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      • Agriculture & farming
        August 2022

        The Economic and Heritage Plants of Kashmir Himalaya

        by Nazir Ahmad Zeerak

        The Economic and Heritage Plants of Kashmir Himalaya is a ready reference source book, contains Botanical, English, Hindi /Urdu, Ladakhi and Kashmiri names of plants of Economic importance in Kashmir and Ladakh, with brief notes on their habit and habitat, morphology and utility. It largely reflects the regions existing Plant Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture. Approximately, 1300 economic plant species and 500 crop varieties, existing in its agro-ecosystems, in wild as well as cultivated forms, arelisted in the book. Every possible effort has been made to give the latest nomenclature of plants together with their synonyms. Indices of English, Hindi, Kashmiri and Ladakhi names of the plants are appended at the end. The book should be useful to the students of Botany, Agriculture, Horticulture, Pharmacy and those interested in the Cultural Heritage of the region. It can also be helpful to researchers and planners working on the management and conservation of biodiversity of Indian Himalayan regions.

      • Travel & holiday guides
        July 2014

        Kashmir

        Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Zanskar

        by Sophie & Max Lovell-Hoare

        Encompassing a vast stretch of land from the lush Kashmir Valley to the mountains and epic wilderness of Ladakh, the area now covered by the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has long astounded visitors with its beauty. Marvel at the views from the roof of the world at Khardung La, trek along the frozen Zanskar River, stroll through the Eden-like Shalimar Gardens, take a shikara ride through the lotus-bedecked lakes of Srinagar and join the monks at Thiksey Monastery for early morning prayers by candlelight._x000D_ After decades of instability, Kashmir is back on the tourist scene and keen to make up for lost time. This, the only standalone mainstream guide to the state, makes the ideal companion whether you want to white-water raft on the Indus River, relax on a houseboat or explore Buddhist culture at shrines up and down the region._x000D_

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        March 2007

        Kashmir

        A Problem in Search of a Solution

        by Shahid Javed Burki

        The ongoing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the status of the contested areas of Jammu and Kashmir (henceforth Kashmir) is well known and well documented. This study acknowledges that any resolution of this dispute may be many years in the making. Thus, rather than proposing solutions to the territorial conflict, the study explores the utility of forging enhanced economic opportunities for the people of the region and argues that doing so may prepare the ground for the eventual resolution of the dispute

      • Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2022

        PARADISE LOST

        A Contemporary History Of Kashmir 1947-2020

        by Siddhartha Guha Ray

        In 300 pages, a very concise distillation of the extremely complex history of Kashmir in the last 75 years, providing a well-researched and authoritative analysis on the roots and triggers of the conflict. Offering a comprehensive perspective about Kashmir’s unending strife through the telling of its narrative shaped by moments, events and multiple stakeholders, it is both scholarly and a great primer for those who want to understand the region’s ceaseless crisis.    Anuradha Bhasin , Editor Kashmir Times   Paradise Lost is a valuable contribution to understanding Kashmir, its complex past and its fractured and tortured present.  Siddharta Guha Ray has deftly woven Kashmir's myriad threads together in a detailed and accessible book.  David Barsamian  Director Alternative Radio , USA   “Dubiously known as "Paradise on Earth", Siddhartha Guha Ray's account presents the longhistory of disturbing details of deadly political turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, the north region ofthe Indian subcontinent. Ray meticulously describes the ever-tightening vice of ruthlesscompetitive domination by government and vigilante agents of India and Pakistan that havemade the region a veritable war zone from 1947 till now, with no advancing solution in sight." R.S. Ratner, ProfessorEmeritus, Sociology, University of British Columbia

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        June 2004

        The Political Economy of the Kashmir Conflict

        Opportunities for Economic Peacebuilding and for U.S. Policy

        by Wajahat Habibullah

        Recent efforts to develop warmer relations between South Asia’s two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, will not succeed unless political violence in Kashmir is substantially reduced. One of the key factors sustaining that violence is the dearth of economic opportunities, which ensures a steady supply of disaffected recruits to terrorist and militant groups. This report sketches the turbulent history of Kashmir from its de facto division in 1947 through the revolt of 1989–90 to the present, and then explores the economic dimensions of the conflict and the economic opportunities for peacebuilding. The governments of India and Pakistan, together with political leaders in Kashmir, must take the lead in promoting economic development, but they require the assistance of international financial institutions and of the United States, which is well placed to act not as a mediator but as a facilitator.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        August 2009

        Promoting Cross-LoC Trade in Kashmir

        An Analysis of the Joint Chamber

        by Moeed Yusuf

        This report examines the newly formed Federation of Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry to suggest ways in which this nebulous entity can play an instrumental role in ensuring further expansion of cross–Line of Control (LoC) ties. The United States Institute of Peace’s Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution commissioned this report, which builds on two earlier reports published by USIP that analyze the possibilities and practicalities of managing the Kashmir conflict through softening the LoC to allow the easy movement of people, goods, and services. With neither India nor Pakistan able to impose its preferred solution to the conflict, the impasse in this six-decade-old war has gradually pushed leaders on both sides to show more flexibility in their traditional positions on Kashmir, without officially abandoning them. Both governments have repeatedly endorsed the “making borders irrelevant” concept—softening borders instead of redefining or removing them—giving it promise as a creative and pragmatic approach to the conflict. Because steps to implement this approach have been limited thus far, this in-depth consideration of the Joint Chamber provides a concrete illustration of the opportunities and challenges of the way forward.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        July 2011

