Jammu & Kashmir in its new avatar.

Lok Sabha passes bills to raise Jammu & Kashmir Assembly seats, provide quota.

The J&K Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2023, which proposed to increase the number of seats in the Assembly from 83 to 90, was passed in the Lok Sabha yesterday.

The Bill seeking to nominate two members from the Kashmiri migrants, one representing PoK refugees and one woman to the Assembly was introduced in July.

Migrants are those who migrated from the Kashmir Valley or any other part of J&K after 01 Nov 1989 due to terror. The bill also reserves seven seats for SCs and nine for STs. Another Bill - the J&K Reservation (Amendment) Bill 2023 - was also passed after six hours of debate.

"Earlier, there were 37 seats in Jammu, now there are 43. Earlier there were 46 in Kashmir, now there are 47 and in PoK, 24 seats have been reserved since PoK is ours", said Amit Shah, the Home Minister. 

He also touched upon the two blunders of the first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, for which the Kashmiris had to suffer viz. :-

       *  Our Army was winning but as they reached  areas in Punjab, ceasefire was announced and 

           PoK came into being.

       *  Taking the Kashmir issue to the UN.

The Home Minister said that three wars had taken place in Kashmir in 1947, 1965 and 1971. A total of 41,844 families were displaced during the wars. This bill is an attempt to give rights to those people, to give representation to those people.

My take

A historical wrong has been righted at long last. Phew! Thanks Prime Minister Modi!!

Tailpiece.

Got up at 6, the chores and was ready by a quarter to 10.

The Christmas celebrations got going from today at the neighbouring Little Flower (LF) College for Women before the institution closes for its Christmas vacation.

The evening chores.