India on Friday banned residents in insurgency-hit Kashmir from sending text messages, only to revoke the edict hours later after it angered phone users and the region’s chief minister.
In an unexpected announcement, India’s telecommunications and information technology ministries banned subscribers with monthly contracts from sending messages, while pre-paid mobile users were to be limited to 10 a day.
The ban was to come into effect from midnight Saturday but hours later a government statement said it had “decided to withdraw its order of April 16, 2010, imposing restrictions on SMS services.”
There was no explanation for the move to ban the service beyond the assertion that it was “in the interest of the national security.”
In October last year, all pre-paid phones were banned after reports that they were being used by militants, who have waged a 20-year fight against Indian rule and the thousands of security forces in the Himalayan region.
The restrictions were withdrawn after Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah termed the ban “harassment.”
“An officer sitting in the department of telecommunications or home ministry cannot decide what is right or what is wrong for the people of my state,” Abdullah told the Press Trust of India news agency.
He said the state government was attempting to bridge the gap between the unpopular government in New Delhi and Kashmiris and such moves as restricting SMSs were “dampeners.”
“This harassment needs to be put to an end once and for all,” he said.
Mobile phones were launched in Kashmir only in 2003 after security agencies gave the go-ahead.
The ban on pre-paid phones was revoked in January this year after protests. The ban affected 3.8 million users in Kashmir.
The sending of bulk text messages through online portals was also banned under the new rules.
Abdullah admitted the state government had asked for a ban on sending bulk texts, “which we believe is being used to spread rumors and gossip.”
“This request has not been understood properly,” he said.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where there has been a sharp decline in violence since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004.
Over the past two years, however, separatist politicians have been leading frequent anti-India protests.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS