Tuesday 7 August 2012
Thursday 22 March 2012
Monday 19 March 2012
Wednesday 29 February 2012
While avalanches are sudden, the warning signs are almost always numerous before they let loose. Yet in 90 percent of avalanche incidents, the snow slides are triggered by the victim or someone in the victim's party. Avalanches kill more than 150 people worldwide each year. Most are snowmobilers, skiers, and snowboarders.
Many avalanches are small slides of dry powdery snow that move as a formless mass. These "sluffs" account for a tiny fraction of the death and destruction wrought by their bigger, more organized cousins. Disastrous avalanches occur when massive slabs of snow break loose from a mountainside and shatter like broken glass as they race downhill. These moving masses can reach speeds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour within about five seconds. Victims caught in these events seldom escape. Avalanches are most common during and in the 24 hours right after a storm that dumps 12 inches (30 centimeters) or more of fresh snow. The quick pileup overloads the underlying snowpack, which causes a weak layer beneath the slab to fracture. The layers are an archive of winter weather: Big dumps, drought, rain, a hard freeze, and more snow. How the layers bond often determines how easily one will weaken and cause a slide.
Storminess, temperature, wind, slope steepness and orientation (the direction it faces), terrain, vegetation, and general snowpack conditions are all factors that influence whether and how a slope avalanches. Different combinations of these factors create low, moderate, considerable, and high avalanche hazards.
If caught in an avalanche, try to get off the slab. Not easy, in most instances. Skiers and snowboarders can head straight downhill to gather speed then veer left or right out of the slide path. Snowmobilers can punch the throttle to power out of harm's way. No escape? Reach for a tree. No tree? Swim hard. The human body is three times denser than avalanche debris and will sink quickly. As the slide slows, clear air space to breathe. Then punch a hand skyward.
Once the avalanche stops, it settles like concrete. Bodily movement is nearly impossible. Wait—and hope—for a rescue. Statistics show that 93 percent of avalanche victims survive if dug out within 15 minutes. Then the survival rates drop fast. After 45 minutes, only 20 to 30 percent of victims are alive. After two hours, very few people survive.
Tuesday 28 February 2012
Wednesday 22 February 2012
Tuesday 21 February 2012
Indian Held Kashmir
Jammu Kashmir policewomen detain Kashmiri women during a demonstration in Srinagar, India, Friday, Sept. 29, 2006. Police on Friday swung bamboo sticks and fired tear gas at dozens of rock-throwing demonstrators as protests continued for the third straight day in the Indian portion of Kashmir against the upcoming execution of a Kashmiri man convicted of plotting a 2001 terror attack on India's Parliament. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Kashmir: The Untold Story of Indian Occupation
The silence of India’s occupation of Kashmir blankets the valley, like the morning smog obscures the Himalayan Mountains. There is a new face to the hundred-year-old struggle for Kashmiri sovereignty and independence. Sahil, age 12, lit up when I asked what his hope for Kashmir is. “I have a hope that there is a freedom in Kashmir.” Sahil’s father was disappeared in 2002. For nine years he and his mother have searched for his father, only his absence is present. Every day after school Sahil comes home to help his mother work—embroidering cloth to earn a few rupees.
The strong current of popular, nonviolent uprising for freedom continues to grow in Kashmir. It distinguishes itself from the armed rebellion of the early 90s, yet the demand is the same: liberation from occupation—the independence of Kashmir. Despite the Indian government’s own estimate of only 500-700 armed militants in the area, Kashmir remains the most densely militarized land on earth. There are approximately 700,000 Indian military and paramilitary in Kashmir, policing a population of 12.5 million.
Faction leader of the Kashmiri Hurriyat, Syed Ali Geelani
Syed Ali Gilani, the Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and the President of Jammu & Kashmir (TeH), was addressing a huge gathering in Bandipora said that the Kashmiris would continue their struggle for Self-Determination till its logical end.
INDIA IS NOT A “NATION”
Blankets cover bodies of Indian soldiers killed by insurgents in India’s West Bengal state. Maoist guerrillas are reported to be active in the 220 districts across 20 states and affects 40 per cent of the geographical area of the country.
India Pakistan Concord
The now famous “World’s Largest Love Letter,“ written from the children of India to the children of Pakistan, was MASSIVE! Bigger than a football field, it measured 240 by 360 feet (73 by 110 meters). It was so big that the kids over there actually had trouble fitting it into the enormous Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium and had to leave the border pieces off.
The text of the letter written in Urdu, English and Hindi, read:
Dear Children of Pakistan,
Let’s join hearts in friendship.
Together we can make a better world.
- The Children of India -
So that was the start and the start of such serious, responsible people to people contacts like these is bound to produce — if it turns out to be successful — peace and prosperity, and augur well for a new world order. Such initiatives need be strengthened both at the governmental as well as individuals level.
Threats in Kashmir Leave Sikh Community in Fear
After receiving letters that were being circulated throughout the Rawalpora village of Kupwara, Sikhs feel threatened and fear attacks from local Muslims in the area. The letters were demanding that Sikhs in the district the valley within five days or else their lives would be at risk.
