Jammu, Oct 29 – At least three militants were killed in a gun battle with security forces in Mendhar area of Poonch district in Jammu early Thursday morning, army officials said.
Acting on a tip off, security forces raided a militant hideout in Talwa area of Mendhar, about 200 km north-west of Jammu. Three militants were killed in the shoot out that followed.
Jammu, Oct 26 – Jammu and Kashmir will soon get two air ambulances to move seriously injured and critically ill people to speciality hospitals in New Delhi or Chandigarh, according to official sources.
The purchase has been sanctioned by the union health ministry, headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Aware of the problems of transporting patients in this mountainous state, Azad had mooted this proposal when he was Jammu and Kashmir chief minister.
The state’s remote areas of Doda, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Poonch are notorious for bad roads. Even the 294-km Jammu-Srinagar highway is often closed by landslides or heavy snowfall. A number of people have died because they could not reach hospital on time.
Jammu, Oct 24 – Soldiers of the Indian Army are more vulnerable to tropical diseases because of their frequent movement from one place to another, medical experts said Saturday.
New medicines have to be developed to stem the rise in the deaths due to diseases, especially tropical diseases like malaria, TB and others, the experts said at a Continuing Medical Education programme at the Army’s Northern Command Headquarters in Udhampur, 66 km from Jammu.
Maj.Gen. Harinder Singh, who heads the command hospital at Udhampur, stressed the importance of awareness, prevention as well as early detection and treatment of tropical diseases.
There is a ‘high level of vulnerability of the Armed Forces personnel to tropical diseases due to their frequent migration and exposure to inhospitable conditions’, he said.
The programme was inaugurated by Lt.Gen. B.K. Chengapa, the chief of staff of the Northern Command who stressed on the need to make the medical officers aware of the changing disease patterns, noting how more armed forces personnel died of diseases than bullets during World War II.
‘Tropical diseases constitute a major cause of death and disability in the developing world including India,’ he said.
‘Unfortunately not much research is being carried out in this area. Like all other fields of medicine, a constant update of knowledge is required to remain in the cutting edge of technology in order to combat these curable but deadly set of diseases,’ he said.
Jammu, Oct 24 – An Indian Army soldier was injured in firing from across the Line of Control (LoC) which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, military officials said Saturday.
The incident took place at Kranti post in Poonch sector, about 200 km northwest of Jammu.
Official sources said that in violation of ceasefire a sudden burst of fire from across the LoC left a soldier of 28 Grenadiers injured.
Indian troops retaliated and the exchange of fire lasted for half an hour.
The Indian Army believes that these incidents of firing from Pakistani side of the LoC are meant to facilitate infiltration of militants into Kashmir.
Jammu, Oct 24 – The Central Water Commission (CWC) is expected to submit a survey report on the Baglihar II hydroelectric project by November-end, an official said Saturday. The project aims to boost the energy generation capacity of Jammu and Kashmir, a power-starved state.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who holds the power portfolio, cleared the construction of the second phase of the Baglihar project and the ‘survey has started’, the official told IANS.
The survey by the CWC will have to be vetted by the Central Electricity Authority.
The second phase of the Baglihar project will generate 450 MW of power as was the case with the first phase of the project on river Chenab.
‘We are hopeful that the centre would approve our survey and start funding the project at the earliest,’ the official said.
Omar Abdullah has set a deadline of six months to start the second phase of the project. It will be built by the Power Development Corporation (PDC).
Baglihar I was commissioned in October last year. It generates 450 MW of power. Pakistan protested the building of the dam on river Chenab, saying it will affect the water flow downstream. The Chenab flows into Pakistan from India.
Jammu and Kashmir generates less than 1,400 MW though its hydro-electricity potential has been estimated at 20,000 MW. It spends Rs.1,200 crore per year to buy power from the national grid.