Kamila Shamsie FRSL is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist who is best known for her award-winning novel Home Fire (2017). Named on Granta magazine's list of 20 best young British writers, Shamsie has been described by The New Indian Express as "a novelist to reckon with and to look forward to." She also writes for publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Index on Censorship and Prospect, and broadcasts on radio.
Agha Shahid Ali was an Indian-born Kashmiri-American poet, of Afghan and Indian descent, who immigrated to the United States, and became affiliated with the literary movement known as New Formalism in American poetry. His collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas,A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, and Rooms Are Never Finished, the latter a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001.
Hizbul Mujahideen, also spelled Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, is an Islamist militant organization operating in the Kashmir region. Its goal is to separate Kashmir from India and merge it with Pakistan. It is one of the most important players that evolved the narrative of the Kashmir conflict from nationalism to radical jihad.
The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger geographical region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) is a formerly armed, political separatist organisation active in both the Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered territories of Kashmir. It was founded by Amanullah Khan, with Maqbool Bhat also credited as a co-founder. Originally a militant wing of the Azad Kashmir Plebiscite Front, the organization officially changed its name to the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in Birmingham, England on 29 May 1977; from then until 1994 it was an active Kashmiri militant organization. The JKLF first established branches in several cities and towns of the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, as well as in the United States and across the Middle East. In 1982, it established a branch in the Pakistani-administered territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and by 1987, it had established a branch in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley.
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, and also between China and India in the northeastern portion of the region. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes. India controls approximately 55% of the land area of the region that includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier, and 70% of its population; Pakistan controls approximately 30% of the land area that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; and China controls the remaining 15% of the land area that includes the Aksai Chin region, the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract, and part of the Demchok sector.
Ikhwan force, popularly referred to as the Ikhwan and locally known as naabedh, was a pro-government militia in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, composed of surrendered Kashmiri militants active in the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir.
Papa II was an interrogation centre in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, operated by the Border Security Force (BSF) from the start of the Kashmir insurgency in 1989 until it was shut down in 1996.
The Gawkadal massacre was named after the Gawkadal bridge in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, where, on 21 January 1990, the Indian paramilitary troops of the Central Reserve Police Force opened fire on a group of Kashmiri protesters in what has been described by some authors as "the worst massacre in Kashmiri history". Between 50 and 100 people were killed, some from being shot and others from drowning. The massacre happened two days after the Government of India appointed Jagmohan as the Governor for a second time in a bid to control the mass protests by Kashmiris.
The Srinagar–Muzaffarabad Bus is a passenger bus service connecting Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir with Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani-administered dependant territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir across the Line of Control (LoC)—the boundary line denoting rival areas of control in the disputed region of Kashmir, but which is not an official international border. The bus is of symbolic importance to the efforts of the two nations' governments to foster peaceful and friendly relations and follows the success of the Delhi–Lahore Bus, which was launched in 1999.
Basharat Peer is a Kashmiri journalist, script writer, and author.
The 2010 Kashmir unrest was a series of violent protests and riots in the Kashmir Division and Northern Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir, India which started in June 2010 after the Indian Army claimed to have killed three Pakistani infiltrators in which a soldier of the Territorial Army, a counter-insurgent and a former special police officer had found three young men from their Nadihal village in Baramulla district and killed them in a "staged" encounter at Sona Pindi. The protests occurred in a movement launched by Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in June 2010, who called for the complete demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference made this call to a strike, citing human rights abuses by security forces. Rioters shouting pro-independence slogans, defied curfew, attacked riot police with stones and burnt vehicles and buildings. The protests started out as anti India protests but later were also targeted against the United States following the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy. The riot police consisting of Jammu and Kashmir Police and Indian Para-military forces fired teargas shells rubber bullets and also live ammunition on the protesters, resulting in 112 deaths, including many teenagers and an 11-year-old boy. The protests subsided after the Indian government announced a package of measures aimed at defusing the tensions in September 2010.
Haider is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, who co-produced it with Siddharth Roy Kapur, and written by Bhardwaj and Basharat Peer. It stars Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, Kay Kay Menon, Shraddha Kapoor and Irrfan Khan.
Begum Zaffar Ali, née Sahibzaadi Syeda Fatima, was an Indian women's rights activist and the first woman matriculate of the Indian state of Kashmir and Jammu who went on to become Inspector of Schools in Kashmir. She was an educationist, women's liberation activist, deputy director of education and later a legislator in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. She was associated with the activities of the All India Women's Conference and was its secretary before partition, but a chance meeting with Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his sister, Fatima Jinnah in Kashmir, who would later visit the family for banquets, influenced her and she left the conference to concentrate her efforts in women's liberation movements in the pre-independent India.
Burhan Wani was a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, an Islamist militant organization and insurgent group of the Kashmir conflict. He had become a popular figure amongst the local Kashmiri populace, having done so primarily through a strong social media presence, and was responsible for moulding the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir into a youth-oriented movement. Wani was a militant leader and had reportedly recruited numerous foot-soldiers through his personal efforts.
The 2016–2017 unrest in Kashmir, also known as the Burhan aftermath, refers to violent protests in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, chiefly in the Kashmir Valley. It started after the killing of militan leader Burhan Wani by Indian security forces on 8 July 2016. Wani was a commander of the Kashmir-based Islamist militant organisation Hizbul Mujahideen.
Shujaat Bukhari was a Kashmiri journalist and the founding editor of Rising Kashmir, a Srinagar-based newspaper.
Media in Jammu and Kashmir consists of media houses such as Greater Kashmir, Kashmir Observer, Rising Kashmir and Daily Excelsior and digital news outlets like The Dispatch , Free Press Kashmir, The Chenab Times, The Kashmir Walla, The Kashmiriyat News and radio stations such as AIR Srinagar, AIR Jammu,Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, Red FM 93.5 and Radio Sharda. DD Kashir is state television broadcaster. Major private channels are News18 Urdu and Gulistan News.
The 2019–2021 Jammu and Kashmir lockdown was a preventive security lockdown and communications blackout that had been imposed throughout the Indian-administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir following the revocation of Article 370 which lasted until February 2021, with the goal of preemptively curbing unrest, violence and protests. Most separatist leaders had and have been detained in the crackdown. The Indian government had stated that the tough lockdown measures and substantially increased deployment of security forces had been aimed at curbing terrorism. The government did not want a repeat of the death and injuries seen during the 2016–2017 Kashmir unrest.
