: “There is an Indian soldier for every ten civilians in Kashmir”; “The Indian troops-to-Kashmiri people ratio in the occupied Kashmir is the largest ever soldiers-to-civilians ratio in the world”
The last two decades of violence in the state have left 10,000 missing and 100,000 dead

Pragmatic_desi has done a fine job of exploding the first one…Excerpts from Mythbusting: Soldiers-to-civilians ratio in Kashmir (emphasis added):
These myths …

Dear Friends, it is my great pleasure to present these slides on Jammu & Kashmir in Hindi. These slides are based on a talk I gave at LSE in London earlier this year. A few weeks back, I had requested readers for help and assistance in translating the slides into other languages..Mohini Puranik kindly volunteered..and this is the fruit of her efforts. She will shortly be translating these slides into Marathi as well..
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J &K Presentation in Hindi
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Needless to add, I need …

Dear All, Here is the video of the talk/ presentation I made at the House of Commons, UK to the All-Party Committee on Jammu & Kashmir on 30th March ’11. It is in four parts…Comments, thoughts welcome as always… And while you are at it, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel here.
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Part I and Part II…Please see these two parts in conjunction with Slides 1-12

Please see Part III with Slides 13-23 and the last part , from Slide 24 onwards…
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Related Posts: Article 370 and the plight of Kashmiri Hindus …

Courtesy Bhaskar Chatterjee, I stumbled on this “map” on a section of the the ToI website:

Might this be a strawman / trial balloon to see how a solution that makes the LoC as a permanent border is received by the public? or am I reading too much into this?
I remember the days when such a map in an Indian publication would have led to copies of the magazine/newspaper being confiscated and/or banned and the offending map censored. I also remember one of the first “official” letters I wrote in the IFS, …

Slides from a talk I gave at House of Commons to a small group of MPs, Councillors, prominent members of the Indian community and of the Kashmiri Hindu diaspora in London. 30th March ’11

A short video snippet to follow soon…
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J&K @ House of Commons, Mar '11
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Related Post: J&K at House of Commons…

Looking forward to a presentation on J&K that I am making at the House of Commons tomorrow to a select group of British MPs, political representatives, senior members of the Indian community in Britain and representatives of the Kashmiri diaspora in Britain.

Programme details are on this link http://www.box.net/shared/9u7n4n8z46 I shall try and share notes and slides post the talk. Stay tuned.
Related Post: A 5-min video snippet and few slides on J&K and the whole category of posts related to J&K

A 5-min video snippet from a discussion on Jammu & Kashmir that I introduced and moderated at the London School of Economics last week.
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Please take a moment to subscribe to my YouTube channel too.  I have also attached below the slides I shared during the discussion. Comments welcome, as always. Thanks

Jammu & Kashmir LSE Mar ’11
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*** Related: Slides from past presentations can be found here.