One half of total members to form quorum

Nasir Azam

Srinagar, Nov 30: Amid the ongoing elections for district development councils in Jammu & Kashmir, it has come to fore that each DDC will have to convene at least four meetings in a financial year.

The amendments made by the Centre in Jammu & Kashmir Panchayat Raj Act-1989 in October this year outline how DDCs will conduct their business. “The chairperson shall convene at least four meetings of the district development council in a financial year, one in each quarter which shall be called the ordinary or general meeting and every meeting of the District Development Council shall ordinarily be held at district development council headquarters,” read the amendments.
The law mandates that the first meeting of the district development council shall be held within one month of its constitution. “The chairperson may, whenever deemed fit and shall upon the written request of not  less than one third of the total number of members and on a date within fifteen days of  receipt of such request call a special meeting and such request shall specify the object for  which the meeting is proposed to be called,” the Act states.

According to the amendments, one half of the total members of the district development council shall form a quorum for transacting business at a district development council. “Every meeting shall be presided over by the chairperson or if he is absent or if the  office of the Chairperson is vacant, by the Vice Chairperson and if both the chairperson and vice- chairperson are absent, the members present shall elect one from among  themselves to preside,” the law states.

According to the law, all questions shall, unless otherwise specially provided, decided by a majority of members present and voting. “The proceedings of every meeting shall be recorded in the minute -book immediately after the deliberations of the meeting and shall after being read over by the chairperson of the meeting, be signed by him,” it states. Under the law,  a copy of every resolution passed by a district development council at a meeting  shall within ten days from the date of meeting be forwarded to the government—(KNO)

Best performing Gram,Block, District Panchayats to be given cash awards

Precious Kashmir News
Jammu, Nov 27: To recognize the ability, struggle, and excellence of the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), besides encouraging competitiveness among them, the Administrative Council (AC), which met here under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, approved institution of ‘Panchayat Awards’ at Union Territory level.

The awards will be conferred on Gram Panchayats, Block Panchayats, and District Panchayats under 4 categories.

As a part of the annual celebrations of the National Panchayati Raj Day on 24th April, the winning PRIs will be presented with J&K Panchayat Awards at a Union Territory level function, which will include a momento/citation and award money of Rs. 3 lakh (for Gram Panchayat), Rs. 4 Lakh (for Block Panchayat), and Rs. 5 lakh (for District Panchayat).

The process of selection of Panchayats for UT awards will coincide with the process of selection of Panchayats for national awards and will include nominations received from District Committees. The winners under each category will be selected by the UT level Panchayat Performance Assessment Committee headed by Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department.

Jammu, Nov 30: Alleging that facing threat from his daughter Shehla Rashid, ex-student of JNU, father Abdul Rashid Shora on Monday lodged a complaint with the Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police.
Shora said that he has approached the office of DGP, Jammu and Kashmir Police with a written complaint that he is facing death threats from his own daughter.
Talking to reporters here this evening outside Press Club of Jammu, Shora said that he has sought security cover from the DGP.
He also claimed that Shehla Rashid is being supported by his elder daughter Asma Rashid, his wife Zubeida Shora and one of the security guards, Sakib Ahmad.
In a letter addressed to the DGP, Abdul Rashid also informed that soon after Shehla Rashid jumped into politics her threat perception increased.
“Just two months before the arrest of Zahoor Watali in militant funding case under UAPA, I was called by him and Engineer Rasheed (Ex-MLA) at Watali’s residence at Sanat Nagar, Srinagar in June 2017,” he claimed adding that at that time Shehla was in the last semester of her Ph.D in Sociology.
“After we met, they revealed to me that the trailer of launch of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’s Movement party and urged me to extend cooperation to merge Shehla Rashid into their game plan, at that point of time Shah Faesal was in USA on education leave under the patronage of Feroze Peerzada presently, President JKPM party and Zahoor Watali,” he alleged.
They offered me during the meeting Rs 3 crore for Shehla to join them, he said and added that as the money was being pumped from illegal channels and shall be used for unlawful activities, he refused and asked his daughter to not indulge in any such transactions.
“Despite my resistance I found my wife Zubeida Shora and elder daughter Asma Rashid to be supportive of Shehla and becoming party to this deal alongwith one more person Sakib Ahmad, who was introduced to me as her personal security man by Shehla as he used to carry a pistol with him,” he said.
After a week when Shehla came to Srinagar from Delhi she confirmed to me that she has got transferred the referred amount at Delhi in cash and there is no need for me to disclose anything regarding this transaction and my meeting with Rasheed Engineer and Zahoor Watali with anybody, as this can put my life in danger. She also told me that she has accepted the money and much more is about to come in future and so I need to shut up my mouth. As a concerned father I strongly objected to my daughter’s decision for joining these notorious people as I felt the money coming will be used for unlawful activities.
“I have requested to the DGP to ensure my personal security and kindly direct the concerned police station to extend support to me in getting back to my house as per the court order,” he said and requested to order investigations into the conduct of Sakib and his associates, bank details of Shehla Rashid, Asma Rashid and Zubeida and property acquired by them at New Delhi, their email accounts, mysterious financial dealing with Feroze Peerzada, Zahoor Watali and Rashid Engineer and other notorious activities being done in the name of Empowerment of Women and Social Justice NGO.

