China’s virtual Canton Fair

The oldest, largest, and most representative trade fair in China.

This year’s Canton Fair will be held online. The China Import and Export Fair, commonly known as the Canton Fair will launch its 128th session online for 10 days between October 15 and 24. The Canton Fair is a trade fair held in the spring and autumn seasons each year since the spring of 1957 in the city of Canton (Guangdong), China. It is the oldest, largest, and most representative trade fair in China. It is the second time that the fair has moved online this year since the COVID-19 outbreak. The previous online session was held in June.

in the spring of1957, the first Chinese Export Commodities Fair in Guangzhou emerged as Canton Fair with 13 exhibitors, showing more than 10,000 kinds of commodities. There were 19 countries, and 1223 buyers region, mainly from the USA, Europe, Russia,India and other china mainland like Hong Kong and Macao, Taiwan, Canton. The fair’s first year turnover was $ 86,570,000, accounting for 20% of the year’s total national income in cash.

The fair’s first year turnover was $ 86,570,000, accounting for 20% of the year’s total national income in cash.

The first Online Canton Fair promoted the development of international trade and further opened up cooperation for businesses during an unprecedented and challenging time. The virtual format will continue with the 128th Canton Fair, which will fully leverage the trade fair’s comprehensive new digital platform to foster the stable, healthy development of foreign trade under the “new normal” and facilitate the smooth flow of the global supply chain.

Powered by cloud computing and artificial intelligence, 128th Canton Fair’s will better support online product promotion and business negotiations with the launch of a virtual exhibition hall, scene simulations and online business card exchanges, new booth display formats, and fast intelligent search.

Powered by cloud computing and artificial intelligence

Powered by cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the 128th Online Canton Fair’s online international trade platform will better support online product promotion and business negotiations with the launch of a virtual exhibition hall, scene simulations and online business card exchanges, new booth display formats, and fast intelligent search.

25000 businesses to attend Canton Fair

About 25,000 enterprises from China and abroad will attend this year’s Canton Fair,  according to China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC). The fair will be hosting 50 exhibition areas for 16 categories of products. The MOC said the exhibition fees will be waived in order to help enterprises explore the international market and boost business confidence. Canton Fair is seen as an important barometer of China’s foreign trade. The 127th session in June drew nearly 26,000 domestic and foreign enterprises, with 1.8 million products exhibited.

Exhibitors can showcase their products online via the platform using a variety of digital formats, such as photos, videos, 3D displays, VR booths, or a multi-platform display template. Buyers and partners can use the instant online messaging tools with real-time translation for seamless communication, or schedule online meetings using video, audio, or text message.

Exhibitors can showcase their products online via the platform using a variety of digital formats, such as photos, videos, 3D displays, VR booths, or a multi-platform display template. Buyers and partners can use the instant online messaging tools with real-time translation for seamless communication, or schedule online meetings using video, audio, or text message.

How to sign up for the Canton Fair

To get into the fair, you’ll first need to register.  Remember the registration is free of charge. To register online click here. Your application will be approved within 3 business days. You must obtain your Buyer Entry Badge(IC Card). Note that registering is free (so long as you don’t have a Chinese passport, in which case you’ll have to pay 300 Yuan each day!). One last bit of advice: remember to bring your passport with you since it is necessary for entering the fair.

Exclusive Financial Services Providers

China Foreign Trade Centre has worked with large financial institutions to build an all-weather online banking system for 128th Canton Fair. With the system, exhibitors and buyers are provided with dedicated financial products and services such as international settlement, online financing and trade financing, as well as insurance, logistics, customs and other supporting services. The financial services providers include Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Life, CGB, PINGAN Bank, ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, The Export Import Bank of China and China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation.

Success Stories of the 127^th Canton Fair

Nearly 26,000 domestic and overseas exhibitors uploaded numerous products in text, picture, video and 3D format, showing more smart, high-tech products and those with self marketing and self-owned IP and brands. The feast of products attracted global buyers to attend.

Nearly 26,000 domestic and overseas exhibitors uploaded numerous products in text, picture, video and 3D format, showing more smart, high-tech products and those with self marketing and self-owned IP and brands. The feast of products attracted global buyers to attend.

Live Streaming, Virtual Contract Signing, online product launches

Live streaming marketing was popular and widely participated. Overseas buyers can schedule negotiation appointment, initiate instant messaging or post sourcing request. Meanwhile, the trade negotiation environment of mutual trust of the physical exhibition has been duplicated to enhance both parties’ trust and negotiating and sourcing efficiency, which was applauded by buyers.

