As of now, Azad couldn't be in the BJP leadership's calculus. The BJP has been trying to drill into the J&K electorate that this time around the UT would most certainly have a Hindu chief minister, explains Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'The BJP is thinking of advancing the polls before the situation deteriorates further in Kashmir.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who set off a national debate when he walked the Bharat Jodo Yatra in a T-shirt in north India's cold winter, donned a pheran to ward off Kashmir's bone-freezing chill on Monday.
People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) leaders, including three former chief ministers, were put under house arrest on Saturday before a protest against the proposals of Jammu and Kashmir Delimitation Commission, prompting angry reactions from political parties which said such steps will only 'incentivise and facilitate' violent agitations.
The encounter had started at Hadigam area of the south Kashmir district during the night, the police said.
Since Sunday, a total of eight leaders have been released from preventive custody.
Jammu and Kashmir's Chief Electoral Officer Hirdesh Kumar said the Union territory is likely to get around 25 lakh additional voters, including outsiders, after the special summary revision of electoral rolls being held for the first time after the abrogation of Article 370.
Rajni Bala (36) of Samba in Jammu region sustained injuries when terrorists fired at her in Gopalpora area of Kulgam where she was posted as a teacher
The Kashmiri Pandit family that braved peak militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s to stay put in the Valley was forced to migrate to Jammu after terrorists killed its breadwinner Sanjay Sharma.
The panel had first visited the Valley in October after which it had recommended an immediate ban on use of pellet guns by security forces.
Ten days after Hizbul Mujahideen leader Burhan Wani was eliminated by the armed forces, Kashmir continues to see massive unrest, with the violence claiming over 40 lives.
Eid shopping picked up across Kashmir Valley on Thursday after Tuesday's rains caused a flood scare, subduing the festivities.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's all-party meet, People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said peace in the region cannot be restored without undoing the 'illegal' and 'unconstitutional' act of revocation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
She said and reasoned that the PDP-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance in the state needed a leader of the stature of Sayeed to run it.
Mufti said that whatever decision the PM takes, the country will support him.
She also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre of "murdering the democracy" in the name of polls.
Puran Krishan was attacked near his residence in the Chowdhary Gund area of south Kashmir district, they said, adding that doctors declared Krishan brought dead after he was shifted to Shopian hospital.
In a letter to the People's Democratic Party president, the passport officer has informed Mehbooba that her application for an Indian passport has been rejected as the Criminal Investigation Department of the Union Territory had recommended against granting the document to her.
With his swearing-in, the five-decade-long practice of retired bureaucrats being appointed to the post has ended.
'I've been illegally detained yet again. Since two days, J-K admin has refused to allow me to visit @parawahid's family in Pulwama. BJP Ministers and their puppets are allowed to move around in every corner of Kashmir but security is a problem only in my case,' Mufti tweeted in English and Urdu.
A grenade was lobbed by a youth at an election rally being addressed by a People's Democratic Party candidate in Noorabad Assembly seat of south Kashmir's Kulgam district.
The criminal case filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act is linked to the recovery of at least two diaries by the ED after raids on an alleged associate of Mehbooba, a former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister.
Jammu and Kashmir's mainstream political parties, including the National Conference and the PDP, formed the Gupkar alliance on October 15 for restoration of special status of the erstwhile state and also to initiate a dialogue between all the stakeholders on the issue.
'Worryingly, intelligence assessments indicate that growing disaffection amongst the youth is ceding ground to fundamentalist Islamist groups like Islamic State,' reports Ajai Shukla.
She said attempts were being made to weaken the people of Kashmir politically and economically.
Earlier, Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma called Kashmir the pride of the nation and appealed to all stakeholders to invest in the tourism sector in the state.
Jyotiraditya Scindia said over the last two years, since the BJP government came to power at the Centre, the situation in the valley has "deteriorated" and has become "disappointing"
The announcement came after PAGD leaders met at Abdullah's Gupkar Road residence in Srinagar to discuss the Centre's invitation.
Masoodi said all the participants are against giving voting rights to non-locals as "it will be tantamount to the disenfranchisement of the local voters."
Pakistan has criticised India over alleged human rights violation in Kashmir and threatened to expose the country in the world over the "abysmal rights situation" in other parts if it continued to talk about Balochistan.
'We had to respect the sentiments of the people of Jammu as our party was elected from Jammu.'
Congress president Rahul Gandhi said that the 'opportunistic BJP-PDP alliance' set fire to Jammu and Kashmir, killing many innocent civilians and brave soldiers, and that the damage would continue even if the state was put under central rule.
The visit by the MPs comes nearly two months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met top leaders of Jammu and Kashmir on June 24.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a high-level meeting on Tuesday to review the situation in Jammu and Kashmir which is witnessing violent clashes between security forces and protesters in the aftermath of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen's poster boy Burhan Wani.
The National Conference called the meeting after remarks related to the addition of voters in the revised rolls by the Union Territory's chief electoral officer Hirdesh Kumar raised hackles of the regional parties.
In an exclusive telephonic interview with rediff.com from Srinagar, People's Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti accused the governments of Pakistan and India for the present situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the orders of the commission, set up under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act of 2019, the Union territory will have 90 assembly constituencies -- 43 in Jammu Division and 47 in Kashmir -- with nine of them being reserved for the Scheduled Tribes.
A new political party called the 'Jammu and Kashmir Apni (own) Party' (JKAP) will be launched on Sunday and will be led by former state finance minister Syed Altaf Bukhari, with the primary aim of proving "relief to people who have been facing uncertainty since August 5 last year". This will be the first political activity in Jammu and Kashmir after August 5 last year, when the Centre withdrew the special status of the erstwhile state and bifurcated it into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
'This was the worst phase yet in the state's human rights history.' 'Notorious interrogation centres were set up, large numbers died in firing on civilian mobs.' 'This is what today's generations might identify better as the Haider phase in Kashmir's history,' says Shekhar Gupta.
New Delhi has repeatedly missed opportunities for political engagement in Kashmir in the past. It must seize the next one, says Ajai Shukla.
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