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The Kashmir valley or Vale of Kashmir is a valley between Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. It is around 135 km long and 32 km wide, formed by the Jhelum River. It was called as "Paradise on Earth" by Jahangir. Currently it has population of around 4 million, mostly Muslim. The valley has access to the rest of India through Banihal Tunnel near Qazigund on NH 1A to Jammu, which is interrupted by snowfall in winter.

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The region is divided among three countries in a territorial dispute: Pakistan controls the northwest portion (Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir), India controls the central and southern portion (Jammu and Kashmir) and Ladakh, and China controls the northeastern portion (Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract). India controls the majority of the Siachen Glacier area including the Saltoro Ridge passes, whereas Pakistan controls the lower territory just southwest of the Saltoro Ridge. India controls 54,571 sq mi of the disputed territory, Pakistan 33,145 sq mi and China, the remaining 14,500 sq mi.

Kashmir's economy is centred around agriculture. Traditionally the staple crop of the valley was rice, which formed the chief food of the people. In addition, Indian corn, wheat, barley and oats were also grown. Given its temperate climate, it is suited for crops like asparagus, artichoke, seakale, broad beans, scarletrunners, beetroot, cauliflower and cabbage. Fruit trees are common in the valley, and the cultivated orchards yield pears, apples, peaches, and cherries.

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This land of spring flowers, also produces quality willow cricket bats, papermache goods, intricate carvings, saffron and silks. Its alpine terrain offers world class hiking and horse trekking, its rivers and streams offer trout and salmon fishing, and the nearby Gulmarg Valley was once India's premier ski resort. Alas, today you don't need the guidebooks' warnings to stay away from this spectacular region, just read the front pages of your newspaper.

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Food can be included, three meals a day if you wish, so squeezing another rupee off the bill could mean the difference between a full cooked English breakfast and a boiled egg. While on board you are the honoured guest, kept safe and sound by the respected host whose best interests are served by your security. They are a haven of peace and tranquillity from the surrounding hardship and misery. Our floating palace was securely anchored to the eastern shore and many times, the sun set in the golden dusty haze of the western sky across a reflective lake. A calm that was often broken by the sound of gunfire when darkness overtook the light.

The houseboat comprised of five main rooms, a master double with en suite and bath, a large bedroom with a double and single bed, dining room and living room. The living room was full of varnished wood and plush red velvet, with subtle shaded lamps on the walls and a stocked library behind the writing desk, all straight out of the 30's. Tea was served twice a day in china cups bought in on a wooden tray. Breakfast was often served on the canvas covered roof, while the veranda was for lazy sunsets and sharing an afternoon or morning 'hookah' or waterpipe of tobacco, with a local shikara [the main form of transportation] paddler.

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The lake -- famed for its brightly hued, ornately carved cedar houseboats bearing names like "New Australia" and "Telaviv" -- has already shrunk by more than half to 11 square kilometres (4.2 square miles) in the past two decades and is becoming choked by weeds. Its depth has decreased by 12 meters (40 feet) in the same period. The pollution is sometimes so bad it turns the normally blue coloured lake into a brackish green as effluent from hotels and houses on the shores is flushed into the lake water.

Ironically it is also the lake's 1,400 houseboats -- which during colonial times housed the British who were forbidden by Kashmir's princely ruler to own land -- that are among the chief offenders in discharging waste into the water.

The government is setting up six sewage treatment areas along the lake that are expected to control pollution to a large extent.

At one time, the region was known as "paradise on earth" for its many lakes and mountains that drew tens of thousands of visitors a year. But in 1989 a revolt against Indian rule erupted and the tourist flow slowed to a trickle as the insurgency has claimed more than 44,000 lives.

Channels that should bring fresh water down from lakes higher up are clogged by refuse. I saw dead animals and birds among the piles of polythene bags.

However, Islamic militants routinely detonate car bombs and attack Indian security posts throughout Kashmir and in Srinagar resulting in an average of three to four people killed daily. But violence has declined compared to two years ago when eight to ten people were killed daily and the area around Dal Lake has remained relatively peaceful.

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The Kashmir Valley is a geological oddity, a long narrow low area surrounded on all sides by snow-covered peaks. And the survival of an ecological system that can support life there is by no means guaranteed. Mr Irfan said that his biggest challenge was global warming. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers is making a fundamental change to the flow of water and threatening the long term future of the lakes.

Government action is too late for many of the houseboats that were once majestic holiday destinations. They have rotted and sunk into the mud. More than 30 owners are now applying to give up their licenses, as they have been living on board their boats in extreme poverty, without the money to do them up.

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The history of development of rug industry in Kashmir was associated with and influenced by the opulent life styles of its RULERS, NOBLES and ARISTOCRATS. The great Mughal Emperors Jahangir and Shahjahan (the later, who built the famous Monument of Love "The Taj Mahal") established a distinctive style in Art and Architecture of that era. The rugs woven during those periods bore the similar motifs, patterns, decorative styles as found in the palaces, monuments and museums!

