News stories by Umar Manzoor Shah, page 10

Sep 28 (IPS) - Some ten years ago, Sheemanto Chatri, a 39-year-old farmer hailing from India's northeastern state of Meghalaya, was reeling with distress. The unseasonal rainfall had washed away all the crops he had cultivated after year-long labor in his far-off hamlet.

Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, Jul 13 (IPS) - The soaring temperatures this year in India’s northern state of Kashmir are proving calamitous for the region’s farming community.  The place, otherwise known for its emerald streams, lush green hills, and ice sheets, is reeling under heat attributed to climate change this year. The heat wave of such intensity has left most of the water canals dead and dry, plunging the already conflict-torn region into a frightening agrarian crisis.

NEW DEHLI, May 25 (IPS) - Last month, in the midst of New Dehli’s coronavirus lockdown, 37- year-old labourer Prakash Kumar wanted to return to his rural home in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. But instead of travelling the usual few hours by bus, Kumar had to journey for three days.

NEW DELHI, Nov 19 (IPS) - Ankita Gupta, a housewife from south Delhi, is anxious about whether she should send her 4-year-old daughter to kindergarten. Outside visibility is poor as smog — a combination of emissions from factories, vehicle exhausts, coal plants and chemicals reacting with sunlight — has settled over the city, surpassing dangerous levels.

SRINAGAR, Oct 11 (IPS) - This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.Haseena Akhtar was only 13 when an agent told her parents that they could earn a good amount of money by letting her marry a Kashmiri man. The man was, however, three times older than Akhtar, the agent said.

SRINAGAR, Kashmir, Sep 23 (IPS) - It is 50 days into the lockdown in Kashmir since roads were blocked off, schools shut, and internet and communication services stopped.

SRINAGAR, India-administered Jammu and Kashmir, May 09 (IPS) - This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.

Mubeen Ahmad was nine years old when his mother sold him into service to a mechanic for the petty sum of few thousand Indian rupees. His mother had found it hard to support the family after his father, a labourer, was killed during one of the anti-India protests in Jammu and Kashmir in 2008.

SRINAGAR, India, Oct 25 (IPS) - Much has changed since Rahti Begum, a fisherwoman in Kashmir, now in her late 60s, first began wandering the streets with a bucketful of fish on her head. She was 17 when her father roped her into the business that became the source of her livelihood for the remainder of her life.