        Tourism and Peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir

        by P.R. Chari, Suba Chandran, Shaheen Aktar

        This report, which was commissioned by the United States Institute of Peace, examines tourism in Kashmir as a vehicle for promoting peace and security between India and Pakistan. It argues that tourism—by facilitating and strengthening cross-border movement, interactions, and economic cooperation—could soften the Line of Control that separates Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and thus make it permeable and irrelevant. It concludes with a series of specific recommendations for both Pakistan and India, including the proposal that the two countries should work collaboratively on tourism packages.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        July 2017

        Kashmir Line of Control and Grassroots Peacebuilding

        by Pawan Bali and Shaheen Akhtar

        This report evaluates the micro-impact of cross–Line of Control confidence-building measures, particularly trade and travel, between the Indian and Pakistani sides of Kashmir since 2005. Commissioned by the United States Institute of Peace, it is based on a survey, focus group discussions, and interviews with local traders, academics, and civil society members on both sides.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        September 2008

        Making Borders Irrelevant in Kashmir

        by P. R. Chari, Hasan Askari Rizvi

        This report analyzes the possibilities and practicalities of managing the Kashmir conflict by “making borders irrelevant”—softening the Line of Control to allow the easy movement of people, goods, and services across it. The report draws on the results of a survey of stakeholders and public opinion on both sides of the Line of Control. The results of that survey, together with an initial draft of this report, were shown to a group of opinion makers in both countries (former bureaucrats and diplomats, members of the armed forces, academics, and members of the media), whose comments were valuable in refining the report’s conclusions.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        September 2017

        Ceasefire Violations in Jammu and Kashmir

        A Line on Fire

        by Happymon Jacob

        Ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and international border between India and Pakistan have over the last decade been the primary trigger of tensions and conflict between New Delhi and Islamabad in the long-disputed Kashmir region. This report, supported by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and based on extensive field visits to the border areas, in-depth interviews with Indian and Pakistani military officials, and several primary datasets explains the factors behind the violations and suggests ways to control them within the context of the broader bilateral political dispute.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        February 2017

        China's Kashmir Policies and Crisis Management in South Asia

        by I-wei Jenniger Chang

        This Peace Brief examines China’s shifting positions on Kashmir and crisis management cooperation with the United States. I-wei Jennifer Chang is a program specialist in the China Program at the United States Institute of Peace.

      • Biodiversity
        January 2012

        Agri-Horticultural Biodiverstiy of Temperate and Cold Arid Regions

        by Nazir Ahmad Zeerak & Shafiq A. Wani

        The book describes the existing Plant Biodiversity of Agri-horticultural importance of temperate (Kashmir) and cold arid (Ladakh) Himalayan regions of India. The diversity presented is based on actual survey conducted by the authors across the regions over the last several year. The contents of the book include the available varietal wealth, both in wild as well cultivated forms, existing within all major economic plant groups of the regions viz Cereals, Pulses, Oilseeds, Spice and Condiments, Forages, Vegetables, Ornamentals, Fruits and Nuts and Underutilized Plants. Technical, English and Kashmiri/Ladakhi names of plants of economic importance are given along with brief notes on their status and utility. The work will be helpful to researchers and students working in the fields of Plant Biodiversity, Plant Breeding, Horticulture and Economic Botany. It can specifically serve as a ready reference book for researchers and planners working on management and conservation of plant genetic resources of Indian Himalayan regions.

      • Lifestyle, Sport & Leisure
        July 2021

        Courtyard Houses of India

        by Yatin Pandya

        Indian architecture is not an object in space; it integrates space within the object, where the built and the unbuilt become counterpoints to vitalize each other. The alchemy of the two sustains the space and the life within. The void within the built—the courtyard—lies at the genesis of the urban dwelling form in India across geography and time. In ancient Indian sciences, the courtyard assumes the central position as Brahmasthana, the nucleus of the living environment. It provided for an open-to-sky outdoor space while being away from the public eye and thus suited an introverted lifestyle. In this book, the author traces the metaphysical, mythical, socio-cultural, environmental and spatial roles of the courtyard in the domestic architecture  of India—from early civilization and Vedic times to Islamic and colonial influences. This volume documents traditional and vernacular courtyard dwelling types across India within diverse climatic, cultural as well as geographic zones such as western (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra), southern (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa), eastern (Bihar, West Bengal), central (Madhya Pradesh) and northern (Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.). It then discerns the spatial elements constituting the court, and the arts, the crafts as well as  the elements integral to the court.   Illustrated with splendid photographs and representative drawings, the book attempts to understand the presence and resolution, continued use and adaptation as well as the diverse interpretations and abstractions of the courtyard.   Yatin Pandya is an author, activist, academician, researcher as well as a practising architect with his firm FOOTPRINTS E.A.R.T.H. (Environment Architecture Research Technology Housing). He is a graduate of CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and holds a Master of Architecture degree from McGill University, Montreal. Pandya has been involved with city planning, urban design, mass housing, architecture, interior design and product design as well as conservation projects. He has authored numerous papers, which have appeared in national and international journals, and has produced several documentary films on architecture. During his tenure at the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation, Pandya worked on the publications Concepts of Space in Traditional Indian Architecture and Elements of Spacemaking, published by Mapin and now in their fourth reprint, which have won the Indian Institute of Architects’ (IIA) Award for Architectural Excellence in Research in the years 2012 and 2014, respectively. The research leading to this book was also carried out during his time at Vastu-Shilpa Foundation. He is a visiting faculty at the National Institute of Design and CEPT University, and a guest lecturer at various universities in India and abroad. The recipient of numerous national and international awards for research, design and dissemination, Pandya counts environmental sustainability, socio-cultural appropriateness, timeless aesthetics and economic affordability to be key principles of his work.

