Nirvana!

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) , also known as The UN Refugee Agency observes 20th of June every year as ‘ World Refugee Day ’.  The mandate of the UNHCR is to ‘provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them’. The UNHCR proudly claims that it has won the Nobel Peace prize twice in 1954 and 1981. Such an organization which has a lofty mandate and has won several awards including the Nobel peace prize has somehow chose to ignore the plight of more than 2 million refugees of various denominations in Jammu & Kashmir who are living a life of penury in despicable conditions for the past several decades.  Neither has the organization raised the issue in its reports nor has it intervened with the concerned governments to address their plight and repatriate them.   UNHCR State of the Global refugees 2012 report released this month does not even mention the...

Jammu and Kashmir - A Presentation View more presentations from pvaidyaraj .

I had the privilege of attending the conference on ‘POK and Northern Areas’ at Indian International Centre, New Delhi on the 22nd of Feb, 2012 organized by the Centre for Security and Strategy. It was a august gathering of the best minds on POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) and Northern Areas (Gilgit & Baltistan). Hence I was witness to the most erudite deliberations on the past, present and the future of POK vis-a-vis India. A follow up session was held on the 23rd Feb at the ‘ Deenadayal Shodh Sansthan ’. It was during these two days I had the opportunity to converse with a array of dignitaries who were privy to the happenings in J&K and particularly the POK. What I present below is a excerpt of the informal conversations I had with various dignitaries, who I think represent a section of the stakeholders of the POK issue that is plaguing India. My intention in presenting this set of conversations is to convey the sentiments, importance and the way forward of the POK iss...