Day: September 2, 2023

After consulting with several doctors in the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Aayat Hameed was advised to seek help from a mental health expert for her bouts of unspecified anxiety, random palpitation attacks and occasional but strong suicidal thoughts. A psychiatrist diagnosed her with acute depression.

On a recent hot summer day, Hameed was among scores of other patients visiting a mental health clinic in Srinagar, where she had been undergoing rounds of counselling along with prescription medication.

“I realized seeing a psychiatrist or reaching out to someone you trust really helps to deal with suicidal thoughts and depression,” Hameed said. She’s already recovered about 40% over the course of her one-month treatment, the young student said.

For over three decades, Kashmiris have been living through multiple crises. Violent armed insurrections, brutal counterinsurgency, unparalleled militarization and securitization, and unfulfilled demands for self-determination have fueled depression and drugs in the disputed region, experts say.

The stunning Himalayan region has been a flashpoint for more than 70 years for tensions and wars between rivals India and Pakistan, which both control part of it and lay claim to all of it. Despite the fierce fighting, the tight-knit Muslim families of Kashmir formed a durable safety net.

That fell apart when an armed rebellion erupted in 1989.

Since then, tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict that has left Kashmiris exhausted, traumatized and broken. Nearly every one of the Kashmir valley’s 7 million people has been affected by violence.

The conflict has created two lost generations: the teenagers of 1989, who saw their childhoods collapse into warfare, and the teenagers of today, who never had a childhood at all.

“The most basic building blocks of a healthy psyche — a sense of safety and security — are, and have been, under attack for decades in Kashmir,” said Saiba Varma, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, who studied psychiatric issues in Kashmir for her doctoral research.

The daily violence has ebbed sharply in recent years, and the region’s semiautonomous status was revoked in 2019 in a move that the Indian government sold as being necessary for normalcy to return. Still, the invisible scars of Kashmir’s unending conflict are evident in the psychiatric sections of multiple hospitals where, on a routine day, hundreds seek help for mental illnesses and drug addictions.

A 2015 study by aid group Doctors Without Borders in collaboration with the University of Kashmir and the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Srinagar showed “nearly 1.8 million adults (45% of the adult population) in the Kashmir valley are experiencing symptoms of mental distress, with 41% exhibiting signs of probable depression, 26% probable anxiety and 19% probable Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

The mental health care infrastructure has expanded from a mere four psychiatrists and one main mental health care clinic in Srinagar in early 2000 to about 17 government-run clinics operated by over six dozen professionals across the region today. But the mental health network is still overwhelmed.

Varma, the anthropologist, said the mental health crisis directly stems from social and political conditions in the region.

“Ongoing militarization of everyday life has eliminated many cultural and religious practices of coping that Kashmiri people traditionally relied on, leaving them dependent on an overburdened and pharmaceuticalized health care system,” she said.
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A little over a week after India became the first country to land on the moon’s south pole, it launched a rocket to study the sun, marking another milestone in its space exploration program that is growing in ambition.

The rocket blasted off shortly before noon on Saturday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, in southern India, for a 1.5 million-kilometer, four-month journey toward the sun.

“Mission accomplished,” the India Space Research Organization’s control room announced as the spacecraft hurtled into the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Scientists clapped and shook hands while thousands, including school children standing in a viewing gallery, cheered. Tens of thousands more watched live broadcasts of the rocket’s liftoff on ISRO’s website and on television.

The mission to study the sun’s outer layer is named Aditya L1, after the Hindu god of the sun, who is sometimes known as Aditya. If all goes according to plan, India will join a select group of countries that are studying the sun.

The U.S. space agency, NASA, and the European Space Agency have sent probes into the solar orbit since the 1990s. China and Japan also have launched solar observatory missions.

Congratulating Indian scientists, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Our tireless scientific efforts will continue in order to develop better understanding of the Universe.”

After orbiting several times around the Earth for 125 days, the rocket will reach a so-called “halo orbit” of the sun-Earth system, where gravitational forces provide a stable location that makes it possible to conduct scientific studies of the sun’s outer atmosphere.

