Window to Gilgit-Baltistan

By  Syed Shamsuddin     Under the circumstances, the subsistence farming here, save at a very few places, does not suffice the needs of the respective households with the yield not catering to the barest minimum requirements with the dilemma that persists being that the rest of the erstwhile land at villages earlier under cultivation, is now being steadily turned into mere habitat by the teeming village folk obviously because of ominous demographic pressures. The explosion being witnessed is so much enormous that the land historically remaining under agrarian activity can even hardly provide a shelter for the increased populace now.  One having visited such a village barely some three decades ago would certainly be flabbergasted today on seeing the abysmal diminution and horrific decimation of the cultivable as well as the orchard land which paints a very gloomy picture due to mushrooming houses on the former fields and orchards while the old habitat itself called ‘kot’ – a c

Social & Economic transformation of NAs-II (The Muslim - January 4, 1998) By Syed Shams ud Din As carried out by the newspaper, Dr. Shaheena Hafeez Malik – perhaps the   first Pakistani women of the world repute having acquired immense expertise in ‘mountain farming’ techniques is currently serving with the “International Cnetre for Integrated Mountain Farming Development” (ICIMFD) based in Nepal. She certainly has to her credit a varied experience of closely monitoring mountain farming particularly in Gilgit-Baltistan where she has been working with the Agha Khan Rural Supports Programme (AKRSP) prior to her present assignment in ICIMFD. She has thus had an opportunity of carrying out ample research in this region in the context of how to give a boost to mountain farming aimed at positive socio-economic transformation. What is nevertheless of more significance is the raison d’etre of the organization she is presently attached to that solely aims at bringing about revolu