KARGIL // Narendra Modi accused Pakistan on Tuesday of waging a proxy war in Kashmir as he became the first Indian prime minister to visit Kargil since more than 1,000 died in fighting there 15 years ago.
Mr Modi landed in the remote Himalayan town a day after India and its rival Pakistan traded accusations of ceasefire violations on their border in Kashmir.
He is the first Indian leader to visit the highly sensitive area since a 1999 Pakistan army incursion triggered a conflict between the two countries.
Since then, India has maintained a heavy military presence in Muslim-majority Kargil in the mountainous Kashmiri region of Ladakh.
But a reporter at the scene said there were few soldiers on the streets of Kargil on Tuesday.
“Today when I came I heard the cheerful claps of the people,” Mr Modi told the 5,000-strong crowd in the town, which was festooned with flags from his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
“I had also come at a time when the place was echoing with the noises of bombs and bullets,” he said, recalling an earlier visit he made to Kargil before becoming prime minister.
Speaking earlier Tuesday to soldiers in Leh, capital of the Ladakh region, where he stopped en route, Mr Modi condemned what he called a “proxy war by Pakistan”.
He said troops were “suffering more casualties from terrorism than from war”.
New Delhi has long accused Islamabad of using Pakistan-based militant groups such as the outlawed Lashkar-i-Taiba against its forces in Kashmir — a claim that Islamabad denies.
Mr Modi, a hardline Hindu nationalist, also promised to build new roads and develop tourism in the restive Muslim-majority state, where poverty and underdevelopment have worsened anti-government sentiment.
“There was a time when prime ministers never visited the state. I have come here two times already,” said the prime minister, who was decked out in a traditional Ladakhi gold-coloured robe and hat for the occasion.
“We want to make jobs available for the youth. We want educational institutions for the youth... The government is committed to developing tourism in this region.”
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, which both claim the region in full but administer separate partial areas. The neighbours have fought two of their three wars over its control.
Since 1989 a rebellion against Indian rule by about a dozen groups — seeking independence for Kashmir or a merger with Pakistan — has left tens of thousands dead.
Ajai Sahni, executive director at the Institute of Conflict Management think tank, said Mr Modi’s visit was an “important first step towards bringing these areas back to the centre of national and strategic consciousness”.
“This government’s initiative in the region will gradually shift the power equation in favour of India over Pakistan as people in the region become more integrated (with India) with development and progress,” he said.
Mr Modi had been reportedly planning to visit Kashmir’s Siachen glacier — dubbed the world’s highest battlefield due to the long-running territorial dispute — but officials said he would not now do so, without giving a reason.
An estimated 8,000 troops have died on the glacier since 1984, almost all of them from avalanches, landslides, frostbite, altitude sickness or heart failure rather than combat.
The nuclear-armed rivals fought over Siachen in 1987, though guns on the glacier have largely fallen silent since a peace process began in 2004.
Mr Modi’s visit comes a day after Pakistan summoned a senior Indian diplomat over a cross-border firing incident near the eastern city of Sialkot at the foot of the Kashmir hills, which the foreign ministry said killed at least one civilian.
Pakistani authorities accused India of a “ceasefire violation” and registered a formal protest.
Earlier, Indian police accused Pakistan of injuring four people during firing along their border in Kashmir.
New Delhi and Islamabad agreed a ceasefire in 2003 but firing along the disputed de facto border called the Line of Control, which separates Kashmir into Indian and Pakistani sectors, still occurs sporadically.