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Pashmina is the name for the finest Cashmere. Kashmir pashmina is the most original and authentic cashmere. The queen of all wools originated in Kashmir hundreds of years ago. The art of Pashmina making in the Valley of Kashmir is believed to be as old as 3000 years B.C . In the past, only rich and elite had the privilege of enjoying luxurious fabric. It adorned the court of Caesar and was the pride of French queen, Marie Antoinette. Impressed with the unparalleled looks of Kashmir shawl, Emperor Napoleon presented it to Empress Josephine. Kashmir pashminas are the softest and warmest of natural fabrics (after Shahtoosh) mankind has ever known. Shahtoosh, now banned, was also exclusively made in Kashmir. Every summer, Himalayan farmers climb the mountains to comb the fine woolen undercoat from the underbelly of, himalayan mountain goat Chyangra, the Capra Hircus goat which is the source of Pashmina, lives at elevations of 14,500 feet (4,500 meters) and above, where temperatures rarely rise above minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees centigrade) in winter. To survive the freezing environment at 14,000 feet altitude, it grows a unique, incredibly soft pashm, inner coat, six times finer than human hair. Because it is only 14-19 microns in diameter, it cannot be spun by machines, so the wool is hand-woven into cashmere products including shawls, scarves, wraps, throws, stoles etc. for export worldwide. With the coming of summer, the Himalayan goats shed their warm winter coats. Their underbellies are covered with two different types of wool: the fine, soft cashmere and a coarser outer layer. The wool is gathered by local women, who comb it thoroughly to separate the from the thicker, less luxuriant wool. pashmina
Each fibre is about one sixth the width of a human hair, and one shawl requires about 24 ounces of wool, the annual output of about 4 goats. The wool is too delicate for mechanical looms, and must therefore be spun and woven by hand. The techniques for producing fine cashmere products have been handed down through the generations, and sometimes the women in a family have carried out the practice since the days of the Mogul Empire.

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Papier mache involves ornamentation in color over smoothened surfaces built up of paper pulp or sometimes wood, card board or leather. The designs used in Paper mache are very intricate and their application requires a great deal of skill and accuracy. The patterns are painted free hand.. We source our collection of decorative boxes such jewellery or jewelry boxes from Kashmir. Hand-painting on paper Mache boxes is unique to Kashmir artisans. Kashmir artisans have been using this art for centuries and craftsmen pass this skill to other.

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"The world powers now realise that without solving the Kashmir issue, South Asia cannot become the cradle of peace." Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Nawas Sharif. Kashmir has been the cause of two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947. The Kashmir issue becomes a chilly prospect as the two countries enter the nuclear age with such gusto.

A noisy crowd of stick waving women, covered head to toe in black chadors completely blocked the street, and were headed directly towards us. Pulling over swiftly to the side, scattering the chickens and stray dogs, a group of children crowded around us yelling "Go, go back, go. The women make strike."

The women of the Kashmir had had enough. This form of street protest the only way to vent their frustrations at the brutal treatment dished out by the Indian Army. Crackdowns, they were called. The Indian Army would miraculously produce an informer, masked to protect his identity, of course, and entire blocks of residential areas would be emptied onto the street and citizens made to walk past the informer for identification. The unlucky suspected militants were then bludgeoned with rifle butts, in front of women and children. Such an event led to the display of frustration before us.

Since 1992, nothing short of complete independence from the worlds two latest nuclear powers has been demanded by the Pakistani sponsored, Jammu and Kashmiri Liberation Front. And so the three main parties continue to eye each other suspiciously across inhospitable high altitude deserts, and more recently, exchanging artillery fire, with jet fighters and bombers soaring around the Himilayan peaks.

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December 8, 2009 has seen the Kashmiri Intifada completing its twenty years. It was exactly two decades ago that the grassroots uprising was initiated with the abduction of Dr. Rubiya Saeed, daughter of Indian Minister of Home affairs Mufti Saeed , as she emerged from a Hospital in Sri Nagar to return home. With that the volcano of the Kashmiri pent up anger burst with a fury that was staggering in its magnitude and repercussions. The following days witnessed the emergence of dozens of Kashmiri insurgent groups that took up arms to fight the Indian occupying Army. The hatred for the Indian occupation of Kashmir transcended all shades of ideological differences. Authority of the Indian State virtually collapsed. Berlin wall had been destroyed by the will of the people only months ago and the Kashmiri uprising sought to change the status quo that India had so brazenly imposed on the Kashmiri Population with sheer courage of their ideals and conviction. A lot has occurred in the past two decades and the time is ripe to take a stock of the cost and benefits of the upheaval that has transformed Kashmir into a throbbing issue even bringing Afghanistan into the festering equation.

The response by the Indian state was Draconian. It saturated the Kashmiri landscape with the force of bayonet; the high water mark being reached with the presence of seven lacs of Indian soldiers. Draconian laws, like Armed Forces special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) were enacted by the Indian parliament to facilitate untrammeled use of force and freedom from prosecution for committing gravest possible excesses by the Indian Armed Forces. Thus facilitated, the Indian Armed forces began the killing of Kashmiris with an abandon. Troops occupied every nook and corner of cities and hamlets and crisscrossed the forests turning the landscape into a virtual jail. Around one hundred thousand Kashmiris have lost their lives during twenty years of conflict and 8000 � 10000 people have simply vanished after arrest by the security forces. The Indian Armed Forces employ infamous Special Operations Group, an officially patronized band of local collaborators, to perform the dirty job of extra judicial executions. The culture of fake encounters thrives whereby innocent locals are killed and dumped in nameless graves as Pakistani militants and cross border terrorists to enable their killers to claim gallantry awards and promotions.

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Adam Thompson, the designated British High Commissioner to Pakistan, has said that resolution of Kashmir issue is important for peace in South Asia and both Pakistan and India need to talk to each other in order to find an acceptable solution, maintaining that Britain is ready to mediate over the issue if the two countries deem it fit

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