Articles from the author

The roads leading to the Amarnath cave have been crammed with cars, taxis, vans and buses over the past few weeks – all heading to the unique manifestation of Shiva in the cave at the fringe of the valley.

Dr Sushil Razdan was an outstanding professor of neurology at Srinagar's Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences even before he was 40, but moved to Jammu with his family in 1990, when Hindus were being killed at random in Kashmir.

Begging can be a very dangerous business in Kashmir these days. Some time ago, a mendicant was killed outside a Border Security Force camp in the late evening darkness at Nunar, a village not far from Srinagar.

The new chief minister of India's Jammu and Kashmir state was sworn in yesterday just hours after militants tried to blow up his house.

Jammu and Kashmir's new chief minister Mufti Mohammed Saeed yesterday vowed to push ahead with liberal reforms to bring a "healing touch" to the violence-scarred province, despite unabated separatist violence.

The Congress has committed political suicide in Jammu and Kashmir for the third time. India's oldest political party has an amazing capacity to finish itself in this state, even after rising Phoenix-like from the ashes of its own blunders.

The terrible dismay that events over the past month in Gujarat, Ayodhya and in Parliament have caused in Kashmir cannot be underestimated. Kashmiris are among the most politically alive people anywhere, tuning into the news with a passion akin to zeal and discussing each nuance of every development in the minutest detail.

It's spring and the wedding season is back in Kashmir.

The British loved Kashmir. The climate was like that in England, only much drier and sunnier.

One of the most sacred shrines for Kashmir's Hindus is the temple of Khir Bhawani in the heart of the Valley. Another is Shankaracharya, which dominates Srinagar.

A minor sweepstake was organised at the beginning of this month at one of Srinagar's leading hotels, where several of the journalists covering Kashmir's elections stayed.

Pain vies with resentment among many Muslims on the Jammu side of the Pir Panjal range that arcs southwest of the Kashmir Valley.