* Agence France-Presse
The Specs
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SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
Company Profile
Name: JustClean
Based: Kuwait with offices in other GCC countries
Launch year: 2016
Number of employees: 130
Sector: online laundry service
Funding: $12.9m from Kuwait-based Faith Capital Holding
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Console: PlayStation 2 to 5
Rating: 5/5
Name: Brendalle Belaza
From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines
Arrived in the UAE: 2007
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus
Favourite photography style: Street photography
Favourite book: Harry Potter
THE BIO
Family: I have three siblings, one older brother (age 25) and two younger sisters, 20 and 13
Favourite book: Asking for my favourite book has to be one of the hardest questions. However a current favourite would be Sidewalk by Mitchell Duneier
Favourite place to travel to: Any walkable city. I also love nature and wildlife
What do you love eating or cooking: I’m constantly in the kitchen. Ever since I changed the way I eat I enjoy choosing and creating what goes into my body. However, nothing can top home cooked food from my parents.
Favorite place to go in the UAE: A quiet beach.
TWISTERS
Director:+Lee+Isaac+Chung
Starring:+Glen+Powell,+Daisy+Edgar-Jones,+Anthony+Ramos
Rating:+2.5/5
Royal Birkdale Golf Course
Location: Southport, Merseyside, England
Established: 1889
Type: Private
Total holes: 18
Company profile
Company name: Hayvn
Started: 2018
Founders: Christopher Flinos, Ahmed Ismail
Based: Abu Dhabi, UAE
Sector: financial
Initial investment: undisclosed
Size: 44 employees
Investment stage: series B in the second half of 2023
Investors: Hilbert Capital, Red Acre Ventures
Company Profile
Company name: Namara
Started: June 2022
Founder: Mohammed Alnamara
Based: Dubai
Sector: Microfinance
Current number of staff: 16
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Family offices
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Haltia.ai
Started: 2023
Co-founders: Arto Bendiken and Talal Thabet
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: AI
Number of employees: 41
Funding: About $1.7 million
Investors: Self, family and friends
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
New schools in Dubai
Teams
Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (captain), Mohammad Hafeez, Sahibzada Farhan, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan Shanwari, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Faheem Ashraf.
New Zealand: Kane Williamson (captain), Corey Anderson, Mark Chapman, Lockie Ferguson, Colin de Grandhomme, Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Ajaz Patel, Glenn Phillips, Seth Rance, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor.
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Almouneer
Started: 2017
Founders: Dr Noha Khater and Rania Kadry
Based: Egypt
Number of staff: 120
Investment: Bootstrapped, with support from Insead and Egyptian government, seed round of
$3.6 million led by Global Ventures
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
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- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
The biog
Simon Nadim has completed 7,000 dives.
The hardest dive in the UAE is the German U-boat 110m down off the Fujairah coast.
As a child, he loved the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau
He also led a team that discovered the long-lost portion of the Ines oil tanker.
If you are interested in diving, he runs the XR Hub Dive Centre in Fujairah
Tom Fletcher on 'soft power'
Company profile
Company: Wafeq
Started: January 2019
Founder: Nadim Alameddine
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: software as a service
Funds raised: $3 million
Investors: Raed Ventures and Wamda, among others
Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
Company profile
Company name: Fasset
Started: 2019
Founders: Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Daniel Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $2.45 million
Current number of staff: 86
Investment stage: Pre-series B
Investors: Investcorp, Liberty City Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Primal Capital, Wealthwell Ventures, FHS Capital, VN2 Capital, local family offices
The biog
Favourite hobby: taking his rescue dog, Sally, for long walks.
Favourite book: anything by Stephen King, although he said the films rarely match the quality of the books
Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption stands out as his favourite movie, a classic King novella
Favourite music: “I have a wide and varied music taste, so it would be unfair to pick a single song from blues to rock as a favourite"
Kill
Director: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Starring: Lakshya, Tanya Maniktala, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya, Raghav Juyal
Rating: 4.5/5
Company Profile
Name: HyveGeo
Started: 2023
Founders: Abdulaziz bin Redha, Dr Samsurin Welch, Eva Morales and Dr Harjit Singh
Based: Cambridge and Dubai
Number of employees: 8
Industry: Sustainability & Environment
Funding: $200,000 plus undisclosed grant
Investors: Venture capital and government