With many printing presses and lot many newspapers around, the journalists in Jammu and Kashmir attempted and constituted many associations to articulate the issue the media was confronted with.
Successive rulers before and after 1947 have remained reluctant in encouraging English journalism in Jammu and Kashmir. Fighting odds, restrictions and outright denial of permissions, the English media always existed in the erstwhile state but never became the mainstay.
The popular song ‘Lara Lappa Lara Lappa Laayi Rakhda’ from the film “Ek Thi Ladki” (1949) may have done wonders to the then little-known actor Meena Shorey but many fans called it a “frivolous” song, just not up to Lata Mangeshkar’s standard.
The anger against Lata Mangeshkar for singing the song, as per her free-wheeling conversation with the London-based author Nasreen Munni Kabir, continued even after the film was released and the song became the most popular song of Ek Thi Ladki starring Shorey and Motilal.