      • Peace studies & conflict resolution
        March 2005

        Quickstep or Kadam Taal?

        The Elusive Search for Peace in Jammu and Kashmir

        by Praveen Swami

        At first glance, India and Pakistan today seem closer to peace than at any point in the past several decades. The cease-fire that went into place along the Line of Control in December 2003 has held; terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir has been in steady decline since the two nuclear-armed states almost went to war in 2002; and both countries have succeeded in sustaining a wide-ranging and high-level dialogue process. All this appears to suggest that conditions exist for resolution of one of the world’s most intractable and bloody conflicts, the India-Pakistan war over Jammu and Kashmir. Yet the current détente process between India and Pakistan suffers from the same structural infirmities that led past peace initiatives to collapse. Instead of looking for a resolution of the grand historical conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, peacemakers might do well to focus on the problems of the state’s peoples—thus building a base from which creative democratic solutions might eventually emerge.

      • Twenty Three Summers

        by Shrutidhora P Mohor

        Set against the backdrop of a conflict-ridden Kashmir valley and spanning twenty-three years of unfinished love and longing, pain and sublimation, this is a story of refracted love between ambitious and competent Sudarshan and quiet and tender Farooq, two human souls who bleed and cry together but on two different notes. For tormented Sudarshan, love is about being unambiguous in its proclamations, aggressively possessive; for helpless Farooq, it is about stepping back, letting go, nurturing, caring, attending, renouncing. The personal currents of a turbulent relationship and the political dynamics of Kashmir cross-cut and fuse in this political love story.

      • Kashmirnama

        by Ashok Kumar Pandey

        Located in the northern part of India and abutting borders with China, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kashmir is an area of great gee-political importance, which has witnessed armed conflicts, several insurgencies and continued terrorism over the last hundred years. It is one of the most heavily militarized zones in the world todc.y, and is considered one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

      • Irunda Kaalak Kathaikal

        by A.Kareem

        In an environment where the Corono epidemic is massacring people all over the world, everyone is scrambling to survive. The brutal enforcement of a series of bad laws by a state is a major attack on democracy. 3000 km from one end of the country to the other is a cruel time for the nation, with people walking with their children long enough to survive the ordeal and the child dying without even knowing the mother is dead. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, people have been subjected to caste, religious and linguistic oppression in the face of what they have been told, and the support of the government, which has taken the lives of ordinary people very casually.This is a testament to the fact that a creator, like everyone else, cannot pass over the tragic life of the powers that be, the state's brutal exploitation of the economy.Gallery. All the stories in this collection are a mirror image of a contemporary event. This is how everyone can feel this dark period. This collection is an attempt to provide a key to rescuing people from it.

      • August 2021

        Sur la route des grandes sagesses

        by Jean Bédard

        The story begins in Galilee, around the year 30. Jairus, a young rabbi, questions his own religion as well as the Greek materialism preached by his wife, both of which only breed hatred. This is the time when a strange carpenter from Nazareth offers to stop the violence with love and reconciliation. “Good for the children,” thinks Jairus, choosing Instead to take over his father’s business (trading in rare manuscripts on the Great Silk Road). Across the deserts, mountains and vastness of Persia, Kashmir and Tibet, Jairus and his daughter will face the usual cruelties of civilisations, and encounter priests of Zoroaster, Buddhist monks, Taoist sages... The beauty of the world and the wisdom of a few masters will transform them. When Jairus returns to Galilee thirty years later, he will no longer be insensitive to the actions of the famous carpenter who has turned the whole of Jerusalem upside down, the same one who once brought joy to his daughter when she was in the throes of despair. This story is based on a deep knowledge of history, customs, human nature and the main philosophies that still condition human existence. This novel, with well-crafted and engaging characters, offers unforgettable scenes where humour and love, depth and lightness give us hope. The author’s quest is expressed in simple, everyday, contemporary language. An ideal read for those who are not looking for life guides, but for an intimate metamorphosis that expands the heart.

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