Review: A Tangled Web

review 

A Tangled Web: Jammu and Kashmir
Ira Pande
HarperCollins India
Rs. 699
Pp 304
ISBN: 9789350291542

About the book:
Founded in the mid-nineteenth century, the state of Jammu and Kashmir brought together areas that are culturally, linguistically and geographically diverse: Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit–Balkistan and what is now Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. It is in this genesis, perhaps, that the seeds of the current unrest lie. And the key to peace in this volatile region is in an understanding of this diversity. A Tangled Web: Jammu and Kashmir attempts to do that by tracing the journey of the land from being paradise on Earth to a paradise lost.

The essays here familiarize the reader with the conflicting views on history, politics and autonomy pertaining to the region, and examine the various political, cultural, economic and social issues at play. Also included are features that voice the concerns of ordinary men and women who have borne the brunt of decades of unrest; as well as commentaries on the beauty, art and food typical of the area; and photo features that capture the ethereal and unique essence of a troubled Eden.
As analysts and politicians, academics and artists try to make sense of an increasingly volatile situation, A Tangled Web offers an insightful perspective on what is undoubtedly an area of great strategic and geopolitical significance.

Reviews:
Valley of masks Pioneer
The Jammu & Kashmir issue has been with India since Independence. It would be an understatement to say that it is a very complex problem. It has many dimensions — political, economic, regional, ethnic, religious and, most importantly, foreign. Notwithstanding four military invasions by Pakistan and many well-intentioned and not so well-intentioned efforts by the so-called international community and the Indian Government, the problem has not only remained unresolved but, over the period, has only become more complex. The tangle needs to be unravelled and as the title of the book suggests, it is yet another effort to do so. Not an easy task by any means!

It must be said to the credit of the editor, Ira Pande, that she has done the best that could be done given the difficulty of putting together in a book form these many contributions from authors who have their biased views. If the object of the book was to give the reader better understanding of the complexities involved, I am afraid that has not been achieved. Instead, after reading the book, an average reader is likely to become more confused.

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"Creative policies needed for Kashmir"

A placid summer and a peaceful Ramzan should have been the endgame of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir but the sense of "alienation is too deep", says former bureaucrat and now author Wajahat Habibullah, advocating creative policies from the central and state governments.

As the alienation of people in the conflict region grows, what the Kashmiri people need is respect, said the former Indian Administrative Service officer and winner of the Rajiv Gandhi Award for Excellence in Secularism.

"A truly representative government in Kashmir can come with full public participation in all elements of governance and fullest accountability of the government to the people, particularly questioning youth at all levels," Habibullah told IANS.

Full report here IBNLive

"Creative policies needed to resolve Kashmiri alienation"

A placid summer and a peaceful Ramzan should have been the endgame of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir but the sense of ‘alienation is too deep’, says former bureaucrat and now author Wajahat Habibullah, advocating creative policies from the central and state governments.

As the alienation of people in the conflict region grows, what the Kashmiri people need is respect, said the former Indian Administrative Service officer and winner of the Rajiv Gandhi Award for Excellence in Secularism.

‘A truly representative government in Kashmir can come with full public participation in all elements of governance and fullest accountability of the government to the people, particularly questioning youth at all levels,’ Habibullah told IANS.

Caught between conflicting claims from India and Pakistan, the state is today riven by ethnic strife, crisis of national identity, friction between national and local governments and by rival claims to territory.
Habibullah’s book, ‘My Kashmir: The Dying of the Light’, published by Penguin-Books this month, probes the web of issues like religion, ethnicity, demand for free speech, cultural identity and flawed policies which lie at the roots of the conflict in Kashmir.

Habibullah uses his long personal insights into the state and its troubled history to analyse the flawed government policies, social polarisation and radical religious politics that have vandalised the fragile social fabric.

Full report here News One

Kashmir’s literary harvest

This year has seen a blossoming of English-language narratives on Kashmir, many from a generation that has never known peace

Last August, as droves of rock-hurling boys and young men rallied on the streets of Srinagar, essayist Pankaj Mishra wrote in The Guardian that “apart from the youth on the streets, there are also those with their noses in books...”, a generation, he wrote, that will soon “make its way into the world with its private traumas. Life under political oppression has begun to yield, in the slow bitter way it does, a rich intellectual and artistic harvest.”