Various supporting activities were held during this session, including 24 Promotion on Cloud events for global buyers, 5 virtual signing ceremony of trade contracts, and 64 product launch activities by 58 leading enterprises of 20 trading delegations.

Customised products from leading financial services provides

During the 127th Fair, the Financial Services providers customized exclusive products with higher line of credit, lower settlement rate and more convenient financing channel. An online-offline integrated complaint handling model was built to ensure the protection of IPR. China’s 105 Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zones displayed the vigor of cross-border e-commerce development. 6 cross-border e-commerce platforms linked to Canton Fair’s website received wide attention and visits.

Kashmir apple shipments repeatedly stopped by Indian authorities

To see the fruit of one’s labour rotting away in a truck, and then the spoiled fruit being sold at the price of scrap, is a punishment that thousands of Kashmiris are undergoing for no fault of theirs. Some of this punishment they could accept as fate, as when landslides and inclement weather shut down the highway, but not when the trucks carrying the fruit are stopped “unnecessarily” by the authorities.

It is a complaint and a lament that is being voiced by fruit growers and traders in Kashmir for many days now, especially this year.
Wasim Ahmad Teli, a trader, told Kashmir Reader that this year he has only sustained losses. Five of his fruit trucks were stopped on the highway for three days, he said. “The apple must reach the market on time. If they stop it even for a day, it fetches less price than what we pay to the growers. In addition to that, we are forced to pay toll taxes and transportation charges from our own pockets,” Teli said.
Another trader who was accompanying Waseem said that one of his fruit trucks took three days to reach Udhampur from Qazigund. “It’s the responsibility of the government to facilitate smooth movement of fruit trucks. If the situation remains the same, there will definitely be huge losses to the traders,” he said.

Traders here in Shopian say that all the trucks are halted to allow other traffic, so when they are allowed to move, it invariably creates a logjam, further delaying the fruits from reaching the market. The fruit then has to be sold at lesser rates as either it arrives in bulk at once, or has become so spoiled in the heat that no one considers it worth buying.
Gopal Das, the chief executive officer of a Delhi-based trading firm, told Kashmir Reader that the trucks from
Kashmir reach the market with weeks’ delay. “We heard that it is happening due to some traffic jam. Once all the trucks together reach the market, it affects the price of fruit due to supply being much more than demand,” he said, adding that fresh fruit gets better rates compared to that which gets spoiled on the way due to heat.
The president of the fruit mandi at Aglar, Shopian, Mohammad Ashraf said that his association has suggested the government to use the Mughal Road for movement of empty trucks, to avoid traffic jam on the national highway (NH-44). “We were told this morning that more than 2,700 trucks have reached the Delhi market together. Now what will happen with that fruit, when there is demand of only 500-600 such trucks,” he said.
On Tuesday, fruit growers and traders at the Sopore fruit mandi even staged a protest against the stopping of trucks by the authorities.
Ashraf said that the authorities must keep in mind that the highway frequently gets closed due to landslides and inclement weather. “They are stopping trucks even in normal weather these days,” he said.
Growers say that when the trucks are stopped under direct sunlight, the heat spoils the apples quickly. “There is already high temperature and the polythene sheets used on trucks to cover the fruit add to the heat. It spoils the fruit from inside,” said Showkat Ahmad, a grower.
They said that all this is being done when the government knows well what kind of crisis the apple industry is going through in Kashmir.
Ahmad said that he sent a truckload of apple to Delhi which reached there with five days’ delay. “When the Delhi trader sent me photos of my apple, I was stunned to see its condition. It was all because of the five days of unnecessary halting of the trucks by the authorities,” he said.
Ashraf told Kashmir Reader that the issue has been brought to the notice of the horticulture department as well as of the traffic police. “We have been assured of hassle-free movement. Let’s hope for best,” he said.

Source : Kashmir Reader

Weaving to earn and save Kashmir’s culture

Zubair Sofi

From hobby to a business, Najam Qari, a 28-year-old businesswoman has turned crocheting into successful entrepreneurship, building up a team of nine women and selling her products online as well as offline.

Born in a joint family, Najam learned the art of crocheting, which has nowadays become a rare art in Kashmir, from her grandmother Shams-Un-Nisa when she was in the fifth standard.

