Srinagar:Poverty has been around for a long time, butwhat we know about the poor is often clouded by ignorance. Some of it ispernicious, but much is just a failure to know our neighbor. In Kashmir, ninetypercent of people think it does not exist. But the fact is that it does exist.Urban poverty, with its deadly tentacles, is eating away the progress of oursociety. Kashmir, sadly, is no exception. With the 90s came the violent phasein the history of Jammu & Kashmir and apart from the political changes alot of socio-economic changes also took place. The prosperity of the urbanmiddle class etherized away and those who did not have even one family memberin government service were the worst sufferers. In Srinagar, much like manyother cities in the world, e verything has to be bought. No free lunches. Youearn from hand to mouth to survive. A bulging lower middle class has appearedin almost every possible area of Srinagar where men in their 40s are not ableto get married off and just above survive somehow. The availability of a hugenumber of unemployed youth is leading to exploitation by employers. In theprime location of Lal Chowk it is not uncommon to find salesmen working for amonthly remuneration of less than Rs. 5000. In many schools even Masters degreeholders are forced to work for even lesser amounts of money. This exploitationis leading to more alienation and frustration in the youth. We now have a hugenumber of educated youth with nothing to do and the scarcity of blue-collaredjobs is adding to the problem. The current establishment must think of a lot ofout of the box solutions to mitigate the problems caused by urban poverty. Tostart with skilling youth, counseling sessions, better monitoring of workplaces to ward off exploitation and strict implementation of minimum wages actare some of the acts that need to be followed in letter and spirit.