rubies

Chitta Katha, AJK: The people of Azad and Jammu Kashmir are sitting on a treasure chest: Millions of rubies, estimated to be worth up to half a billion dollars, are lying beneath them.   But archaic tools and a lack of investment in infrastructure and techniques are hampering efforts to transform the area into a significant player in the gem industry. "We have rubies that are at least as good as the Burmese, but their mining techniques are more sophisticated", says Huma Rizvi, a dealer in precious stones. Pakistani…