The UT administration has decided to restore mobile facility, with 2G speed, to subscribers of Kashmir after nearly six months. Earlier, the same was restored to the subscribers of Bandipora and Kupwara districts. The network was restored in Srinagar and other parts in the afternoon on Saturday, however, the services were shut in the evening again, probably on the eve of Republic Day. It has again been restored Sunday evening. The decision has been appreciated by one and all as in today’s world from students to traders, from people needing health care to people having travel plans, from small shopkeepers to big business houses. Therefore the restoration would really minimize the hardships the people have been facing from past nearly six months. The broadband services, however were not restored till Sunday late evening and that is a worry for local newspaper.
The local newspapers here have been facing hardships in keeping their readers updated about the happenings all over. All the local newspapers besides a few hundred other journalists working for local, national and international media outlets have to huddle in a room at Directorate of Information where a few computers with internet facility have been installed. The journalists have to spend hours there to get a chance to access the internet. For local newspapers, it is doubly difficult task. They have to access mail; they have to access national and international wire services to subscribe to, they have to download advertisements and all sort of material.
The UT administration, therefore should take steps to restore the broadband services forthwith. Besides, the websites, categorized as white, which could be accessed from Kashmir have missed some Valley based English newspapers besides most of the Urdu dailies. The local newspapers have lost millions of online reader as the web editions couldn’t be updated. The LG administration should look into the list of websites declared white and include the missing portals.