Mishra’s words appear to have been borne out by the minor boom in English-language writing by and about Kashmiris. This includes Sanjay Kak’s anthology, Until my Freedom Has Come, in which the film-maker has compiled writing, mostly from the Internet, produced by Kashmiris last summer. India International Centre chief editor Ira Pande’s A Tangled Web: Jammu & Kashmir is an anthology that seeks to provide fresh ways of looking not just at Kashmir, but Jammu also.

The new crop of Kashmir books is a diverse lot. Published last year was Luv Puri’s scholarly Across the LoC, and soon to follow are My Kashmir, by former civil servant Wajahat Habibullah, and a book of Amit Mehra’s photographs. Also forthcoming are reporter Rahul Pandita’s memoir of growing up as a Hindu in Kashmir, and Sonia Jabbar’s book of reportage from the state.

Likewise, works in translation are beginning to trickle out. Prisoner No. 100, Anjum Zamarud Habib’s jail memoir, was published in translation from Urdu this year. First-time translator Sahba Husain said she has had other offers to translate Urdu works, but passed in favour of writing a non-fiction book based on her activism in Kashmir.

Full report here Mint

Kashmir litfest finds writers’ criticism hard to take

Kashmir’s much-hyped literary festival has been cancelled. The organisers of ‘Harud: The Autumn Literature Festival’, scheduled for September 24-26 in Srinagar, cited the possibility of violence as the main reason behind this decision. The festival secretariat said they were concerned about the possibility of protests and the “heightened” nature of the debate.

The debate in question was the incisive criticism that the organisers faced from writers, journalists, filmmakers and artists, among others, over the self-styled “apolitical” nature of the festival, apart from it being held in an atmosphere where free speech is stifled.

Full report here Asian Correspondent

Vicious Facebook campaign hijacks J-K litfest

Jammu & Kashmir’s first All-India Literature Festival, scheduled for September, has been put off indefinitely. The decision followed a vicious campaign on Facebook describing the Litfest as ‘Indian propaganda’ and calling upon the people to disrupt the festival by throwing stones.

The organisers’ plans to keep the festival ‘apolitical’ boomeranged, because some elements in the valley saw it as a ‘government agenda’ to tom tom normalcy in the Valley. The political campaign was spearheaded by a couple of Kashmiri writers settled abroad.

Ironically, New York based author Basharat Peer (author of Curfewed Night) and London based Mirza Waheed (author of The Collaborator), both of whom declined to attend the festival on the ground that their writing is political, have received acclaim in various literature festivals including the one in Jaipur.

“It is bizarre; first a national daily claiming to be the ‘masthead of India’ erroneously reported that Salman Rushdie will be attending the festival, then writers like Mirza and Basharat denounced the festival,” exclaimed one of the organisers on Tuesday.

Full report here Tribune 

Harud festival postponed!

The Harud Literature Festival, which was to be held in Srinagar at the end of September, has been postponed due to controversy. Some writers and others opposing the festival felt that the festival was an effort by the "repressive government" to gag the freedom of Kashmiris.

For the record, in none of the other festivals organised by Teamwork, such as the Jaipur Literature Festival or Hay in Thiruvananthapuram, or Bookaroo in Delhi has the government been the chief supporter, though different sections of the government have associated themselves with the festivals.

The organisers of the Harud festival of Literature have issued the following statement:

"It is with great sadness that we announce the postponement of the Harud Literary Festival. Born out of the best intentions to platform work of emerging and established writers in Kashmir, the festival has been hijacked by those who hold extreme views in the name of free speech.

A few people who began the movement to boycott the festival have no qualms in speaking on and about Kashmir across international forums, but have refused to allow other voices, including writers, poets and theatre people from the Valley and across India to enjoy the right to express themselves at the Harud festival.

If those opposing the festival truly believed in free speech, they would have allowed this forum to go ahead and would come and express their dissent at the festival. They could have put to test their claims that the festival would not allow for free speech and expression.

Expression through the arts are at risk across the world and more so in India. Literature is one way to transcend these barriers and provide a platform for inclusive ideas. This unfortunately will be the biggest loss, not just for Srinagar, but for all artists who believe in the right to express themselves.


