Columns

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 […]

From the ancient epics of Mesopotamia to the modern classroom, poetry has always been the language of the human soul. By Sahil Sharifdin Bhat Every sane person carries a verse in their heart. Whether it is a fragment of a nursery rhyme, a line from a sacred text, or a couplet from a film song, […]

From the gleam of the Principal’s white Fiat to the taste of a two-rupee samosa: A personal journey back to Greenland High School and the gentle, unhurried rhythm of 1980s Srinagar By Syed Majid Gilani To understand what we have lost, we must sometimes travel back. Not just across the years, but into a different […]