The letters commenced circulation after a Sikh girl was recruited as a teacher under Rehbar-e-Taleem scheme in the village which had upset some people of the Muslim community leading to the tension in the surrounding area.
The majority community in the area was upset with the hiring of a Sikh girl even though she was hired with merit. After this incident, five letters were delivered to five Sikh homes asking the families to leave the valley within five days. Jagmohan Singh Raina, president of All Parties Sikh Coordination, said that the distribution of such letters caused unrest among the Sikh community since Jammu and Kashmir is a very sensitive state.
Spread out through eight districts of Kashmir valley, there are 80,000 Sikhs living in 121 villages. Traditionally Sikhs and Muslims have lived in harmony in the past in the Kashmir Valley aside from the massacre of 34 Sikhs in Chattisinghpora village of Anantnag district on March 20, 2000.
In the last few years though there have been many similar letters mailed anonymously to Sikh households, asking them to join pro-Islamic protests in the valley or leave Kashmir altogether.
Since the late 1980s, Kashmiri Pandits of the Hindu community were literally threatened to leave Kashmir and were targeted by mobs and physically assaulted. This public outrage against the Kashmiri Pandits resulted in a huge exodus of Kashmiri Pandits.The population of Kashmiri pandits which was 55% in 1941 reduced to 0.1% in 2001. Nearly 400,000 Hindu Kasmiri Pandits were hence rendered homeless.
An Indian view on Kashmir: Do we deserve this valley?
A visit to Kashmir will remind you of Kabul: a war torn region where the penetrating eyes of hostile security forces watch your every movement.
Over the past half century much has changed in India and Pakistan but not the persistent conflict over the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kashmiris have continued to gradually lose trust in the Indian government’s ability to give them a fair deal. This raises the question of how successful Indian democracy has been in dealing with the wishes of a people who want to be maintain a unique identity.
In the valley political protest is seen as sedition and anti-India activity. The attitude of the Indian government and the major political parties towards the people of Indian Kashmir is also discriminatory.
More than one hundred people lost their lives in protests last year. The local chief minister was clueless about events on the ground and was unable to control the situation or even sympathise with his own people.
More than one hundred people lost their lives in protests last year. The local chief minister was clueless about events on the ground and was unable to control the situation or even sympathise with his own people.
Indian Occupied Kashmir
Innocence Faces Oppression
A fearless Kashmiri toddler tries to snatch baton from an approaching Indian Soldier, while his brother tries to dissuade him for his own safety
Monday 20 February 2012
Glacier Melting in War-Torn Kashmir
Shalamar Bagh in Kashmir
Shalamar is on the shore of Lake Dal in Kashmir. The garden was started by the Emperor Jahangir and his wife, Nur Jahan. Its name means 'Abode of Love'. Additions were made by Shah Jahan and, in later ownership parts of the garden were changed and parts have decayed. Originally, the garden was approached from the lake by a long canal which has been cut by a road. There was a private garden for the emperor and another for the ladies of the court. Shah Jahan built a black marble pavilion in the ladies garden. It has a throne and a waterfall. The garden plan is a traditional charhar bagh with the central pavilion in a rectangular pool at the crossing point of the canals. The structure planting was of poplars and plane trees.
Kashmir Tension
Farhana Qazi Defined by tourist cliches and brilliantly crafted one-liners, the disputed territory of Kashmir is a backpacker’s haven and “paradise on earth.”
Indian Army To Deploy Prostitutes As A Women Battalion In Held Kashmir
NEW DELHI, India—The Indian Army is deploying around 200 women prostitutes under the cover of Border Security Force constables in the Indian occupied Kashmir. The new female battalion will be deployed along the Line of Control, the ceasefire line between Pakistan and India, The Daily Mail has learnt through authoritative sources.
Kashmiri woman gang raped in Delhi
45-year-old was kidnapped while returning from Delhi airport, taken to a south Delhi house and sexually assaulted by three yet unidentified men
Human Rights Day comes and goes, Kashmir suffers in silence
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Haneefa was allegedly kicked in her abdomen during interrogation in the Indian force's custody when she was a ninth class student in 2004. “I have got 22 stitches in my abdomen. I suffered blood loss as my uterus was impaired due to the kicking by the Indian officer,”
Kashmir- The Untold And Unread History
Under the dogra rule kashmir has faced numerous atrocities, 1924 was the first ever revolt at silk factory by kashmiri’s who were only kept under forced labour. In 1930 plinth of “Muslim young association” was formed under Gulam Abaas,who in 1936 made revolutionary step of making “All jammu and kashmir muslim conference” with Sheikh Abullah… So the platform for Muslim conference was laid under Gulam abaas with Sheik Abdullah (who later betrayed),
Protests in Kashmir over youth’s killing
Srinagar 11 Feb: Protests broke out in Baramulladistrict of Jammu & Kashmir, after a 20-year-old youth was killed allegedly in firing by armed forces on Friday night.
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