The colorful threads of crochet caught Najam’s interest and she used to spend hours with Nisa, learning the art. A quick learner, she mastered many patterns and designs. “Dadi would teach me different patterns. I like the art and eventually, it became my hobby,” she said.

Her interest in the art meant that she continued practicing to improve her skills all through her schooling years. In 2007, after her 10th standard, she joined a three-year diploma course in computer science at SSM College of Science and Technology almost 33 kilometers from her house in Zakoora located on the outskirts of Srinagar.

She would keep an extra pair of needles and threads in her bag and while travelling to college she would keep weaving different types of baby dresses, hoods, cowls, and gloves. Even though Najam’s mentor and master Nisa passed away in 2009, she kept the art alive.

She would wake up early morning to make a proper timetable of her day, from helping her mother in kitchen to attending college, while sparing time for crocheting as well.

After Nisa, Najam’s aunt became her teacher and taught her tougher designs. “There were many forms of designs which took me time to learn but I didn’t give up, I kept trying and ultimately I mastered them,” she said.

While in college Najam would play with colours designing websites, at home, she would play with the colourful threads and needles, the only difference was that one was virtual and the other, practical.

In 2012, she finished her diploma and started freelancing for many organisations providing web-designing services. She continued freelancing for three years. In January 2015, she joined an organisation for a salary of nine thousand per month.

Her office was located in Gogi Bagh in Srinagar, at a distance of 19 kilometres from her home. Local transport was available only to the center of city, from where she had to walk five kilometres everyday to reach her office. “Due to walking 10 kilometres a day, I grew physically weak and I was not able to focus on any other work. I had to work from home even on Sundays,” said Najam.

Even within this hectic and tight schedule, she would spare time for her passion “crocheting”. Continuing her job for a year, in December, she decided to quit her job and start her own business. “I had woven a hood for my elder brother, his friends liked it and placed orders. So, I finally decided to start my business of crochet,” she said with a smile on her face.

In the beginning, she made mufflers, gloves, cushion covers, TV covers, socks and tried to make her designs better and make them more attractive. Her patrons were her relatives, friends and neighbours who made her business known in her locality.

Internet to the Rescue

With the help of internet, she learnt several new designs talking to a number of designers on social media. She learnt multiple Turkish designs and kept translating every step to English and kept those translations properly organise. She didn’t stop there, she even learnt Spanish and many other European styles and patterns in crochet.

Initially, her family used to ask her to apply for jobs as the income from crocheting wasn’t enough. But with her hard work and passion, Najam made her products different and attractive, which impressed people and she started receiving orders from faraway places.

Najam created an Instagram page under the name of Craft Cart in 2016 and posted her work there. People would appreciate her work and she stared receiving orders from different parts of Kashmir.

But during the longest internet ban in Kashmir history which was imposed by the government soon after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, Najam underwent a lot of problem in managing her business. Her internet-based work was highly affected as there were massive reductions in orders. Even now, internet bans- which have become a routine affair in Kashmir- have a bad impact on her business.

Introducing new designs of other cultures and countries was tough for Najam, as she required different types of needles which were not available in the Indian markets. Eventually, she was able to order these online from various international sites. “I would contact designers on Instagram and ask them to teach me the use of these implements,” she recalled.

She came up with new experiments and created shrugs, sweaters, coats, bags to carry babies, jewellery and much more.

Starting the Business

Najam received many more orders than she expected. People also approached her and asked to teach them this art. “Other girls showed interest in this art, I warmly welcomed them. Not only girls, I trained a few of housewives as well,” she said. After finishing their training, she offered them a chance to work with her to which they happily agreed.

Najam decided to pay them per product and they chained together for major projects. Her mother Tanseem Kounsar has supported her entrepreneurial efforts all along.

Najam and her team, through their efforts are now earning enough to manage their personal and family expenses. She is the first entrepreneur in her family and she is not only working to earn but has made equal efforts to teach crochet to others. She has managed to revive and sustain this once famous Kashmiri traditional craft, even in the age of machine-made modern apparel.

Her room is an institution, showroom, office and a workshop, where shelves are occupied with different crochet items, note books with design translations from different countries and records of orders.

With the growing issue of unemployment, Najam believes that not just the art of crochet but different arts which make Kashmir culturally rich can help people to earn handsome amounts.

