Abeer Malik, one of India's leading experts on the state of Jammu and Kashmir, currently works at a leading Indian newspaper.

•'Free and never fair'
'If only Vajpayee can break the vicious circle of fraudulent elections-leading-to-alienation-armed insurgency, he would have carved a place for himself in history. But then Kashmir, once known as paradise on the earth, has long been turned into a graveyard of reputations.'

•'Asli mujrim ko pesh karo'
'Whatever else the Vajpayee initiative might have achieved or failed to achieve, there is no doubt he has succeeded in carving a direct place for his vision in the minds of the Kashmiris.'

•Farooq: Waiting for the red card
'Abdullah is by now mature enough to know where his Laxman rekha lies. Unfortunately, for him, the stakes on either side are too high to let him take a convenient position. That is why he is seen taking one step forward and two steps backward.'

•A big leap in the offing
'There is no doubt that Vajpayee is in full command on his side of the triangle. And that, according to New Delhi's diplomatic circles, is the most credible guarantee of his ability to press ahead with his Kashmir initiative.'

•A realistic shift
'For the first time, the decade-long proxy war in Kashmir is visibly abating. The mood for peace in the valley is more palpable than ever before.'

•Hizb offer a bid to reclaim primacy in J&K
The Hizbul Mujahideen, by asserting its 'Kashmiri', 'representative' character, has sought to wrest the initiative from the foreign militants who have been dominating the separatist movement.

•The politics of autonomy
'Farooq Abdullah's latest gambit is not going to change ground realities. It seems to have created more noise outside than in Kashmir. His abrupt resort to the trusted `weapon' of autonomy politics is just a defensive action more than his suspected bid to undermine Kashmir's Constitutional integration with the Union of India.'