Kashmir's internet blackout anniversary: How I lived through it - Business Insider

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I'm an Indian journalist who lived through Kashmir's traumatic internet blackout, which started one year ago. Here's what it's like to have your freedoms ripped away for 213 days.

On August 5, 2019, India's Hindu nationalist government revoked the autonomy of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region. The day before, it had cut off phone signals, mobile data, and broadband internet.

On August 4, 2019 — the day before India's Hindu nationalist government revoked the autonomy of the Jammu and Kashmir region — mobile and landline phone signals, mobile data, and broadband internet were shut down and a curfew was announced . My parents, who are in their mid 60s, left for the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca two days before communication was cut. They couldn't speak to us for more than a month. For the first time in my life, I couldn't greet them on the day of Eid. Their once-in-a-lifetime experience was filled with added anxieties and worries.

"How did you manage to access the internet?" he wrote, surprised and delighted. Our parents were worried about us, he added, but relieved to know that we were fine despite the curfew and total communications blackout.When they returned home after more than 40 days, it was an emotional reunion. We hugged each other at the airport. It broke my heart to see tears in their eyes.

Every time I left home for work, they would worry about not being able to ring me to check on me. There was no way I could contact them while I was out. Our mobiles were useless, lying in a corner. My mother never forgot to remind me to carry my ID card when I left home — just as she had when I was a teenager.The internet shut down had lasted for 213 days when slow, 2G mobile internet was restored on March 4.

By the end of 2019, more than 50,000 jobs had been lost in the handicraft sector from the internet shutdown — local artisans couldn't take fresh orders online from most of their clients outside the state and abroad. Kashmir Economic Alliance , a leading trade body, estimated that, in the first two months of the coronavirus lockdown, the handicraft business alone suffered further losses worth $4 million.

 

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aah! so et tu fake! what realDonaldTrump calls 'the fake media'! the pic on ur tweet proves what u r suggesting to a certain group😉 may be u cover minorities of Kashmir savagely killed, raped n kicked out. and past 30 years, not able to return back! AartiTikoo TVMohandasPai

Dear sir / ma’am where were you when Kashmiri pundit and Sikhs were killed and raped. When houses were burned when children were orphaned. It all started then when a thread of trust was burn and raped on roads of Lal chowk

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