Indian scientists said the position will give a continuous, unobstructed view of the sun and enable them to conduct studies even during an eclipse.

The rocket is equipped with seven instruments to observe the sun and help scientists understand the effect of solar activity, such as solar wind and solar flares, on earth.

Scientists hope Aditya-L1 will get a “unique data set that is not currently available from any other mission,” the principal scientist of the mission, Sankarasubramanian K, said after the launch.

“It will enable us to understand the sun, its dynamics, as well as the inner heliosphere, which is an important element for current-day technology as well as space weather aspects,” he said.

Understanding space weather is seen as crucial for protecting satellites and other spacecraft.

Scientists said they also want to study the impact of solar flares and other particles that flow from the sun on earth’s climate patterns.

“We need to see when the sun becomes quite angry, what are the ways in which it is affecting the planet Earth,” ISRO scientist Anil Bhardwaj said.

“We want to see the impact of solar flares as well as coronal mass ejections,” he said.

India’s space exploration program, which began about two decades ago, is gaining momentum and is seen as part of the country’s ambitions to become a major player on the global stage. Its space achievements are seen as demonstrating its technological advancements.

Besides three unmanned missions to the moon and one to Mars, it plans to take astronauts into orbit, probably in 2025.

Placing a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole is being counted as one of the greatest successes of its space program. India was the fourth country to land on the moon, but no country had so far landed in this location.

Over the past week, ISRO has released videos and photos of India’s lander conducting probes of the lunar surface.

The country, which runs its space program on a relatively modest budget, prides itself on conducting space exploration at a lower cost than Western missions.
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The elephant population in southern Africa has increased by 5% since 2016 to nearly 228,000, according to results of a first ever aerial census conducted last year. However, there are concerns over the animals’ mortality rate.

The elephants are mostly found in a large conservation area, the Kavango Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area, or KAZA.

KAZA covers 520,000 square kilometers across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and contains the world’s largest elephant population.

Presenting the census results Thursday, survey coordinator Darren Potgieter said the outcome shows a stable population.

“Overall, across KAZA, the elephant population appears to be stable,” he said. “However, there is some variation within the different regions. Some areas have shown possible increases in elephant numbers, most remained stable while for some areas, potentially decrease in elephant numbers.”

However, he raised concern about the number of dead elephants encountered during the counting exercise. More than 26,000 carcasses were reported.

“That’s a high number, higher than what one would like to see, and it may be indicative of high mortality,” he said. “It is important to raise this as a red flag for the health of the population. It is important to conduct further investigation to understand the underlying reasons for this high level of mortality.”

Potgieter said the reason for high mortality could be poaching, lack of habitat, an aging elephant population or diseases.

In 2019, Botswana recorded more than 300 deaths due to elephants drinking water contaminated with bacteria.

Malven Karidozo, representing the African Specialist Group, said the survey confirms their early predictions on the elephant numbers in southern Africa.

“The results confirm the African Elephant Specialist Group preliminary population trends report of stable to increasing,” Karidozo said. “They further confirm the 2021 red list assessment of African elephants that reported a stable or growing KAZA elephant population and the largest single population of the savannah species on the continent.”

The census shows Botswana has the largest elephant population, accounting for 58% of elephants in the KAZA region.

Botswana’s Minister of Environment and Tourism Philda Kereng said the survey will help in decision making, particularly as the country faces growing human-elephant conflict.

“What this report will do (is it) will help us enhance and intensify the protection of both people and wildlife, balanced together,” Kereng said. “We are also talking about habitat, which I think is also important. We will know how better to drive more beneficiation from this resource to our people.”

The survey was conducted during the dry season between August and October of last year, using seven fixed-wing aircraft.

While southern Africa has seen an increase in the elephant population, elsewhere on the continent, the numbers are declining due to loss of habitat and poaching.
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On Friday, Texas became the most populous state with a ban in effect against gender-affirming care for minors.

The law was allowed to kick in after a court ruling Thursday, part of a flurry of action across the country on policies aimed at transgender people and their rights. A separate Texas ruling blocked a law that drag show performers feared would shut them down.