Nighat Shafi Pandit, who since 1997 through her organisation, Help Foundation, has been addressing the pain and trauma of women in Kashmir caught up in conflict and family problems, feels that even though there has been an increase from 30 to 70 per cent in working women over the last 20-30 years, they still face harassment both at work and at home. She said, “Working women, especially those who want to start a business, face hurdles not only at home but also in banks specially while securing loans. Then there is corruption and nepotism which makes it difficult. In spite of more women getting educated and working they still have to face the ‘man’s world’ which essentially stems from insecurities men have with the idea of women working. Not just in offices, women are working very hard in the villages, in the fields but their work goes unappreciated.”

Source: NewsClick

AJK President terms CPEC a win-win project

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a win-win project for both Pakistan and China; and is a reflection of the strong relationship between the two friendly countries, Sardar Masood Khan, the president of Azad Jammu & Kashmir State said in Kotli, AJK.
The AJK president made these remarks while addressing a seminar titled “CPEC and Azad Jammu Kashmir” organised by the University of Kotli on Monday. The event was the part of a series of seminars to be held at public-sector universities of AJK to highlight the opportunities and the challenges of the CPEC.
Sardar said that Kotli University has taken a positive initiative in arranging the seminar on CPEC, and would act as a catalyst for further research. The president said that CPEC was not a stand-alone project but is, in fact, a part of the One Belt and One Road Initiative. He said that almost 65 countries including Pakistan are part of BRI which was aimed at global economic connectivity across the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.
Highlighting the prospects of CPEC, he said that the project was not to be considered as a substitute for Pakistan’s overall economic progress but rather a huge catalyst helping evolve and develop the national economy. Pakistan, he said, was an emerging economy, well on its way to becoming one of the leading economies in the next three decades.
Underscoring the importance of geopolitical stability through enhancing economic and commercial activities, Masood said that CPEC and the BRI were initiatives structured around inclusiveness which would be instrumental for connectivity, productivity and promoting conducive circumstances for prosperity and building peaceful neighbourhoods.
He said that under the CPEC project, Pakistan and China would in the medium-to-long run explore and expand the cooperation fields to financial services, science and technology, tourism, education, poverty elimination and city planning, to meet the demands of deepening and promoting substantive cooperation between the two countries. He also brushed aside all the apprehensions connected to CPEC being China’s plan for colonisation.
The president said that Azad Kashmir had been included as a key region for CPEC with multiple projects for highway linkages, energy generation and establishing an industrial estate would help revive local economy making it into an ideal location for business and tourism activity.
The AJK president said that with the formal inclusion of Azad Kashmir in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, four projects had exclusively been earmarked for the region which includes Karot (720 MW), Kohala (1124 MW) Hydro-power projects, Special Industrial Zone in Mirpur and the Mansehra-Mirpur Expressway.
He said that CPEC would generate thousands of new jobs in specialised fields like logistics, supply chain management, hydraulics, artificial intelligence and other post-modern subjects. He urged the students to understand and adapt to the upcoming challenges, especially in the ever-changing job market.
CPEC’s projects in AJK, he said, would also help promote national and international investors to the region. He said that an economic revolution is unfolding in Azad Kashmir, led by the present government’s transformative initiatives towards building new roads, energy production, health, industry, agriculture, promotion of tourism and telecommunications.
The president stressed a need to address the potential prospects of CPEC by adapting to the change and increasing our absorptive capacity. He said it could be achieved by the efficient and equitable allocation of resources by heavily investing in human and organisational development. He added, “We must innovate and strive for technological advancements in order to fully exploit the opportunities that CPEC will bring to the region.”
The seminar was attended by eminent figures including a large number of researchers, scholars, faculty member and students from various departments of the university. After the event, the president also inaugurated the newly built Administration Block at the university campus.

News Source: The Nation 

For Uighur exiles, Kashmir is heaven

A second and third generation far removed from their Chinese homeland find a home in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mohammad Abdullah and his family estimate that fewer than 30 Uighur families still live in India [Sunaina Kumar
Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir.; On a wintry November morning in Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, Mohammad Abdullah sits on the carpeted floor in his living room, with a black and white portrait of his father, Haji Abdullah Karem, hanging on the waMy father was among the last Silk Route traders, says Abdullah. Karem, an ethnic Uighur Muslim from the Chinese province of Xinjiang, would undertake the perilous mountainous route that stretches from Kashgar to Ladakh through the Karakoram mountain pass that divides.
Abdullah says his forefathers had trekked the same route, travelling in caravans on top of horses and double-humped camels, stopping at the sarais – resting stations for travellers – on the way, bartering silk, spices and pashmina fine cashmere wool.

