Window to Gilgit-Baltistan

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Cumbersome Procedure: A Strange Logic!

BySyed Shamsuddin

QUITE INDUBITABLY, the introduction of the ATM facility countrywide aimed at dispensing of and extending cash and other allied banking services mechanically/electronically has been highly facilitative and hence is commendable in that the system that remained in vogue earlier was tiresome and irksome because of a dilatory processes being resorted to at the respective bank branched when an account-holder would visit them for a simple transaction. Procedurally, a cheque had to be filled in and presented for its processing from one counter to the other until its being okayed and passed ultimately on to the cash counter. Indeed, the transition to online services and the ATM facility as currently available has eased all this as the insertion of the card and swiftly doing the password enables the card holder to draw amounts instantly in addition to seeking other allied services electronically. This became all the more facilitative in the case of pensioners who generally con…

Smoothsailing Transition

BySyed Shamsuddin
INDEED the smooth-sailing transition to the 2nd caretaker government upon completion of its term by the outgoing PML-N government augurs well. It would certainly pave the way in the like manner, for the polls in a congenial atmosphere to get the process going equally smoothly. The prospective elections for GBLA will be 3rd election holding promise of an uninterrupted continuity since the very first government formed after the general GBLA elections in the wake of promulgation of Gilgit-Baltistan Governance Order, 2009. Governor Gilgit-Baltistan Raja Jalal Hussain Maqpon administered oath to the caretaker Chief Minister Mir Afzal Khan the day before after he latter’s selection and appointment was notified by the federal government vide notification as follows: “Pursuant to Article 48-A(2) of the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order, 2018, the Chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan Council in consultation with the incumbent Chief Minister, Gilgit-Baltistan, the leader of t…

Foiling India’s Inimical Designs

BySyed Shamsuddin A very interesting summation, aptly encompassing has been going on in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) overtime in socio-political context, was published in a regional Urdu daily the other day. The learned writer offered a peep into the brief historical background of the region dating to the post-independence period, and referred precisely to what happened preceding the liberation of Gilgit-Baltistan. Beginning with briefly recording of the facts about how the British colonizers packed off by giving back the territory of Gilgit, in August 1947, to the Dogra occupiers, quite intriguingly with the condition that the latter would retain Major William Brown – a British military officer – to assign him the command of Gilgit Scouts. The move was ostensibly aimed at checking effectively and blocking Russo-China contacts, as well as to preclude Gilgit region from the impact of communists inroads into this land.
After the successful revolution of 1st November 1947, Gilgit emerged as a…

Eulogizing The Protectors of Culture and Tradition

BySyed Shamsuddin QUITE PROPITIOUSLY, a flurry of activities is getting underway in the context of revival of Shina language in its original form and diction. This is in addition to the marked efforts afoot to build a consensus among the literary circles formed by Shina speaking communities all across the Shina speaking areas – mostly inhabiting northern Pakistan and part of the Indian held Kashmir- to popularize and universalize a homogenized approach to a unified code aimed at sustaining and preserving this language which is sadly on the wane.
To give a recent example, Shakil Ahmad Shakil carried out a research work culminating in his products like ‘dade shilokeh’ (grandmas’s tales) and Shina Grammar, Aziz-ur-Rehman Malangi’s Shina Diwan and to top them all is Haji Shah Mirza’s translation of the Holy Qura’an into Shina which is greatly contributive to the existing literature in Shina. There is no gainsaying that viewed in terms of it originality of form, diction and etymology, Shin…

An Impassioned Appeal from Abroad

BySyed Shamsuddin

Apropos the passionate appeal contained in, and emerging from a video that came into circulation on social media the other day. The video was posted by Noor Pamiri – a New York-based GBian and the co-founder of Pamir Times – the pioneering community news and views portal of Gilgit-Baltistan, Kohistan, Chitral and the surrounding mountain areas – a voluntary, not-for-profit, non-partisan and independent venture initiated by the youth which hectically engaged in portraying and highlighting issues related to these mountain communities.
Put in a nutshell, it unveils the pandemic-related travails Pamiri faced for the preceding 19 days on having been taken ill with Covid-19 symptoms so abruptly when says:‘By the Grace of God Almighty, was on the path of gradual recovery and has by now, recuperated to greater extent but nevertheless, am still forced to remain in isolation from my children until I finally go for an ‘Anti-body test essentially required for ascertaining compl…

Raison d’etre of Jobs’ Quota-III

BySyed Shamsuddin GB’s Economic Throes:
IN THE DAYS of yore, each household of the GB.s populace in addition to subsistence farming, tend cattle, sheep and goats in each valley as the fundamental means of the support system and as the scarce vegetation then would suffice the barest minimum needs of those communities not that large in size. In the changed scenarios, the prospects alarmingly dwindled away obviously because of population explosion being out-of-step exerting pressure on the available resources of the region. The inadequacy of the means of sustenance here become fundamentally attributable to the dearth of land as well as vegetation with there being absolutely no prospects whatsoever of giving a proportionate boost to these olden practices. Gone are the days when manure instead of the present chemical fertilizers was used in the context of mountain farming for organic food. Generally speaking, livestock breeding underpins mountain farming and hence is reckoned with as the ma…