Covid-19: India’s Internet curbs in Kashmir hamper coronavirus fight

A file photo of a masked Kashmiri man with his head covered with barbed wire at a protest following the scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the Indian government, in Srinagar. In a letter to officials, human rights group the Internet Freedom Foundation said Internet speeds in Kashmir were ‘woefully insufficient’ to spread the message around combating the coronavirus threat. — Reuters

SRINAGAR, India: India's health ministry on Monday invited doctors in Indian-administered Kashmir to an online training session on managing ventilators — critical equipment for patients with Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Most, however, were unable to attend because of long-running curbs on the Internet that have prevented those living in Kashmir from accessing information about the coronavirus, which has infected more than a thousand people in India, killing 29.