One such journey to Ladakh in the 1940s would turn fateful when Karem could not return home after the People’s Republic of China took over Xinjiang in 1949. The Communist government blocked the mountain pass, eventually choking off trade.

Karem had left behind a wife and a young son whom he would never see again, said Abdullah, adding that his father lived out the rest of his life in India, married a local Ladakhi woman and fathered four sons and four daughters.
Abdullah, 60, who works for the regional government, lives with his family members in the Rajbagh area of Srinagar, which has remained untouched by the months of deadly anti-India protests that gripped the Muslim-majority Himalayan region.

A cluster of identical houses built in the traditional Kashmiri style with low-hanging roofs and a wooden exterior is occupied by his brothers and extended family.”

In 2014, a devastating flood ravaged Srinagar. Their house, along with others, was not spared. The deluge swept away precious memories, but they managed to save Karem’s original passport issued by the Republic of China, along with a woollen Khotan traditional rug and a copper vessel used by the caravan on the Silk Road to cook mantou steamed dumplings, both of which have been in the family’s possessions for nearly two centuries.

Of all his brothers and sisters, Abdullah is the one the most in touch with his Uighur heritage. For most of the family, it was a matter of surprise that their Uighur heritage could evoke curiosity.
“In our hearts we are as Indian as can be. Although, we would really like to visit Xinjiang once to see our ancestral land,” says Abdullah’s son, 32-year-old Wasim. He spends part of the year in Leh, where he is building a resort, and part of it in Srinagar.
But with renewed hostility between India and China and the crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, there is little possibility of procuring a visa, though both sides of the family have been trying for a few years.

Seven years ago, Abdullah made his first visit to Hotan in Xinjiang to meet his half-brother.

Abdullah’s dialect is a mix of Urdu, Ladakhi and Kashmiri, with a sprinkling of Uighur words that trace their origin to the Turkish language. Before visiting his brother, he worked on learning the language he inherited from his father and he thinks that he is now one of the only two Uighur language speakers in India.
<“All the people that I met in Xinjiang wanted the freedom we have in India. The sort of protests we see in Kashmir would not be possible there at all. Most of the Uighur community is disengaged from both the Kashmiri separatist movement and the Uighur cause. As second and third generation Uighurs who have grown up in India, the Uighur cause is too far removed, and as refugees who found a home here, they are non-critical of the state. Abdullah though, has taken up the cause of three Uighur men who have been held in jail in Ladakh after crossing over illegally into India three years ago. “They landed without a visa, with the hope of reaching Mumbai to meet [Bollywood star] Shah Rukh Khan and become rich like Indian movie stars,” says Abdullah shaking his head, his expression a blend of amusement and concern. The Uighur community in India is not large and mostly second and third generation citizens whose parents or grandparents came here as refugees. Those who spoke with Al Jazeera estimate that there are less than 30 families located mainly in Leh, Kargil and Srinagar. >For most people, even in Kashmir, it is a revelation that people of Uighur origin live in India at all, as they are often mistaken for people from Ladakh or Tibet with similar facial features.

;”>”Kashmir has a long history of trans-Himalayan migration, because of its connection to the Silk Route,” said Abid Ahmed, editor at the cultural institution, Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, in Srinagar. The best documented of these migrations is that of the Tibetan Muslims of Srinagar, who settled in Kashmir after the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

The Uighurs came in two waves. In the first, they came through trade and cultural exchanges between India and China. Most Uighurs, who came during the 1930s and 1940s, were traders and stayed behind in India after China clamped down on independence movements from the province.

Mohammad Rahim, 58, works as a construction contractor in Srinagar and Leh, the capital of Ladakh. His father Haji Abdul Rahim was from the Uighur town of Karghilik and settled in India in the 1940s.

Rahim’s mother is from Ladakh and he himself has married a Ladakhi. “I try to keep the Uighur culture alive for my children, but it is not easy,” he says, with a tiny shrug.

