menu_open Columnists

Kashmir Observer

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Kashmir’s Waste Crisis: Compost at Home, Not in Achan

Kashmir’s Waste Crisis: Compost at Home, Not in Achan

A recent order issued by the Secretary, Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), directing gazetted officers to adopt home composting has drawn a...

latest 8

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Public Office, Private Ego: Kashmir’s Administrative Challenge

Public Office, Private Ego: Kashmir’s Administrative Challenge

Dr S Bashir Ahmad Veeri An effective administration derives its authority from the Constitution, its legitimacy from accountability, and its enduring...

yesterday 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

‘Muntinie Leiji Paanzu’: Who Authorised the Secretaries to Write to the Speaker?

‘Muntinie Leiji Paanzu’: Who Authorised the Secretaries to Write to the Speaker?

Kashmiri has a proverb for the person who tips five kilograms of rice into a saucepan built for one.  ‘Muntinie Leiji Paanzu’ describes someone...

yesterday 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Can India End the Risks of Manual Sewer Cleaning?

Can India End the Risks of Manual Sewer Cleaning?

By Dr. Virendra Kumar Thousands of sanitation workers keep our cities and communities running daily, often under hazardous conditions.  I judge the...

yesterday 8

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

India’s Development Push Must Now Focus on Outcomes

India’s Development Push Must Now Focus on Outcomes

By Sri Varshith Kumar Reddy E India’s 94th place in the Sustainable Development Report 2026 is its best since the goals were adopted, up from 99th a...

yesterday 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The Question We Ask Before Exams

The Question We Ask Before Exams

By Mudasir Ghani Khan When exams come close, most of us ask the children at home the same thing: how many marks will you get?  I teach in Banihal,...

previous day 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir’s Revolving Door of Bureaucrats

Kashmir’s Revolving Door of Bureaucrats

On 6 October, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation ordered its gazetted officers to process biodegradable waste in compost pits at their homes.  I...

friday 10

Kashmir Observer

Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat

Kashmir Must Hear the Uncomfortable Sheikh-ul-Alam

Kashmir Must Hear the Uncomfortable Sheikh-ul-Alam

By Muhammad Arbaaz Niazi Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani is remembered in Kashmir as a saint whose words have passed from one generation to the next. His...

friday 9

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

What Kashmir’s Food Inspectors Should Be Checking

What Kashmir’s Food Inspectors Should Be Checking

At a packing-material shop in the Parade market, I asked for aluminium foil marked IS 15392, the Indian Standard mandated for bare foil that touches...

friday 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

What Science Still Cannot Explain

What Science Still Cannot Explain

The most telling sentences in the science of 2026 begin with a concession.  Artificial intelligence can analyse enormous quantities of information,...

friday 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Where Have Kashmir’s Barbers Gone?

Where Have Kashmir’s Barbers Gone?

By Mohammad Ilyas Bhat During the morning rush on Boulevard Road in Srinagar, a woman swung her car in front of another and forced it to stop.  She...

08.10.2026 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Where Does J&K’s Health Money Go?

Where Does J&K’s Health Money Go?

A prescription for a long illness returns monthly, and with it the bill for medicines, consultations, diagnostic tests and the travel to reach them. ...

08.10.2026 10

Kashmir Observer

Irshad Mushtaq

Congress Is Winning the Scroll

Congress Is Winning the Scroll

Between August 29 and September 4, the ten biggest political channels on YouTube drew 94.9 million views, and Narendra Modi’s channel took 13.1...

07.10.2026 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The Ally Congress Swallows

The Ally Congress Swallows

Uttar Pradesh is the heartland of Indian politics, sending 80 members to Parliament, the most of any state, and 403 to its own assembly, down from 85...

07.10.2026 10

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir Can Turn Bystanders Into Lifesavers

Kashmir Can Turn Bystanders Into Lifesavers

My social-media feed rarely goes a day without a young person’s photograph and the same caption: died suddenly of a heart attack.  A face full of...

06.10.2026 20

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir’s Mountains Need Keepers as Well as Guards

Kashmir’s Mountains Need Keepers as Well as Guards

Kashmir likes to call its mountains a green capital, and the phrase fits.  Forests regulate water, wetlands absorb it and store it, and alpine...

06.10.2026 20

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir Needs a Neurolaw Debate

Kashmir Needs a Neurolaw Debate

A brain scan enters a courtroom like a map enters a disputed territory, useful and incomplete and easily mistaken for the ground itself.  Courts...