Jammu, Nov 30: Security forces noticed a suspicious movement of a ‘Pakistani jet’ along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district on Monday morning, officials said.
A security official told KNO that a chain of smoke was noticed in Poonch sector and which seemed to have a Pakistani jet.
“The smoke chain suggested a movement of a Pakistani fighter jet,” a security official said, adding that “efforts are on to find out what kind of jet it exactly was.”
An alert was sounded soon after the movement of the jet was noticed in entire Poonch area.

Tasaduq Hussain
Kupwara, Nov 30: Coming from very polite family background, a young MBA student Javaid Tantray owner of Facebook page “Kashur Pagal Khana” has made a huge mark in Jammu and Kashmir with the self-made meme material.
Javaid Ahmad Tantray, an MBA student from north Kashmir’s Kupwara district produces meme material on his page for the sole purpose of entertainment and humour.
Javaid, who has done MBA, is survived by parents, two brothers a sister, a wife, and a baby boy.
Javaid said that the meme material he publishes and shares is to beat the level of depression and anxiety that people in the Valley face in their day-to-day life.
“The entire content is for fun propose only without any intention to hurt anyone’s sentiments,” he said.
Javaid said that he started the page in 2017 with an intention to share meme material and cracking fun only, but after a year the page remained dysfunctional for a long time due to his unavoidable busy schedule.
Not knowing the page will evoke a huge response, Javaid said that initially, he didn’t know that it will have a huge impact and people would start loving it to this level.
The page which is meant solely for the entertainment purpose has reached 200K likes/followers in a very short span of time.
Javaid said the anxiety and depression caused by the Covid -19 pandemic motivated him to make the page functional again in 2019.
“Within no time, some of the meme content went viral and the page managed to gain an unexpected response from the masses,” he said.
Javaid said that the content posted on his page only revolves around the current situation in the valley.
“My motive has always been to make people laugh and bring more humour and entertainment to the life of the valley people who are engulfed with depression, anxiety, and other tensions,” he said. “I want people to have a laugh at the end of the day.”
Maintaining that social media is a platform to promote an individual and other things, Javaid said the meme material is rather a source of publicity for an individual about whom the content is made, also that the particular person shouldn’t feel offended and even the viewers need to take it as a source of entertainment only.
“Very few people have criticised some of the memes, but then I made them understand about the purpose and with time viewers understood my intentions. Now over 95 per cent of the comments I receive are positive,” Javaid said.
Kashur Pagal Khana is one of the primary meme pages in Kashmir valley that has over 187K likes and over 200K followers—(KNO)

Srinagar, Nov 30: One-way traffic was on Monday restored to border town of Gurez after remaining suspended for 15 days due to slippery road conditions and accumulation of snow.

Meanwhile, traffic to border towns of Keran, Karnah, Tanghdar and Machil, besides dozens of far-flung and remote villages in Kupwara, was plying normally after it was restored on Sunday following clearing of snow from the roads.

“One-way traffic was on Monday restored from Bandipora to Gurez and adjoining areas after remaining suspended since November 14 due to accumulation of three to four feet of snow,” an official of Police Control Room (PCR), Bandipora, said over phone.

He said about three to four feet of snow had accumulated at Razdan pass, connecting Gurez, Neeru and dozens of other areas near LoC with district headquarters Bandipora.

“Snow clearance operation was taken up after improvement in the weather and the road was put through for one-way traffic,” he said, adding two-way traffic will be allowed only after getting a green signal from officials deployed on the ground.

Aa official of PCR, Kupwara, said that dozens of far-flung and remote villages, including Machil, Kernah, Keran and Tanghdar, were reconnected with the rest of the valley on Sunday after remaining closed for over a week due to accumulation of snow.

“Traffic was plying normally on all these roads on Monday,” he added.

