LyrArc Article Gist
Farmers are switching from paddy rice cultivation to apples in areas an hour from Srinagar in Kashmir. Farmers using traditional varieties of apples are also changing by planting high yielding varieties of apples imported from Europe, and doubling yield, profits. New varieties are also less susceptible to damage from hailstorms. By providing farm machines, tractors, sprayers, juice preservation plants, the government hopes to change the economic future of Kashmir. This sector has potential as a major employment generator, with 71% of India's apple production in Kashmir. In the last 3 years alone the sector has grown 50% from 6000 crore to 9000 crore rupees. Because apples are far more profitable than paddy rice cultivation it also enhances incomes in the state, with the additional benefit of generating many man days of work in orchards- one hectare creating 400 man days. Today 700,000 farming families or 3.3 million people are supported by apple production in Kashmir. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
How a resurgence of violence by Muslim Kashmiris plays out in a new atmosphere of India-Pakistan rapprochement and the political uncertainty in Pakistan with the transition to democratically elected government there still being tested. The efforts this time were relative to the violence of a decade previously rather innocuous, efforts to break a blockade of a key highway by Hindu nationalists that blocked shipping out Kashmiri apple harvest to the outside world. The Hindus were reacting to Muslim Kashmiris protesting a grant of 98 acres by the government (later rescinded) to Hindu pilgrims visiting a religious site Amarnath in the Kashmir Himalayas.