Pressenza speaks with our own correspondent on the Jammu side of the Jammu-Kashmir region, Shilpa Thakur, who gained an honourable mention at the Ashok Sodhi Memorials Awards for the best photography 2015, organised by the Press Club of Jammu. We republish the award winning photo here.

Pressenza: What is your take on the situation across Jammu-Kashmir?

Shilpa Thakur: Definitely the situation in Kashmir is not normal, it can be considered as a Cold War. Some are struggling for their land rights, some for their rights in general, some for justice and some for their freedom. All-together chaos is definitely present.

Pressenza: Are you on one particular ‘side of the fence’?

Shilpa Thakur: Being a journalist I am not on any particular side of any fence, all countries are on the same earth, all humans are equal. But the worst thing about the present scenario is that common people on both sides of the fence are being encouraged into hatred of the other, and their innocence is being misused by their false representatives.

Pressenza: Can anyone be objective and is their a solution where all sides win?

Shilpa Thakur: As an Indian I must confess that instead of blaming the other side, we must close our own loop holes and try to make a more emphatic bilateral communications link-up between the two countries [India-Pakistan].

Pressenza: Can you suggest a way out or a way of resolution?

Shilpa Thakur: There is only one solution whereby no one gets offended and where all sides win. That is, a healthy bilateral communicating environment. Just like friends break-up sometime but when they are together and talking, issues resolve themselves.

Pressenza: What needs doing immediately?

Shilpa Thakur: Besides law and order being normalised, I think making people on both sides aware that wrong information is being passed to them by their false representatives, and that could be an immediate course of action; this action may not affect the situation immediately but I think it would be the most effective one over the shortest time.

Pressenza: Thanks for your co-operation here, congratulations again, and do continue your good work.

 

To view the original article where the award winning photo was published go to: 

http://www.pressenza.com/2015/08/jammu-kashmir-lockdown-over-so-called-independence-day/