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Kashmir : National Conference, PDP unveil their policies on youth |
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With just over a year left for the next Assembly elections, the Opposition National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party, a constituent of the Congress-led coalition, have come out with their youth policies.
The National Conference policy aims at providing employment opportunities to the youth in Jammu and Kashmir. Party president Omar Abdullah said that if his party came to power in the next Assembly elections, it will bring out a special employment policy for the youth. He was addressing a public meeting at Mandi in Poonch, on the birth anniversary of his grandfather and party founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on Dec. 5.
On Monday, Dec. 3, PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Syed released his party’s policy document titled, Youth Development Policy. It focuses on addressing issues affecting the state’s young people. The attempt, observers say, is to woo the jobless educated youth n the state ahead of the Assembly elections.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti had a meeting with Prime Min¬ister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Dec. 3 where she is said to have pressed for speeding up implementation of the recommenda¬tions of the working group set up to go into various facets of the Kashmir issue. She said speedy implementation of the recom¬mendations of the working groups will promote peace and harmony in Jammu and Kashmir.
Top Hizb leader arrested
Nasir Ahmed Bhat, the head of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’s operations in Jammu and Kashmir, was arrested in a raid on a safe house near Pulwama on Tuesday, Dec. 4.
A resident of the village, Arwani, in the southern Kashmir district of Anantnag, Bhat is the senior-most Hizb commander to have ever been taken alive. His arrest, police source said, has retarded the feared group’s plans to sabotage state elections scheduled to be held next year.
Initiate dialogue with Pandits : Panun Kashmir
Panun Kashmir Movement, a faction seeking a separate home¬land for Kashmiri Pandits, has said that the Central Government should take immediate steps to initiate a dialogue with the displaced community.
A PKM delegation led by its president Ashwani K. Chrungoo accused the governments at the Centre and the State of being “indifferent” to the Pandits and said any talks to resolve the Kashmir problem would be inconclusive without the participation of the minority community.
“During the time of the exodus, the State and the Central government were indifferent to us (Pandits). And in the past 18 years not much has changed. It is high time that the Central Government begins a dialogue with us,” said Chrungoo, who is currently in Delhi leading a “Sankalp Yatra” (Determination March) aimed at drawing attention to the issues of displacement and human rights violation of the minorities in Kashmir.
The yatra began from Sheetalnath, on the banks of the Jhe¬lum, and has already covered Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir. It will now head to Jaipur and move to Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.
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