Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR Sept 26: As the Valley continues to be offline for the 53rd consecutive day today, newspapers are emerging as a sole source of information with residents thronging the stalls to get their copy.
Being the only source of information, an unusual rush is witnessed at the newspaper stalls across the Valley. The Valley has been facing information crisis ever since entire communication including phone connectivity and internet was snapped on August 5 after abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A.
Aqib Ahmad, a resident of Srinagar told Excelsior that he read multiple newspapers to update himself with the recent developments. “After the abrogation of Article 370, mobile connectivity and internet is down and that has affected the flow of information. Since then the people have made newspapers their mode of communication. We are facing immense problems on the information front,” he said, adding that the information blockade has pushed the Valley into dark ages.
With the advent of internet and mobile phones the readers moved to on-line newspapers and that drastically declined the sale of print copies of the newspapers. However, the trend is reversing in the Valley for the past 53 days and a good number of people visit the stalls to get a copy of newspapers. “We usually have to wait for the whole day to sell the stock. The same stock lasts for a few hours these days, people are news hungry,” a news paper vendor said.
The reliance of the people on the internet and mobile has made things worse for the people as majority of the people are left out on the information front. According to the figures of the Telephone regulatory Authority of India, Jammu and Kashmir had mobile penetration of more than 10237929 GSM cell phones. For every 100 people, TRAI statistics suggest, there are 109.19 phones.
There are 13.84 million phone subscribers in Jammu and Kashmir which means it has crossed the number of people living in the State, according to TRAI that has numbers to suggest that Jammu and Kashmir hold 1.14 percent share in India’s total subscriber base.
The students are the worst sufferers of the communication blockade as they used to receive information through internet. “Now that internet is down they have to rely on the newspapers for the information regarding their curriculum. It is necessary for them to read newspapers to update themselves,” another resident said, adding that the schools administrations are communicating with the students through advertisements.
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