We wish to reiterate the following:
 1.    The festival had invited approx 30 authors from Jammu and Kashmir and 20 from other parts of India. The festival had neither invited nor was planning to invite Salman Rushdie.
2.     The festival program included sessions on 'The Silenced Voice: Creativity and Dissent', 'Jail Diaries',  'Gulistan: The Forgotten Environment' , 'Lol'ha'rov: Echoes of the Valley' , 'Harud: Songs of the Season' , 'Chronicles of Exile' , apart from other sessions on popular fiction, poetry, theatre etc.
3.      We have received some funding support from corporate sources but we have received no funding from any government source.
4.      The festival was to be hosted at the Delhi Public School, which earlier this summer hosted a literature festival for children that invited authors to come in from other parts of India.


With many authors voicing their concerns about possible violence during the festival due to the heightened nature of the debate, and a call for protest at the venues, we neither have the desire to be responsible for yet more unrest in the valley nor to propagate mindless violence in the name of free speech. We are therefore left with little alternative but to cancel the festival for now.


We hope that when calmer sense prevails, and we are confidently able to provide a sense of security to our speakers and guests, and writers from Kashmir feel the need for a platform to express themselves, we will reenergize the festival. Till then it is a sad day for us, and a victory for a vocal minority who feel that they alone are the doorkeepers to peoples’ minds and hearts."

Controversy brews over Srinagar Lit fest

Harud - The Autumn Literature Festival, to be held in Srinagar Sep 24-26, has stirred a controversy with a section of authors, filmmakers and intelligentsia from the state alleging the festival is an effort by the "repressive government" to gag the freedom of Kashmiris.

The protesters have devoted a Facebook page to criticise the festival, being presented by Teamworks Production, the organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

They say there is no freedom in Kashmir for people to speak their minds, as the festival claimed.

Promoted as the state's first national literary festival, "Harud- The Autumn Literature Festival" has promised to bring together local, regional and national literature under one platform to allow exchange of ideas and assimilation.

The festival is scheduled to be held on the Kashmir University premises.

In a appeal Saturday, the organisers expressed grief at the malicious campaign to tarnish the spirit of the festival, billed as "apolitical and inclusive".

An open letter this week said: "Holding such a festival would dovetail with the state's concerted attempt to portray that all is normal in Kashmir".

The letter was signed by writers Basharat Peer, Mirza Waheed, journalist Najib Mubaraki, research scholar Insha Malik, filmmaker Sanjay Kak, rights activist Gautam Navlakha, author-activist Anjum Zamrud Habib and academician Nivedita Menon, among others.

Full report here Daijiworld

Statement from the organisers of Harud

Statement from the organisers of Harud – The Autumn Literature Festival

We wish to categorically state that the Harud literature festival is not government sponsored. It has been conceived with the intent of creating a platform for free and open, debate, discussion and dialogue through contemporary narratives, literary fiction, poetry and theatre.

The festival aims at showcasing writing in Urdu, Kashmiri, Dogri and English from the region and other parts of India.

False and provocative rumours of Salman Rushdie attending the festival have been circulated Via a dedicated facebook book page without seeking any clarification about the authenticity of this statement. We wish to reiterate that Salman Rushdie was never invited to attend the festival.

We are surprised that some people who profess to stand for free speech have hijacked this sincere effort to create a transparent and inclusive platform for the arts and saddened that a literary initiative should become a point for confrontation.

We seek support for the spirit of the festival which is plural, inclusive and aims to be a platform for free speech and expression.

Winter gloom sets in on Kashmir’s Harud

“Harud or autumn is a beautiful season in Kashmir. It has inspired much excellent prose, poetry and even a film,” said Namita Gokhale, explaining why the literary festival her group will organise in Kashmir this September was called Harud.

“The idea arose from an educationist and arts enthusiasts who wanted to create a platform similar to those that have been created in other festivals. There was also special interest and enthusiasm from some Kashmiri writers who wanted to emulate the spirit of sharing and discourse in the sessions at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year. This was followed by a desire to seek an open and democratic space for poetry, readings and dialogue in Kashmir, as had been happening in other recent literary events in locations as diverse as Karachi, Bhutan, Kerala and, soon, Kathmandu.” Gokhale is also the founder director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, the much successful literary event that’s been held over the last few years in Rajasthan’s Jaipur city to huge international recognition.

