A dozen of us — Kashmir watchers from Delhi and half a dozen journalists and social activists from Kashmir spent three days on the shore of the Nageen Lake in Srinagar and talked about Kashmir’s economic future.
There had been too much unrest; too much disruption of normal life, and we believed that Kashmiris wanted to make up for the time they had lost. So we tried to think out of the box. One result was they we met people who were doing real things, battling he odds, to make a living, to develop an industry, and from their experiences we drew conclusions. One very important conclusion was that few in Kashmir, or for that matter India , fully realised the potential for short-circuiting the excruciating process of development and creating a new model of affordable, eco-friendly, employment intensive development.
I have written up two of the ideas we came up with in the retreat. They can be found on my wiki.
Do tell me what you think of them.