
Mehbooba Mufti slams NC govt's holiday proposal as ‘lip service'
'Omar Abdullah government's proposal sent to the LG about declaring July 13 and December 5 as public holidays would have carried weight if the speaker had supported the PDP's resolution for the same in the assembly,' said Mufti in a press release issued by the PDP.
Srinagar, Jul 10 (PTI) Taking potshots at the ruling National Conference after Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather rejected a resolution submitted by Pulwama MLA Waheed Para for restoration of public holidays on July 13 and December 5, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday said the 'exercise looks more like a lip service than any serious effort'.
The PDP chief said the National Conference's double speak on the issue has been exposed by dropping the resolution.
'By dropping the PDP's July 13 Martyrs' Day resolution, the J&K Assembly has exposed the NC's double-speak on Kashmir's history. Their silence proves complicity, not commitment,' said Mufti.
'The outright rejection of the resolution by the speaker in the assembly was both unexpected and deeply disappointing, undermining any credibility the subsequent move by the NC-led government might claim,' the PDP said.
'As it stands, this entire exercise looks more like a symbolic gesture and political lip service than a serious, sincere effort to preserve the historical and democratic identity of Jammu & Kashmir,' the party added.
The PDP further said it believes that July 13, 1931 marks the beginning of Kashmir's political awakening and resistance to autocracy, and 'the martyrdom of 22 brave individuals must be formally honoured, not just in words but through institutional recognition'.
'PDP reiterates its unwavering commitment to preserving the dignity and memory of the 1931 martyrs and safeguarding the democratic foundations they laid. We will continue to resist all attempts. either covert or overt to erase or dilute Kashmir's past to suit present-day political conveniences,' the party added. PTI MIJ AS AS
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)

First Post
27 minutes ago
- First Post
‘Russia doesn't want to cease fire': Trump envoy in Ukraine for defence talks after Patriot nod
Trump confirmed the US is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defence missiles and that the European Union will pay the US for the 'various pieces of very sophisticated' weaponry. read more In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's Presidential Office, left, meets with United States Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Joseph Keith Kellogg, at a train station in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 14, 2025. Source: AP President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was in Kyiv on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said, as anticipation grew over a possible shift in the Trump administration's policy on the three-year war. Trump last week said he would make a 'major statement' on Russia on Monday. Trump made quickly stopping the war one of his diplomatic priorities, and he has increasingly expressed frustration about Russian President Vladimir Putin's unbudging stance on U.S-led peace efforts. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and after taking office in January repeatedly said that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. At the same time, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a 'dictator without elections.' But Russia's relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump's patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to 'STOP!' launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader ' has gone absolutely CRAZY!' as the bombardments continued. 'I am very disappointed with President Putin, I thought he was somebody that meant what he said,' Trump said late Sunday. 'He'll talk so beautifully and then he'll bomb people at night. We don't like that.' Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine's air defenses are struggling to counter. June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said. Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles in June than in the same month last year, it said. At the same time, Russia's bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line. Trump confirmed the U.S. is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defense missiles and that the European Union will pay the U.S. for the 'various pieces of very sophisticated' weaponry. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD While the EU is not allowed under its treaties to buy weapons, EU member countries can and are, just as NATO member countries are buying and sending weapons. Germany has offered to finance two new Patriot systems and is awaiting official talks on the possibility of more, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Germany has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine, and Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with the Financial Times that it now has only six. A top ally of Trump, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict is nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia's full-scale invasion. It's a cause that Trump had previously dismissed as being a waste of U.S. taxpayer money. 'In the coming days, you'll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,' Graham said on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' He added: 'One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there's going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington. 'Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,' Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. 'This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.' NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due in Washington on Monday and Tuesday. He planned to hold talks with Trump, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as members of Congress. Talks during Kellogg's visit to Kyiv will cover 'defense, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protection of our people and enhancing cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,' said the head of Ukraine's presidential office, Andrii Yermak. 'Russia does not want a cease fire. Peace through strength is President Donald Trump's principle, and we support this approach,' Yermak said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Russian troops conducted a combined aerial strike at Shostka, in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine, using glide bombs and drones early Monday morning, killing two people, the regional prosecutor's office said. Four others were injured, including a 7-year-old, it said. Overnight from Sunday to Monday, Russia fired four S-300/400 missiles and 136 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine, the air force said. It said that 61 drones were intercepted and 47 more were either jammed or lost from radars mid-flight. The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defenses downed 11 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions on the border with Ukraine, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.