But in Kashmir, the Harud somehow seems to have brought a gloom of winter too soon. Some of Kashmir’s major literary figures, though invited, have refused to attend the event. News related to the event spread by sections of the Indian media seems to have spoilt the party before it even began. And statements coming out from the organisers themselves haven’t helped either.

Full report here Dawn

In praise of paradise

The Srinagar-based former DG Tourism, J&K, and former vice-president of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, Mohammad Ashraf, is a recipient of the Hall of Fame award from the Adventure Operators Association of India for the promotion of adventure tourism in the Himalayas. He has been writing extensively on the lesser-known aspects of the Kashmir Valley. His essays and commentaries on Kashmir have been published in two volumes: Kashmir First - The Kashmir Story (Gulshan Books, Srinagar) Excerpts from an interview:

You write only in the local valley newspapers. Why shouldn't the rest of us know what's happening in the tourism, cultural and political scenarios of the valley?
Yes, I have been mostly writing for the local dailies in Kashmir and Jammu. Some of my articles have appeared in Khaleej Times, Dubai. It is not that I want my writings to remain in Kashmir only. Unfortunately, in spite of my best efforts, I have not been able to motivate any national papers to publish my articles. I did try a number of times. I would love to write a regular weekly or fortnightly column for a national daily interested in taking it up. It may not be limited to the tourism scenario, as I have been writing on all topics. Some people have reproduced my articles after picking these from my website, which has now about 400 write-ups on various subjects.

As a former DG Tourism, comment on the tourism scene in the valley, considering the fact that Srinagar has an international airport.
Tourism has been picking up but the real upmarket, well-paying tourists still shy away from Kashmir. From about 7.22 lakh tourists in 1989, it fell to virtual zero in 1990. The revival started in 1996 and since that time, it has seen many ups and downs. In spite of frequent hiccups, domestic tourists continue to visit Kashmir`85international tourists are held back by biased and adverse western travel advisories. Almost all European foreign offices advise their nationals not to visit Kashmir. The same is the case with the American and Australian Foreign Offices. This prevents group tourism to Kashmir, as no insurance company is prepared to insure these ....

Full interview here Tribune

Kashmir, land of shadows

What can the sensitive Kashmiri feel? Rage, but also litost--that difficult to translate Czech word Milan Kundera taught us

The late poet Agha Shahid Ali had called his home, Kashmir, a country without a post office. For the crowd that gathered at Lal Chowk, Kashmir was a nation without a place to hoist its flag.

Last week, a few able-bodied men unfurled a flag atop a tower—but to the untrained eye, the flag looked like Pakistan’s. Many, including in Pakistan, called it Pakistan’s. Conspiracy-minded Indians complained why the media was not publishing the picture. (Some did.) For that crowd, freedom meant that they wanted to leave India (or, as they’d say, they wanted India to leave Kashmir). But the view of azadi for many in that crowd also meant submerging their identity with Pakistan.

Full report here Mint

Poets are missing

While reams are exhausted in writings over the ongoing turmoil in Kashmir, our poets, litterateurs and playwrights are conspicuous by their silence, which they should break without further delay. These well-endowed individuals could have proven a greater catalyst in highlighting, at least, what was happening on ground. What repeated mercy appeals don’t do, may be a piercing couplet does.

But, sadly, our poets appear as dysfunctional as our government institutions. It seems that the lure of money and media glare stimulates our poets more than the civilian deaths.  Literature in rest of the world is known for consoling and guiding people when they are caught up in a quagmire of chaos. In fact, it was literature, theatre and other literary activities that would provide a solace to Europeans and Americans when the wars were ravaging their world. It is a well known fact that most of the quality literature in Europe was produced in the times of war. The civilization that we envy now has actually risen from the rubble largely due to those passionate and soul-stirring works of literature which were produced by the poets and writers of that age.  But Kashmir provides an ironical contrast when it comes to literature and literary activities.

Here, the literature and other activities related to fine arts have been aloof from masses.  In Kashmir where the state looms large over every public institution, the literary activism is seen as a gate pass to hobnob with the powers that be. Poets in Kashmir are being hired to sing paeans for politicians and political groups but they never volunteer to say a word in response what befalls the common people.