Washington, Nov 30: Moderna Inc will apply for US and European emergency authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine after full results from a late-stage study showed it was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns, the company said. Moderna also reported that the vaccine’s efficacy rate was consistent across age, race, ethnicity and gender demographics as well as having a 100% success rate in preventing severe cases of a disease that has killed nearly 1.5 million people.
The filing sets Moderna’s product up to be the second vaccine likely to receive US emergency use authorization this year following a shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech which had a 95% efficacy rate in trials. “We believe that we have a vaccine that is very highly efficacious. We now have the data to prove it,” Moderna Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks said.
“We expect to be playing a major part in turning around this pandemic.”
Of the 196 volunteers who contracted COVID-19 in the trial with more than 30,000 people, 185 received a placebo while 11 got the vaccine.
Moderna reported 30 severe cases — all in the placebo group — which means the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe cases.
“As the numbers of cases reported grows, confidence grows that this amazing protection will be maintained in a product that can be rolled out to protect the public,” said Alexander Edwards, associate professor in biomedical technology at Britain’s University of Reading.
In addition to filing its US application, Moderna said it would seek conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency, which has already begun a rolling review of its data, and would continue to talk with other regulators.
Pfizer has already applied for emergency use authorization in the United States and Europe, putting it about a week ahead of Moderna.
Moderna said it was on track to have about 20 million doses of its vaccine ready to ship in the United States by the end of 2020, enough to inoculate 10 million people.
Both of the vaccines use a new technology called synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) whereas others, such as Britain’s AstraZeneca, are using more traditional methods to develop their vaccines.
AstraZeneca has announced an average efficacy rate of 70% for its shot and as much as 90% for a subgroup of trial participants who got a half dose, followed by a full dose.
But some scientists have expressed doubts about the robustness of the 90% efficacy figure for the smaller group.
Moderna’s latest efficacy result is slightly lower than an interim analysis released on Nov 16 of 94.5% effectiveness, a difference that Zaks said was not statistically significant.
“At this level of effectiveness, when you just do the math of what it means for the pandemic that’s raging around us, it’s just overwhelming,” said Zaks, who said he cried when he saw the final results over the weekend.

Precious Kashmir News
Srinagar, Nov 30: Gurupurab, the birthday of Guru Nanak Dev, was on Monday celebrated with religious fervor and gaiety across Jammu and Kashmir while the main function in the Valley was held at Shaheed Bunga Gurdwara in Barzulla area here where thousands of devotees attended the special prayers today.
Amid pandemic, a large number of Sikh brethren following the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to prevent the deadly virus from spreading thronged the Gurdwaras from the wee hours of this morning and participated in the special prayers.
The functions on the occasion were organized almost at Gurdwara while unlike the previous years, the main function was held at Shaheed Bunga Gurdwara in Barzulla Baghat area.
The members from Sikh community said the main function was not held this year at Chattipadshahi Gurdwara as the religious place is being renovated at present.
Special arrangements were put in place by the Sikh community at the Gurdwaras especially at Shaheed Bunga Gurdwara where Sikhs—both men as well women thronged since the wee hours and participated in special prayers today.
However, the devotees who thronged the Gurdwaras especially Shaheed Bunga Gurdwara today complained about in adequate facilities provided by the administration to facilitate their visit on the auspicious day.
“No security as well as the traffic arrangement was put in place by the authorities today in wake of the Gupurab,” a Jagmohan Singh Raina, a Sikh leader said.
Raina, who heads the Sikh group, All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC), said that no arrangements were made by the authorities today at the religious especially where the main function was held.
“The administration should have at least taken steps to regulate the traffic, but all in vain as the Sikh community was once again ignored as witnessed in the past,” he said.
Special ‘langar’ were also organized for the devotees in Gurdwaras. Similar celebrations were also held in other local Gurdwaras including Jawahar Nagar, Allochibagh, Barzulla, Tral, Rangreth, Pattan and Baramulla and others.
Gurdwaras were beautifully decorated to mark the occasion. Sikh community had also illuminated their respective houses in evening.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, his Advisors, many politicians and others greeted Sikhs on this occasion.

Yogesh Sagotra
Srinagar, Nov 30 (KINS): Top security officials Monday said measures are being taken to prevent attacks on forces in Kashmir.
“There are already SoPs in place to prevent attacks on Security forces involved in RoPs, QRTs and clearance of roads in Kashmir. But yes, all measures including SoPs are being framed to prevent these attacks,” a top security official wishing not to be named said.
He, however, said the situation was well under control and there was no need to worry.
He said focus of the SoPs will ensure militants don’t succeed in carrying attacks on forces personnel deployed on busy areas.
“There will be a level of extra alertness to foil militants’ designs on roads,” he said, adding that “any retaliation by forces on highways and other roads can lead to civilian casualties, which our men are avoiding.”
Sources in the security grid said security review will take place to discuss threadbare the attacks by militants, while strategy will be devised to prevent killing of security forces’ personnel if militants try to target forces.
Pertinently, two army men were killed in a militant attack in Srinagar on Thursday.
The militants fired indiscriminately at a quick reaction team of Indian Army in the general area Aban Shah Chowk, HMT, Khushipora in the outskirts of Srinagar.
The IGP had described the attack as handiwork of Jaish-e-Muhammad outfit. (KINS)