04.10.2026 20

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

A Century-Old Error in Kashmir’s Land Records?

A Century-Old Error in Kashmir’s Land Records?

Survey No. 10 in Levdora, a village in Tehsil Qazigund of Anantnag district, stands in the revenue record at 8 kanals and 11 marlas. Measured on the...

04.10.2026 20

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The Missing Mandate in Kashmir’s Civil Society

The Missing Mandate in Kashmir’s Civil Society

By Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili Official power ends in small subtractions. The office is vacated, the nameplate comes down, the files are closed and the...

04.10.2026 20

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The Loom Is Slowing in Kashmir

A Kani shawl can take a craftsman months to finish, sometimes years, worked bobbin by bobbin on a loom that has changed little since the Mughal court...

27.09.2026 40

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir’s Autumn Is Becoming an Air Pollution Season

The chinar leaf falls in a particular fashion, spinning once before it settles, and by late September the pavements of Srinagar are covered with them,...

26.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat

TET or Transition? Rethinking the Path for J&K Teachers

By Dr S. Bashir Ahmad Veeri The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly’s resolution urging the Union Government to amend Section 23 of the Right of...

25.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Can Kashmir Afford a Five-Day School Week?

The case for a Saturday and Sunday weekend is easy to make.  Children need hours that belong to neither classroom nor homework, hours to play, read...

25.09.2026 40

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir’s New Degree Experiment

By Dr. Ashraf Zainabi A campus produces wastewater, leaf litter and an energy bill, and it shelters a biodiversity of its own.  Students can treat...

25.09.2026 50

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir Has the Fruit. Now It Needs the Value Chain

By Dr S. Bashir Ahmad Veeri On September 21, 2026, growers, buyers and other stakeholders from across the Kashmir Valley gathered at a Buyer-Seller...

23.09.2026 40

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

How Many School Days Can Kashmir Lose?

There is an understandable appeal to the idea of a five-day school week in Kashmir.  At a time when children carry heavier academic expectations,...

23.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Who Is Watching India’s Boardrooms?

KPMG was conducting an internal audit at Coforge when it flagged lapses in disclosure and governance around the company’s board evaluation.  The...

22.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The First Line Against Drugs May Be a Friend

The scene is known to anyone who has lived in a college hostel or stood at an office party.  A substance goes from hand to hand, a friendly voice...

22.09.2026 60

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The Otter Will Audit Kashmir Rivers

Recent sightings in Gurez and the Lidder Valley suggest that the Vuder, the Kashmiri otter, still survives in some of the valley’s waters.  The...

20.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Could UPI Charges Change Spending Habits?

India’s latest UPI framework creates an unusual economic experiment.  The Finance Ministry says person-to-person payments remain free, as do...

20.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir Cannot Be a Footnote in India’s Youth Debate

I am writing as a young Kashmiri who has spent nearly twelve years listening to, standing with and speaking for Kashmiri students.  I have met young...

20.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Leaving Kashmir for Work Is Not Failure

By Sameer Ahmad Sheikh I left Kashmir years ago to work in Qatar, and the first thing that struck me about the employment world outside was how...

19.09.2026 40

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Modi, Masoud, and Mirwaiz

A speech in Jerusalem, a war in the Gulf, and a sermon in Srinagar do not, on their face, belong to the same story.  Politics rarely publicises...

19.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Kashmir’s Rent Problem Is Becoming an Education Problem

A student from Kupwara, Kulgam, Bandipora, Baramulla or Anantnag can win admission to a college in Srinagar and still face a second, less celebrated...

18.09.2026 40

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

Land-to-the-Tiller Was Only Half of Kashmir’s Economic Story

Kashmir needs a more honest account of how its economy was built.  Land reform changed who owned the soil, but handicrafts transformed how Kashmir...

18.09.2026 40

Kashmir Observer

Irshad Mushtaq

JKAS Aspirants Fight a Clock That Stops at 32

Think of a graduate in Srinagar, books open at midnight, preparing for the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service exam. She races her own birth...

17.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor

The Hard Part of Kashmir’s Startup Boom Has Just Begun

By Yasir Altaf Zargar A generation of Kashmiri twenty-somethings has stopped waiting for a government stamp to define its future.  Walk the fruit...

17.09.2026 30

Kashmir Observer

Contributor