Full report here Rising Kashmir 

‘My Nationality a Matter of Dispute’: Basharat Peer

Basharat Peer always felt that Kashmiris living under Indian rule needed to tell their story like the Palestinians, Bosnians, Kurds and other people in conflict zones around the world. That led to his first book “Curfewed Night,” an evocative account of Mr. Peer’s years growing up in Kashmir as an armed insurgency against the Indian government gradually took root from the late 1980s. In that book, he writes of friends crossing the Line of Control to train in Pakistan for azaadi [freedom], of his identification card becoming a part of his being, of schools being turned into army camps, of lost childhoods.

In the early years of the new millennium the region seemed calmer but now nearly two decades after the conflict erupted, the youth of Kashmir have taken to the streets and about 50 people have died over the past two months. The aspirations remain same, the protest mode is now different—it’s the most primitive form—stone pelting.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in an address Tuesday tried to reach out to the Kashmiri youth, urging them to give peace a chance.

Mr. Peer, a fellow of the Open Society Institute in New York, a George Soros initiative, is now working on his second book which deals with Indian Muslims. In an e-mail interview to India Real Time, he talks about Kashmir—a land of immeasurable beauty where “homecomings are fraught with danger.” Edited excerpts:

Your book deals extensively with the rise of the armed movement in the 1990s. How are today’s protests different?
Mr. Peer: The main question remains unchanged. Militancy was a political response to the erosion of Kashmir’s autonomy and democratic political space by the Indian government and hence the demand for azaadi. The stone throwing is a continuation of that demand and also a reaction to the excessive militarization of Kashmir and the unabated human rights violations by the forces, mostly civilian killings in the name of counter-insurgency.

What do you think of stone-pelting as a form of protest?
Mr. Peer: Stone-pelting is an old form of political protest in Kashmir and elsewhere. Although today’s Kashmiri boys are inspired by the Palestinian intifada, the historic precedent is the protests against the despotic rule of the monarch Hari Singh in the 1930s. My job as a writer is to write about it, place it in a context, explain what motivates the stone throwers and where do they come from. I have a long piece on the subject forthcoming in the next issue of Granta.

Full interview here WSJ

Half cries of the Valley

The real blues in Kashmir never quite show up--a cold protagonist doesn’t help

Kashmir Blues
Urmilla Deshpande
Tranquebar
Rs 275

The title of Urmila Deshpande’s novel, Kashmir Blues, is evocative—of the tragedies of dislocation and loss, and the melancholia of a people torn into two. Sadly, the book itself does not quite deliver. Deshpande’s plot offers itself up to criticism far too easily. Her characters are too insipid to inspire any kind of empathy.

Naia, an American of Indian origin, is a cold protagonist. She can hardly be described as the central or lead character because although her story is the focal point of the narrative at the start, she starts to fade away halfway through the novel, disappears completely towards the end, and resurfaces only in the epilogue. By that time, you don’t really care enough about her to want her back on the scene.

Full review here Mint

BJP's Tarun appreciates PM's stand on Kashmir

Newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay on August 6 met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and presented to him his recently published book 'India Battles to Win'.

According to a BJP statement, Vijay 'appreciated (prime minister's) positive stand on Kashmir'.

He said the BJP and its ideologue Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) 'have always believed in working together for the greater glory of the motherland'.

Full report here Sify

A frontline memoir of life, love and war in Kashmir

In February 1990, Basharat Peer saw a procession moving through his Kashmiri village towards a Sufi shrine. The bookish 13-year-old felt a rush of joy as he heard the men chanting for freedom: Aazadi! Aazadi!
They were protesting against the killing of Kashmiri demonstrators by Indian soldiers; but they were also calling for the disputed region to be allowed a plebiscite on its own sovereignty, as the UN had once promised.

Although Kashmir is Muslim-dominated, this idyllic land with snow-capped mountains and gorgeous lakes was divided between India and Pakistan in 1948. Since then various groups have campaigned – peacefully and violently – for the whole of Kashmir either to join Pakistan or to become an independent state. The Indian army, in response, has fought the rebels and carried out atrocities which, in turn, have further fuelled the rebellion.