The Hindu
42 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Kanimozhi calls for spirited checking of voters' list to thwart BJP's plan to have ‘manufactured victory'
Thoothukudi MP Kanimozhi on Monday urged the party cadre to give their best in popularising the DMK government's welfare schemes and checking the voters' list to include genuine voters and delete bogus names since the BJP had successfully employed the strategy in Delhi and Maharashtra fabricating its victory. Addressing a party workers' meeting held at Senkulam near Palayamkottai on Monday, she said several challenges and obstacles for Tamil and Tamils were being created by the BJP-led Union Government. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin was the only person from Tamil Nadu who was questioning the atrocities of the BJP, and the DMK was the only political movement from the State resisting its sinister designs. The ancientness of Tamil was being obliterated by the Union Government and Hindi was being imposed through the Centre's New Education Policy. Even the Central funds were being denied to Tamil Nadu to hamper its development. Hence, 'Oraniyil Tamil Nadu' had been launched to mobilise Tamils under one umbrella to strengthen its resistance. One crore new members had been enrolled in the DMK during the drive. Since each family in Tamil Nadu had received at least one welfare assistance from the government, the DMK had every right to meet the people and seek their support. The DMK men should tell the people about the betrayal of the AIADMK. At the same time, the drive had given the cadre an opportunity to meet the people at their doorstep instead of election eve. Moreover, 'Ungaludan Stalin' would be launched on Tuesday for mobilising all government departments at one place to take the government services closer to the public. The DMK functionaries should facilitate the exercise. Ms. Kanimozhi appealed to the party workers to check the voters' list as the BJP was pinning its hopes on preparing a 'fabricated voters' list' for the Assembly election. 'The DMK men should thwart the attempts of opponents by checking the voters' list. We should be prepared to face these challenges and keep the documents ready for including genuine voters and delete the fake ones. It is necessary for the DMK's victory this time.' During an informal chat with reporters, Ms. Kanimozhi, without naming Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam founder and actor Vijay, said a few actors, who had justified custodial deaths in their movies, were staging a protest against lock-up deaths. 'It is a comedy.'


Indian Express
44 minutes ago
- Indian Express
J&K Deputy CM to Raj Bhavan: Old BJP hand Kavinder Gupta is new Ladakh Lt Governor
Former Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta was appointed the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh on Monday. He replaced Brigadier (retd) B D Mishra, who had been serving as Lt Governor since 2023. No stranger to J&K politics, Gupta has a long association with the RSS, having joined the organisation as a minor. Like many in the RSS, he too was jailed during the Emergency. Gupta was the secretary of the Punjab wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) between 1978-79 and headed the J&K unit of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the BJP's youth wing, from 1993-98. He ventured into politics at the civic level and was Jammu mayor for three consecutive terms between 2005 and 2010. He was also J&K's general secretary for a brief period. He became an MLA after defeating then sitting minister Raman Bhalla from the Gandhinagar seat in the 2014 J&K Assembly polls. After the BJP forged a post-poll alliance with the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and became a part of the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government, Gupta was unanimously elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. He was the first-ever BJP Speaker of the J&K Assembly. After Sayeed's death in April 2016, his daughter Mehbooba Mufti took over the PDP and was sworn in as CM. Gupta graduated from Speaker to deputy CM in April 2018 — but that was short-lived. The BJP ended ties with PDP in June 2018, leading to the collapse of Mufti's government. Following this, when the Assembly was under suspended animation, the Centre abrogated Article 370 in J&K, stripping it of its special status. Gupta has since maintained a low-profile but has remained involved with J&K politics. He has had a brief brush with controversies too in the past. In 2018, while he was Speaker, Gupta blamed the Rohingya community for the terror attack on Sunjwan Army Station. Following protests from the Opposition benches, his remarks were later expunged from the Assembly proceedings. In April 2018, barely hours after taking oath as Deputy CM, Gupta called the gang rape and killing of a minor Bakerwal girl a 'small' thing. 'Such challenges (as the incident) are faced by the government. It should not have been given all this hype… It was a small thing and we have to think over it so that such incidents are not repeated,' he said. In 2020, he described the transfer of state land under the now-scrapped Roshni Act as 'land jihad'. Subsequently, allegations of him allegedly occupying tracts of the J&K Revenue Department's land in Khasra Girdawari had come to light. Gupta has denied these claims.