Columns

We often measure success by what we’ve acquired, but the true architecture of our ambition is built on the quiet sacrifices of those who had the least to give. By Aubaid Ahmad Akhoon The psychology of the modern consumer is often a frantic race toward the next acquisition, a pursuit of the latest silhouette or […]

Ramadan is often viewed through the lens of sacrifice, yet it functions as a sophisticated system for total recalibration By Waris Nissar The silhouette of a crescent moon signals more than a shift in the lunar calendar; it initiates a profound physiological and spiritual recalibration for nearly two billion people. While the public face of […]

By Syed Majid Gilani When I reflect on the people who shaped and influenced my early life, one person stands foremost in my heart and mind. That person is Syeda Sakina Gilani, my late grandmother. Born in 1930 at Yarkand House in Malaratta, Srinagar, she was the daughter of S. Syed Ahmad Gilani. Her father […]

Enrolment is up, but employable skills are down. The missing link isn’t the curriculum—it’s the person standing at the front of the room. By Mool Raj When we discuss higher education reform in India, the debate invariably gravitates toward the tangible: skyrocketing enrolment figures, the construction of sprawling new campuses, and the modernization of material […]

How the Light of a Late Father Still Guides Three Generations By Syed Majid Gilani In the quiet labyrinth of Srinagar’s old city, where the scent of history clings to the timbered eaves of Khanqah-e-Mualla, certain lives are lived not with the roar of a storm, but with the steady, unwavering glow of a sanctuary […]

The barrier to entry for asking questions has collapsed, but the art of the interview is in danger. Are “armchair interviews” democratizing media or fueling one-sided narratives? By Aubaid Ahmad Akhoon In the modern media landscape, the interview has escaped the confines of the newsroom and the corporate boardroom. It has become the background noise […]

Has Kashmir’s Appetite for Luxury Outpaced its Reality? By Rafiq Dar In Kashmir, there is an old saying that cuts to the bone of the valley’s current economic temper: “If one rides a horse, the other one climbs the wall.” It is a proverb about envy, about the desperate need to match a neighbor’s stride, […]

When a towering newcomer threatens to uproot centuries of peace in the Kingdom of the Talking Trees, the inhabitants must choose between ego and empathy. This modern allegory explores how a community’s greatest strength lies not in its tallest members, but in the invisible roots that bind them together. By Aubaid Akhoon Deep in the […]

A son revisits the morning that changed his life forever, tracing grief, memory, and a mother’s love that refuses to fade. By Mool Raj Every time I left home for Jammu University to pursue my M.Sc. in Environmental Science, I wrote letters to my beloved mother, Smt. Nant Devi. Between 1997 and 1999, I entrusted […]

We are living in what can best be called the age of the photocopy. Like a page copied again and again from an already fading original, our ideas, words and expressions are losing sharpness By Abid Hussain Rather We like to believe that we are living in the smartest age humanity has ever known. We […]