In a flip-flop, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on Thursday told the assembly that his government has no plans to set up separate clusters for settlement of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley.
Mehbooba Mufti, his eldest child, will likely succeed him.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Saturday expressed apprehension that Pakistan and its sympathisers might try to disrupt the upcoming annual Amarnath Yatra that starts from July 2.
As India launched the world's largest vaccination drive against the coronavirus pandemic, showing the light at the end of a 10-month tunnel that upended millions of lives and livelihoods, here are some of the quotes from politicians across parties and other people who took the jab:
Raja Ijaz, inspector general crime of Jammu and Kashmir police, has denied comments attributed to him by Syed Talib about his father Syed Mohammad Yousuf, who died under mysterious circumstances after a meeting with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
Both Jehangir and Azad stressed the importance of the resumption of the India-Pakistan peace process and confidence-building measures, which had slowed down due to the internal situation in Pakistan. The two also discussed the post-election scenario in Pakistan and the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
As far as security situation is concerned, there has been improvement in past two years and the state saw a 30 per cent decline in terrorists-related incidents, he said.
Chief Minister of the Punjab province in Pakistan and the Pakistan prime minister's brother, Shahbaz Sharif, tells Nayanima Basu that strategic issues go hand in hand with trade normalisation. Sharif believes that cordial relations are in the interest of the people of both India and Pakistan and issues such as Kashmir will also be resolved soon.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
Jammu and Kashmir has spent Rs 12 crore on the maintenance and operation of Omar Abdullah's aircraft since he became the chief minister in January 2009.
"The response to the rehabilitation policy (for militants in PoK) has been better than expected. We have received 600 to 700 applications," Omar told media persons in Srinagar.
Given the worsening security scenario in Kashmir, we cannot afford to have a restive Punjab with its peasantry up in arms against the central government, argues Virendra Kapoor.
He was also the second in Goa who died while still in office.
The matter was deliberately hyped, Gupta added. The case is in court, which will decide on it, he said.
Within 24 hours, the dusty road that led to the Prem Sagar's residence was turned into a concrete road.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Peoples Democratic Party seem set to form the new government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led party will go solo in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Delhi, leaders who were part of JD-U's National Executive meet said.
The Opposition National Conference and Congress lawmakers on Friday disrupted proceedings in both houses of the Jammu and Kashmir legislature, accusing the government of misleading people on the issue of transfer of power projects to the state, and created ruckus in the assembly as Speaker directed marshalling out of some members.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah has said his government would not curtail the two-month-long annual Amarnath yatra scheduled to begin in June this year.Hard-line separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani has sought curtailment of the yatra period for what he called 'the preservation of ecology in the Kashmir Himalayas'.
If we have already excluded Muslims from political office by default, and if we are already harassing them daily through laws, like Nazi Germany did and like Pakistan did, then why do we need a Hindu Rashtra or a change from the present set of laws? argues Aakar Patel.
As the Opposition held its first meeting on the Presidential polls and names of Farooq Abdullah and Gopalkrishna Gandhi also cropped up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice with senior party leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and Naveen Patnaik (Biju Janata Dal).
Three-term chief minister Dikshit passed away on Saturday afternoon at a private hospital here after suffering a cardiac arrest. She was 81.
"Even Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, during a rally in Kalyan, had said the police were capable of only washing utensils, Fadnavis said.
'For a man who had just received news of his daughter's kidnapping, he showed no sign of anxiety or agitation.' 'Here is a cool customer, I thought to myself.' 'The only thing he said was, 'I would not have been so anxious had they kidnapped my son'.' 'He told me that his daughter Rubaiya, who was a medical intern, was returning home from the hospital in a minibus when it was stopped close to the Mufti's house.' 'She was taken by four armed militants.' A gripping excerpt from Moosa Raza's Kashmir: Land Of Regrets.
Zahid Rasool Bhat, 19, a truck assistant had received 74 per cent burn injuries with another person on October 9 when a Kashmir-bound truck was attacked by a mob protesting against the beef party hosted by an independent MLA in the summer capital of Srinagar.
Manohar Lal Khattar is a low profile Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader who is known for his quiet work on the field and in the BJP that has earned him the reputation of a tough task master with a no-nonsense approach.
Amarinder Singh described the neighbouring nation's action 'knee-jerk and uncalled for'.
A senior police officer said the terrorists, allegedly dressed in army fatigues, ambushed a Srinagar-bound convoy of the BSF.
Unlike the last assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party will not project anyone as its chief ministerial candidate in Delhi this time and will depend on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the party beyond the required halfway mark of 35 seats in the 70-member House.
Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi talks about the Bihar polls with M I Khan/Rediff.com
This is first picture of 49-year-old Omar to have appeared in public domain after five months of captivity. It showed him smiling in a snow covered jacket and sporting an unkempt greyish beard.
Hindu pilgrims from Pakistan called on Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in Jammu on Wednesday, after completing their pilgrimage to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine.The chief minister said that he would like to see pilgrims from Pakistan visiting the Amarnath shrine in Kashmir also. "The peace process initiated by the two countries had resulted in closing the mouths of guns and mortars on the border and opening of up a new phase of friendship," Azad said.
This is the seventh consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 45,000.
Modi said this university has been built with the contribution of millions of pilgrims, many of whom came from far away places.
In Goa, where Assembly elections are a few months away, a delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders led by Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy and including former Union Minister Babul Supriyo and the party's vice president Luizinho Faleiro met Governor P S Sridharan Pillai and requested him to immediately seek resignation from the chief minister and announce investigation by an independent agency.