Curfewed Night is an exceptional personal account of the conflict. Peer has a superb feel for language and incident. Words such as “frisking, crackdown, bunker, search, identity card, arrest and torture,” he tells us, formed the lexicon of his childhood. His village is shadowed by militants showing off their Kalashnikovs; Peer and his school friends carry their cricket bats like guns, “in imitation and preparation”. But though he was tempted, like one of his cousins, to join the militants, Peer grew increasingly suspicious of their tactics.

Full report here Telegraph

The literature of Partition

Indian novel writing in English is a living and evolving literary genre. It is richer in content, wider and variegated in range. Before Independence, their subject matter was inescapably political but after Independence a clear shift has been marked in their focus and one can easily find that human relationships, social issues, gender equations and other important issues like futility of existence, alienation, Diaspora and psychosomatic issues have become the main concerns of the novelists.

Not only in the history of the India but also in the history of the world, the Partition of India has been documented as the most lethal incidence, the entire humanity has ever witnessed. Indubitably, the partition loiters as an unforgettable event, not only for its political significance in the emergence of the Sovereignties of India and Pakistan, but also for its lasting impact of monstrosity and horrific emotional duress.  The people, who had never been out of their confined parishes for ages together, were suddenly coerced to choose a country. It is believed that history books on the incident of partition  do not record lively and passionately the pain, trauma and sufferings of those who had to part from their kith and kin, friends and neighbours, the  deepening nostalgia  for places  of those who had lived in for generations, the anguish of  those devotees who got removed from their places of worship and the harrowing experiences of those countless people who boarded trains thinking they would be transported to the realization of their dreams but of whom not a man, woman or child survived the journey.

But if we go through the literature written on the tragedy of partition particularly in the form of novel, one can find that the issues before and after partition have been discoursed in a such a manner that one feels with that unfortunate lot of people  who  passed though the trauma  of the partition. The novelists, who have dealt with this tragic incident, simultaneously have attempted to explore other issues pertaining to human destiny touching the   universal problems which are larger than the bloody bath of the partition.

Full report here Greater Kashmir 

Moments of spontaneity

He likes poetry that is “real” and “simple”. Playwright and poet Manav Kaul tells ANUPAMA RAJU of his experiments in theatre and poetry.

“Perhaps you do not know what/your fingers are making on the thali?/But I'm watching those clouds…”

So reads a rough translation of the opening lines from a poem on the designs our fingers make on a plate after a meal. What was Manav Kaul thinking of when he wrote this seemingly ‘simple' poem, I wonder. And I'm tempted to read and know more of his poetry.

Innovative ideas
This playwright-poet from Kashmir is as understated as his words. Writing in Hindi, he has been making quiet waves with his innovative and refreshing ideas for some years now.

Born in Baramullah, Kashmir, Manav Kaul started the theatre group ‘ Aranya' in 2004. His work includes writing and directing plays such as “Shakkar ke Paanch Daane”, “Peele Scooterwala Aadmi”, “Bali Aur Shambhu”, “Ilhaam” and “Aisa Kehte Hain”. He has also designed, adapted and directed “Hakki Haarutide Nodidira” (a Kannada play by Tendulkar), “Aantaheen” (Jean Paul Sartre), and “Park” (in English).

So, what came to him first: poetry or drama? “I was doing theatre for a long time, also writing simultaneously,” explains Kaul.

Making language relevant

Greater exposure to the outside world has enabled Kashmiris to broaden their perspectives and to challenge beliefs and stereotypes about their own culture and identity. Many of these beliefs and stereotypes were imprinted on the Kashmiri psyche by centuries of oppression. By observing the nature of society in other places – whether they are other states of India or foreign countries – Kashmiris have noticed the pride and commitment with which the various nations and ethnic groups of the world adhere to their cultures and languages. This has made the Kashmiri people think about the neglect and inferiority complex that has surrounded their relationship with their mother tongue.

Since the resumption of elected government in Kashmir in 1997, activists and organisations have sprouted championing the cause of the Kashmiri language. Due to their efforts, the J&K Government has introduced Kashmiri as a compulsory subject in schools. Yet, even though the decision was taken in 2000, it has taken nearly a decade to implement it, and even now there are still many wrinkles to be ironed out.

Full report here Greater Kashmir