He acknowledges a sense of loss. “The only thing we have preserved is the Uighur food which we eat on special occasions, laghman [pulled noodles] and polo [rice pilaf].”
An Uighur feast is prepared at the home of Mohammad Abdullah.
The second wave of nearly 1,000 Uighur refugees arrived in India to escape the communist regime in 1949.
The Indian government initially hosted them, but after increasing pressure from Beijing, refused to provide them with asylum.
American politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson visits Uighur refugees at Yarkand Sarai in Srinagar in 1951. On the left, Isa Yusuf Alptekin, political leader who fled the communist regime and settled in India for a few years with a group of Uighur exiles [Photo courtesy of Erkin Altekin]
They appealed to Saudi Arabia and Egypt first, each of which turned them away, until they found refuge in Turkey.
Erkin Alptekin, a Uighur nationalist and the son of Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who was 10 years old at the time, recalls the flight to India.
“It was a hard trip. There were no streets. The highest mountain passages in the world are here. Sometimes you had to sit for hours in the snow and wait for the fog to dissolve,” he told Al Jazeera in an email.
<“We were warned not to fall asleep, because the body loses heat and then one dies.” ;”>The journey took them nearly a month and a half, during which his sister succumbed to frostbite.
“When we met human civilisation in Ladakh, in Kashmir, we thought as children that we were in paradise on earth,” said Alptekin, who currently lives in Germany, where he runs World Uyghur Congress, an organisation of exiled Uighurs and is one of the most well-known activists for Uighur independence.
Alptekin’s family found a temporary home at Yarkand Sarai, in Srinagar – once a rest house and an international trading hub for traders from Central Asia – Yarkand, Samarkand, Kazakhstan, Bukhara – and Gilgit which is located in Pakistan. So popular was the trading route that Central Asian people are still widely referred to as Yarkandi in Kashmir.

The sarai, which local historians date to the late 19th century, had been lying desolate following the end of the Silk Route trade until it became the home of the political exiles of 1949.

“When we arrived in Srinagar, there were a couple of older Uighur families already living in that area,” said Alptekin, who visited Yarkand Sarai again last year.

The ramshackle exterior of Yarkand Sarai, a closed set of buildings with small houses that overlook the River Jhelum in downtown Srinagar, gives no evidence of its storied past as a flourishing centre.

Across the street on a small patch of land sheltered under a shrine, sits a graveyard where the Uighur people of Srinagar are buried.

Abdul Hakim’s family is one of the two Uighur families still living near the cemetery. His father, who was from Karghilik, traded in carpets and settled in Kashmir in the 1940s.

He, too, had a family from which he was separated across the border. He talked over the phone from Ladakh where he was visiting his relatives. “I heard from my mother that he had two children there and a wife and brothers and sisters and he could never meet any of them again,” says Hakim, who works with the state police department.

Livestock Development in Kashmir

Dr. Tarun Kumar Sarkar // In Jammu and Kashmir the cattle population is more than 3 million and the State produces around 64 lakh MT of green fodder and 35 lakh MT of dry fodder. Despite availability of natural pastures the State is 67% deficit in green fodder and 27.31% in dry fodder.  

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The per capita availability of milk is 378 gm as compared to 937 gms in Punjab. To mitigate the fodder deficit there is need to divert policy towards development of breed having high milk yielding capacity and less body weight so that the fodder requirement can be minimized.

The Jersey breed is most suitable for Kashmir valley having high milk yielding capacity and less body weight. Whereas, Holstein Friesian (HF) is a giant breed, needs more fodder requirement to rear.

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Milk specific gravity of HF is less as compared with Jersey having 3.5 vs 5.5 fat %. Keeping in above facts Mountain Livestock Research Institute, Manasbal has adopted a practice to produce elite Jersey germplasm having lactation yield of 5500-6000 lt by using USA Jersey frozen semen with sire dam’s yield 8500-9000 kg. Additionally, Livestock Development Board Kashmir has initiated to procure the Jersey bull from MLRI Manasbal in order to supply frozen semen to different AI centers to Kashmir region.

In Kashmir region the farmers are providing mainly unchaffed paddy straw/oat hay during winter without Urea-molasses fortification. Due to provision of unchaffed hay/straw to livestock, 20-30% wastage are mixed with faeces and they are not decomposed with farm yard manure and by using them in agricultural field the fertility of soil is not reached upto the satisfactory level. Dairy farmers should establish vermicompost unit with their Dairy farming to make these fully decompose. Vermicomposting is emerging as profitable business and without this section, Dairy farming along can not be flourished.

 In chaffed straw the palatability and digestibility is higher as compared with unchaffed straw. The digestible crude protein in paddy straw is zero so it needs scientific fortification with Urea-molasses to enhance nutritive value.

The farmers are not aware how to prepare compound mash feed at their own level, they are only providing wheat bran and rice bran to their cattle/sheep without mixing of other ingredients in a balanced proportionate like mustard oil cake/ground nut cake, maize, De oiled rice bran, molasses, mineral mixture, iodized salt, yeast etc., as a result the productivity of these animals are not reaching as per their genetic potential.

