Jammu and Kashmir government on Tuesday started the process of removing 16 security bunkers from Srinagar city as part of the Centre’s peace initiatives to reach out to the people of the Valley.

More than 20 years after a disproportionate assets case was registered against a former Jammu and Kashmir minister, authorities are yet to grant sanction to prosecute him.

The Army has killed 42 militants during its counter-infiltration and counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir Valley in September, a defence spokesman said here on Saturday.

Refusing to be drawn into political gamesmanship, Jam and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday said he was saddened more than anybody else over the 109 deaths during the ongoing unrest, which he feels is like somebody had “pulled out 109 pieces from my heart”.

Hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Friday said he was saddened by the Allahabad high court verdict in the Ayodhya title suit case.

In the first major reconciliatory steps, the J&K government on Wednesday decided to immediately release 52 youth, including 31 students, who were arrested on charges of stone-pelting during the ongoing unrest, and formed two provincial committees to review areas declared as disturbed under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Amid curfews and renewed clashes betw-een the security forces and rock-throwing crowds at a few places, many schools in the Kashmir Valley reop-ened on Monday after being shut for over three months. Students and teachers were given a free passage by the security forces despite some restrictions still being in force. However,

The once beautiful Dal Lake with the shikaras gliding on it now seems like a distant memory.

Separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has sought to incapacitate the government’s plan to reopen schools and colleges in the Kashmir Valley by issuing a diktat that his call for shutdowns applies to

Syed Ali Shah Geelani has rejected the Centre’s 8-point formula to deal with weeks of civil unrest in Jammu and Kashmir saying it does not address the core issue of Kashmir and is a “deliberate attempt to buy time.”