Here’s a look at the latest developments and what’s next.

Texas gender-affirming care ban takes effect

In its ruling Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court allowed a law banning gender-affirming care including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for minors.

The ruling is not final, but allows enforcement of the law while courts determine whether it’s constitutional. The decision is also a reversal of a lower court from the week before, when a state judge had said the law should be put on hold while it’s sorted out.

Since 2021, 22 Republican-controlled states have passed laws restricting access to gender-affirming care for minors. At least 13 states, meanwhile, have adopted measures intended to protect access.

Several of the bans are so new that they haven’t taken effect yet. Missouri’s kicked in earlier this week. Enforcement of the laws in Arkansas, Georgia and Indiana are currently on hold.

There are legal challenges to the policies across the country, and there isn’t a clear pattern for how courts handle them. None have reached a final court decision.

Courts in three states hold hearings on care restrictions

Two court hearings on the matter Friday did not immediately change the status quo in three states but showed how thorny the legal issues can be.

In Florida, a judge declined to take steps to immediately ease access to gender-affirming treatment for children or adults. Both age groups were affected by a ban which, unlike other states, also has a provision that restricts access to care for adults. The ban on treatment was signed into law in May by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

District Judge Robert Hinkle said that he would consider changes for adult plaintiffs if he sees medical evidence on how going without treatments could be harmful.

He has a trial scheduled for February on the constitutionality of the Florida law.

But he noted that with similar cases moving through courts across the country, whatever he decides won’t be the final word.

Also Friday, a three-judge panel from the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court heard arguments on whether states can ban puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors in both Kentucky and Tennessee, as lawsuits challenging the statutes makes their way through the courts. The appellate judges did not make a ruling but noted that a key factor would be determining which side was being more compassionate.

Alaska moves to restrict sports participation for transgender girls

The Alaska state board of education on Thursday voted in favor of a policy that would keep transgender girls out of girls sports competitions.

The board’s action is a major step, but not the final one for the policy.

It’s up to Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor to decide whether to implement it. The attorney general, like the school board, was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has called for such a ban.

At least 24 states have adopted laws restricting sports participation, including four where courts have put enforcement on hold.

Kansas no longer has to change birth certificates

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Kansas officials no longer have to change transgender people’s birth certificates to match their gender identities.

The ruling undoes a 2019 federal consent agreement that required the state to make the changes when asked. The reason for the change is a new state law that defines male and female as the sex assigned at birth.

The ruling puts Kansas among a small group of states, including Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee, that bar such birth certificate changes. Under a separate legal filing from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in July, the state is among a few that do not allow people to change the sex on their driver’s licenses.

Texas law that drag performers feared is put on hold

Not all the latest developments are losses for transgender people.

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a new Texas law that drag show artists feared would be used to shut them down or put them in jail.

The law, which expands the definition of what’s considered an illegal public performance of sexual conduct in front of children, was scheduled to take effect on Friday.

But a group of LGBTQ+ rights advocate and drag performers sued to block it. U.S. District Judge David Hittner agreed with their contention that it likely violates the First Amendment and paused enforcement while he prepares a more permanent order in the case.

Judges have also blocked enforcement of bans on drag performances in Florida and Tennessee.

This week, advocates filed a lawsuit in Tennessee trying to stop a local prosecutor who said he intends to enforce the law there despite the federal court ruling. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that law enforcement officials cannot use the limits to interfere with a local Pride festival in Blount County this weekend.

Canada responds with a travel advisory

Canada this week updated its travel advisory to the U.S., alerting members of the LGBTQ+ community that some states have enacted laws that could affect them.

The advisory doesn’t single out states and it doesn’t go as far as telling Canadians not to travel to the neighboring nation. Instead, it tells them to check local laws.

Non-government groups have issued similar warnings. In June, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S.-based group devoted to LGBTQ+ rights, declared a state of emergency for community members in the U.S.

And in May, the NAACP issued a travel advisory about Florida citing policies and laws including bans on gender-affirming care for minors, requirements that transgender people use school bathrooms that don’t match their gender, and restrictions on drag performances — although those were later put on hold.
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