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Most of the Dairy farmers in valley are not providing the maintenance ration to their cattle from April-September except grazing, even in case of lactating cattle. This traditional practice need to be shifted towards scientific feeding. In Kashmir region farmers only depend on hay for winter feeding without any awareness about silage. Rabi hay production needs sunny weather but in April months always there is disturbance of rains. In silage, the green fodder is preserved anerobically by adding minimum 0.5-1% iodized salt and it does not require any extra precautionary measures. All the developed countries in World have adopted scientific silage feeding because of high nutritive value as compared with hay.

The farmers are cultivating oat as a Rabi fodder crop for hay making. Oat is mainly energy source fodder and it has limitation to enhance productivity. There is need to adopt grass (carbohydrate)-legume (protein) Rabi crops association like oats+Vetch combination to enhance productivity.

Farmers have not adopted multicut legume Rabi crop like berseem and multicut Kharif crop like Bajra. Most farmers in valley have not adopted scientific perennial energy and legume combination fodder cultivation in their fruit garden as a result livestock are not getting quality fodder.

There is ample scope for development of Horti-pastoral (Fruit + Fodder crops) systems in Kashmir valley by adopting high biomass perennial legumes like Red clover and Alfalfa in association with perennial high biomass energy sources like Tall fescue and Orchard grasses.

The sorghum (M.P. Chari variety) in combination with cowpea fodder cultivation have been neglected but these energy and legume combination are most suitable for valley. Further, sorghum is more draught resistant crop as compared with maize fodder and it remains green upto ending October.

To mitigate the demand of mutton consumption on daily basis about 3000-3500 sheep are being procured mainly from Rajasthan due to deficit of 73.20% mutton production in valley. For sustainable mutton production there is need to disseminate the ovine Booroola fecundity gene in Kashmiri sheep for twin (double) lambing to increase the sheep population vertically, otherwise the demand for mutton will never be fulfilled.

Australia imported the Garole sheep (ovine Booroola fecundity gene carrier) during 18th Century from South 24 Parganas, West Bengal and since then the twine lambing has been maintaining in Australian sheep scientifically without deviation from wool quality and mutton production.

On daily basis valley is procuring about 1.5-2 lakhs broiler from Punjab, Haryana and other nearer states to mitigate the demand of chicken consumption and the business market is mainly captured by Punjab and Haryana based enterprises.

In Kashmir very limited systematic broiler farms are available where the parent broiler stock is maintained. The small scale farmers are procuring day old chicks mainly from out side of valley for rearing.

Broiler industry has tremendous future for employment generation if Government Organization at sub-divisional levels should take responsibility to maintain parent broiler stock with hatching facilities and shall initiate the distribution of day old chicks among unemployed youth to start broiler farming. The European countries, USA and Canada are facing more sub-normal temperature during winter season than Kashmir valley even then they are masters in dairy sectors, sheep farming and broiler industries. In Kashmir valley during winter seasons all these sectors are in paralysis mode and running on loss. The matter should be resolved by fulfilling all lacunas through concrete steps on priority basis. The state of Jammu and Kashmir brings mutton, milk and poultry worth Rs 16000 crores annually from different states. In one hand valley is earning money by exporting fruits to other states but at the same time all the money earned is being spent to procure sheep and chicken from outside states. To mitigate the demand of mutton and chicken the sheep and broiler are procured mainly from other states covering a distance of 500-1000 km. Due to transportation stress there is accumulation of toxic metabolites and cytokines in their body. When these animals are slaughtered without any rest period there is every possibility of human health hazards like depression, anxiety, blood pressure, gout, cancerous diseases etc.

 

In Kashmir valley there are only few small scale milk processing plants are producing pasteurized milk and curd to nourish the local population which is insufficient. Dairy processing plant has tremendous future for employment generation. There is need of Mega dairy processing plant at Divisional level that can encourage the farmers to rear more high producing dairy cows because of better marketing of fluid milk disposal. Gradually, the dairy sector in valley will become organized and once a time like Amul in Gujarat, the Kashmiri Dairy products including milk powder shall flourish and will capture the market outside of the state.

