Glimpses from the Indian Air Force air show in Udhampur.
The Election Commission on Monday said the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir this time was the highest in a Lok Sabha election in the last 35 years with the Kashmir Valley witnessing a 'massive' 30 percentage point jump in poll participation compared to 2019.
Although the Supreme Court has mandated the Centre to conduct the polls by the end of September, a spate of terrorist attacks in J&K could cause delays.
With a large number of Indian youth aspiring to work in the railways, delays in filling up railway job vacancies were a point of criticism against the BJP in the run-up to the elections.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Anantnag -Rajouri constituency, his party Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) said.
'The Galwan clash in 2020 resulted in a large number of troops being moved from J&K to Eastern Ladakh which caused a thinning of deployment in the Jammu area.'
Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP accused National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah of leaving them "no option".
The abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 paved the way for outsiders to contest polls in the Union Territory.
'We put the seed of BJP's ideology in Jammu, watered it, nurtured it for four decades and when it was time to reap the fruits of those efforts, the fruits are being sold out to the very same people who worked hard to uproot this tree.' 'Shockingly, our own people are letting this happen and nobody from Delhi bothers to even listen to us.'
Several deaths were reported across the country due to rain-related incidents like lightning strikes and drowning.
The People's Democratic Party and the National Conference -- the two Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners in Jammu and Kashmir -- will be taking on each other on the three Lok Sabha seats in the valley.
The body of a junior commissioned officer was retrieved from a stream in the Poshana area of Surankote late Saturday evening, while the body of a second soldier was found this morning as the water level started receding in the district.
Even as KPs lined up across special polling stations in Jammu amid tight security, several of them had to return without casting their vote.
The encounter took place when the troops of Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group of J&K Police launched a joint cordon and search operation at Dhari Gote Urarbagi in Desa forest belt, some 55 km from Doda town, late Monday evening, the officials said.
A special Court on Monday allowed the National Investigation Agency's plea seeking its permission to conduct polygraph test on suspected Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Showkat Ahmed Bhat, arrested in connection with Udhampur terror attack case.
Captain M V Pranjal of the Rashtriya Rifles, Captain Shubham Gupta of 9 Para, Havildar Abdul Majid of the Rashtriya Rifles, Lance Naik Sanjay Bisht of the Rashtriya Rifles and Commando Sachin Laur of 9 Para made the Supreme Sacrifice for the Motherland in Wednesday's Rajouri encounter.
In the first targeted killing of the year, terrorists on Wednesday shot dead a worker from Punjab while another sustained injuries in Habba Kadal area of Srinagar, officials said.
'The terrorists are using better technology to secure their communication.' 'It does appear that excessive reliance on technology led to a weakening of human intelligence.'
A massive manhunt is underway for three foreign terrorists, possibly of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the deadly attack on pilgrims in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi that resulted in the loss of nine lives, including a two-year-old, officials involved in the investigation said on Monday.
The vehicle, a Tavera, was on its way to Jammu from Srinagar and it fell into a 300-foot gorge at the Battery Cheshma area of the district around 1.15 am, they said.
Ghulam Nabi Azad remarked that the figures are not high enough to know whether the people are happy or angry with the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, Mehbooba Mufti said it is a message that the people have not accepted the Centre's decisions.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
Deepu Kumar (27) was expecting his first child in June but his life was cut short in a terror attack in south Kashmir's Anantnag district, leaving his poor family without its sole breadwinner.
The attack took place near Shashidhar in the evening when the vehicles were moving towards Sanai Top in the district's Surankote area.
Those familiar with intricate Kashmir politics do not rule out further delay in the assembly elections. Primarily, because the BJP having 'invested' so much for so long in Kashmir would try its best to wait a little longer if only to secure the 'gains' it believes to have achieved after its deafening action on August 5, 2019, points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
With 19 border polling stations along the Line of Control in Rajouri and Poonch, a contingency plan has been worked out to deal with cross-border shelling though chances are negligible given the ongoing ceasefire between India and Pakistan that came into effect in February 2021, officials said.
An Army helicopter crashed in a forested area in Jammu and Kashmir Kishtwar district on Thursday, officials said.
A group photo taken at the Bharatiya Janata Party office in Jaipur ahead of Tuesday's legislature party meeting showed Bhajan Lal Sharma in the very last row.
This was the first general election in the valley after the abrogation of Article 370 and the enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, the EC said in a statement.
A worker from Punjab who was injured in Wednesday's terror attack in Srinagar's Habba Kadal area died at the SKIMS hospital in Srinagar on Thursday morning, taking the toll to two in the first targeted killing of the year by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
'The estimated expenditure is expected to be more than double the Rs 60,000 crore spent in 2019'
Law Minister Kiren Rijiju's car grazed a truck on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Ramban district on Saturday evening, officials said.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
The incidents occurred just days ahead of the visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah starting October 4.
A fresh exchange of fire took place on Thursday between terrorists and security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, where four Army personnel were killed and two others were injured in an encounter, officials said.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Friday challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest Lok Sabha polls in the Kashmir Valley, saying he will quit politics if the national party's candidates do not lose their security deposits.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
