Thaw in Indo-Pak ties boosts tourism in Kashmir

DUBAI, Feb 17 (UNI) The thaw in ties between India and Pakistan has boosted tourism in Kashmir, said Mohammed Ashraf, adviser to the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism (JKT).

"About 500 tourists are arriving in Kashmir daily," Ashraf said, adding that the JKT would be especially targeting Gulf travellers who had been visiting the valley in large numbers prior to eruption of militancy in 1990.

The adviser to the JKT is in the United Arab Emirates to woo Arab tourists.

"It is for the first time that the JKT would be participating in a big way in the Arabian travel mart in Dubai," The Gulf today quoted him as saying.

"The India tourism office in Dubai is organising two Fam (familiarisation) tours of travel agents and top golfers to Jammu and Kashmir in the first week of April," he said.

For the first time in five years, the state tourism department has organised winter sports in the mountain resorts of Pahalgam and Gulmarg.

The improving situation is expected to give a further boost to tourism activities during the forthcoming summer season, Ashraf further said.

Last year, almost 200,000 tourists, including 8,000 foreigners, visited the valley, he said and hoped that more tourists visit the region this year than in 2002.

Afghan women sign up to join police force KABUL, Feb 17 (Reuters) Seven Afghan women walked tentatively across a courtyard yesterday to register to become the first new female police officers in Afghanistan in more than a decade.

One of the government's top priorities is building a professional national police force, which like most institutions in Afghanistan was destroyed by decades of invasion and war.

The lack of women in the force has been a problem, especially in the hangover from the Taliban era when women were mostly banned from working or going to school.

One of those walking across the courtyard to sign up at the Afghanistan National Police Training Centre, itself rebuilt last year, was Gulalai, a 35-year-old widowed mother of six.

"We want to take part along with our brothers to serve our country," said Gulalai, whose husband died five years ago.

She and the other six recruits, also widows, signed up for training that begins on Saturday on the recommendation of the ministry of Martyrs and Disabled.

"We are ready to go on patrols and work checkpoints, but we cannot stay during the night because we are widows and there won't be anyone to take care of our children," Gulalai said.

There are already some women in the police force, but they were police during the Soviet occupation that ended 15 years ago, and returned after the US-led ouster of the Taliban in late 2001.

"We really need to have women in the police force," said Suraya Rahim, deputy minister of women's affairs.

"With the establishment of the transitional government of Afghanistan we are witnessing lots of changes in the lives of women in Afghanistan," Rahim said.

Germany has taken the lead in rebuilding the Afghan police force, with German professionals at the training centre teaching the latest law enforcement techniques.

For Gulalai, the job is a way to feed her four sons and two daughters.

"I am the supporter of my family," she said.

6 North Pak schools burned down ISLAMABAD, Feb 17 (DPA) Six primary schools in Pakistan's Northern areas were burned to the ground by miscreants opposed to female education, a government official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) today.

The schools were torched on Sunday night in the district of Diamir near the mountainous town of Gilgit, some 260 kilometres north of the capital Islamabad.

"Five community-run and one private school, mostly imparting co-education were set ablaze by unidentified men between the night of February 15-16," the local secretary of education Jameel Ahmed said.

Most of the schools and other development projects in the rugged region are run with the help of foreign donors which local conservative groups view as "cultural intervention," Ahmed said.

Such elements do not subscribe to education for girls and are averse to private and government education projects.

Ahmed said they have summoned a meeting of local tribal elders to discuss the issue.

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