In valley about 2.5-3 lakh broiler and about 8000 small and large ruminants are slaughtered on daily basis and the huge quantities of wastes and by-products are generated. These are causing environmental pollution and health hazards, attract flies and harbours multifarious microbes of pathogenic nature. These by-products can act as a source of energy, livestock feed, fertilizer, liming components for soil collagen, gelatine and calcium. After suitable processing, poultry by-products can be converted into feather meal, hydrolized feather meal and poultry by-product meal. The leather industries in valley has not developed even though on daily basis huge numbers of hides are collected and these raw hides mixing with salt are transported to different tanneries and leather factories out side of state for making different products like jacket, shoes, wallets, purses, belts etc. and the valley is loosing income generation in this sector.

What can be done is frank admission of our failure to focus on the basics, and unfortunate tendency to hide inconvenient facts. The practical real data in the grass root level should not be hided or fabricated to satisfy the superiors or State Ministers. The Directors/ Deans/ concerned Head of the Departments of SKUAST-Kashmir need to divert more of their research work towards applied side. There is need of more coordination between scientists and the developmental Departments. A will to make the difference can help move us towards self reliance in livestock sector and create thousands of jobs in the process while saving billions annually to State exchequer.  The myth is J & K has to keep begging and the reality is it needn’t and if we plug leaks and gear up, it will not.

Author is Senior Scientist (PB-IV) Incharge Mountain Livestock Research Institute, SKUAST-Kashmir 

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Source: Daily Greater Kashmir ( http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/story/245100.html)

A brutal history of tax collection in Kashmir

By M.I.Mazhar

The history of tax collection in Kashmir is not just thought-provoking; it is a symbolic account of an immoral, brutal, and corrupt revenue collection system that was built hundreds of years ago, and is still functioning in various forms.

The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir came into existence in March 1846 with the signing of the Treaty of Amritsar between the East India Company and the Dogra Raja of Jammu.

The British established their control over the political and economic administration of the state by posting their officials.

In fact, after setting up the residency in 1885, the British directly intervened in the running of the tax and revenue affairs of the princely state.

Before the arrival of the Dogra’s, the people of Kashmir had witnessed various rulers and dynasties as well as undergone numerous phases of state formation and revenue generation.

The practice of land grants to a few families in exchange for loyalty and support continued through the centuries.

The rulers generated resources by levying several taxes besides collecting land revenue from cultivators.

Details about the volume of land revenue collected are not available for the early medieval period.

The current revenue collection system in Kashmir evolved as early as the Mughal period in Kashmir.

To maintain economic and political stability in the state, Emperor Akbar sent a five-member team in 1589 to formulate the pattern of land revenue assessment and to determine the nature and volume of the collection.

Thus, a detailed report about the nature of the land, its classification, production, and appropriation was prepared.

Several revenue collection departments, officials, and agencies established by Mughal emperors about 300 years ago still exist in all parts of modern Kashmir.

For instance, this was the Mughal era when revenue administration was thoroughly reorganized by with the creation of positions such as patwari, tahsildar, amil, fotedar, munsif, qanungo, Chaudhry, dewan, and others.

In today’s revenue collection systems, patwaris and tehsildars work amicably with the database administrators, and there exists no conflict of interest.

The interest of all official revenue collection agencies in Kashmir was linked with the state exchequer in times of Maharaja and it continues to serve the state governments on both sides of the Line of Control today.

Hundreds of years ago, the revenue generation in Kashmir was based on activities related to agriculture, village manufacturing, and wood carving, weaving of woolen cloth, basket making, papier machie, silver and copper work, shawl and carpet making, leather furs.

And the land taxes, both in kind and cash, formed a vital component of the revenue.

After the Mughal period, the Afghan, Sikh, and Dogra rulers retained with minor variations, the practice of land grants and the old system of revenue generation.

Jagirdars imposed various levies and taxes on the farmers as several corrupt practices entered the administration of revenue collection.

In the Sikh rulers’ time, the land was considered the property of the ruler called Khalisa, which was partly given out as grants jagirs and partly assigned to cultivators every year in proportion to the strength of the family.

In times of the Maharajas, Pandits, Sayyids, and Pirzadas charged taxes to people on behalf of the rulers.

During British rule, the advocacy of grain trade and the shift towards payment of land taxes in cash led to far-reaching changes in the economy.

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References:

1. Waltraud Ernst and Biswamoy Pati, Ed. Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia, India’s Princely States. People, princes and colonialism, Routledge, 2007
2. 2. Siddiqi, Norman Ahmad. Land revenue administration under the Mughals, 1700-1750. Published for the Centre of Advanced Study, Dept. of History, Aligarh Muslim University [by] Asia Pub. House, 1970.