A year without high-speed internet ravaged health, education, entrepreneurship in Kashmir
Kashmir is under lockdown, this time to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Since residents of the Valley have to stay home, doctors must treat them online. But this is no easy task in Kashmir, which has had no 4G internet for close to a year and where broadband connections are thin on the ground.
“We should focus on staying indoors and not come out,” explained a senior doctor at Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital. “In such a situation, online consultations with doctors becomes important because we don’t want non-Covid patients to throng hospitals.”
The low-speed internet makes it difficult for a patient to send his test and other diagnostic reports to the doctor. “I can barely see a patient’s face on a video call due to low speed,” said the doctor. “It’s important that we have a high quality picture of the patient or of the body part that is giving him trouble. Otherwise, it can lead to a wrong diagnosis.”
Shutdown without end
When the Centre stripped Jammu and Kashmir of special status and split it into two Union Territories on August 5, it enforced an unprecedented communications blackout on the region as the decision was announced. The restrictions were most severe in the...
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