Dr. Sana Rajah has a wonderful solution to the Kashmir problem in an article written in The New Nation, Bangladesh’s Independent News Source. First he starts by analyzing the problem and identifies that the UN Resolutions are impossible to implement now. He then describes the adamant stand taken by both nations and says that the plebiscite might be a bad idea as many parts of both nations might ask for the same. But then after that he loses his marbles and suggests

A viable solution to the issue would be to facilitate a plebiscite restricted to the Valley, where the demand for independence is the strongest and in its most violent manifestation. The populace of the rest of the Indian Kashmir and Pakistan’s part of it have not displayed any potent desire for freedom, and seem content in their present situation.

This would allow Pakistan and India to maintain control of the Northern Areas and Ladakh respectively. However, an independent Valley would still be economically dependent on India and Pakistan, as it is a land-locked region. Let us hope that the issue can be settled, so that lasting peace becomes a reality.[The UN Resolutions on Kashmir]

No mention of the fact that it was violence from Pakistan that caused them to lose Kashmir in the first place. No mention of the fact that the current violence is coming from Pakistani sponsored militants which has been proven again and again.
So here you go, just have a plebiscite in the Kashmir valley because it is the most violent place. Just because India did not create trouble in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan gets to keep it. No self determination for them. What a brilliant idea.

Daniel Drezner has a link to Guruchara Das’s op-ed in the Financial Times about India’s Crisis of Governance.

No single institution has disappointed us more than our bureaucracy. When we were young we bought the cruel myth of the “steel frame” – a stable system that would provide continuity. We were told that Britain was not as well-governed as India because it did not have the Indian Civil Service. Today our bureaucracy has become the single biggest obstacle to development. Indians think of their bureaucrats as self-serving, obstructive and corrupt. Instead of shepherding through economic reforms, they are blocking them.

In the 1950s, the idealistic Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, wanted a regulatory framework for his “mixed economy”, but instead, in the holy names of socialism, the bureaucrats created a thousand controls and killed our industrial revolution at birth. In my 30 years in business I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business, yet each had the power to ruin it. Our failures have been due less to ideology and more to poor management.[Daniel Drezner]

So how was Independence Day celebrated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir ? Both factions of the Hurriyat were united in one thing – Boycotting the Independence Day celebrations.
The healing touch of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed seems to be working fine as 17 people are injured in a bomb blast.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Sunday’s rocket attack in Kashmir, but police blamed it on Islamic rebels fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989. When the rocket hit, children had gathered to watch an Independence Day ceremony organized by the Indian army at a school in Dangiwachi village, some 45 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.[ABC News]

And while are celebrating this Independence Day, we realize that we may have our differences of opinion, but the spirit of India runs in all of us.

One has a parade with floats and an elaborate fashion show in a Fremont parking lot while the other is set in a beautiful park in downtown San Jose easily accessible by light rail. But the Bay Area’s dueling festivals this weekend to honor India’s independence appeared to have everything else in common — great food, cute kids busting a move, and a chance to reunite with old friends.

After 12 years of luring the Bay Area’s Indo-American community to Fremont to celebrate the annual Festival of India, a rift and power struggle among organizers this year forced a splinter group to carry out a threat to host a rival event, India’s Independence Day Celebration, for the first time in San Jose. Both celebrations are this weekend, and both are drawing large crowds. By 5 p.m. Saturday, an estimated 10,000 tickets were sold in Fremont and 4,000 in San Jose, organizers said.[San Jose Mercury News]

Now the moderates in Hurriyat Conference have backed off talks from the Indian Govt saying that they don’t like the pre-conditions. The pre-condition they are referring to is the statement that the dialogue would be held under the framework of the Indian Constitution.
Now any Indian Minister who has sworn allegience to the Indian Union cannot hold talks with anyone outside the framework of the constitution. This was how talks were held before and then there was no issue. But then the Hurriyat are no democracy lovers. They asked people to boycott the elections because “the election process is no solution to the Kashmir problem”

Praveen Swami chronicles the latest developments in the Hurriyat. The hardline Islamic fundamentalists of the Jamaat-e-Islami ‘organisation’, backed by Hizbul Mujahideen, its armed ‘faction’ are on the ascendency. This leaves the moderate elements of the Hurriyat, which was playing peek-a-boo over talks with the Indian government, in a state of disarray.

The moderates are suffering because of their own lack of conviction. And they lack conviction because they lack representative credentials. Once the Indian government began warming up to the Hurriyat, its Pakistani architects got worried and promptly pulled the plug, leaving the Hurriyat grasping for the correct end ‘of a rotting bough’. The Islamic hardliners and their terrorist offspring had no such problems – their stand was consistently in favour of an Islamic turn towards Pakistan.[The Acorn]

Maybe this is just a strategy by the Hurriyat leaders to show that they too can be tough.

One of the solutions for the Kashmir problem is to grant more autonomy for the state. But Arvind Lavakare in this article writes that the state has all the freedom it wants by staying with the Indian Union.

J&K is the only state in India where a distinction has been permitted to be made between state citizens (designated as ‘permanent residents’) and other Indian citizens (who are not ‘permanent residents’) and where — contrary to the principles of equality before the law (Article 14), prohibition of discrimination on the ground of place of birth (Article 15) and equality of opportunity in public employment (Article 16), — laws are permissible to confer special rights and privileges on ‘permanent residents’ with respect to employment under the state government, acquisition of immovable property in the state, settlement in the state and right to scholarships as well as other state government aid

As though all of the above and more besides was not enough to honour the ‘special status’ of J&K, the nugget that insults the dignity of India is Section 64 of the J&K constitution. This section stipulates that the oath of affirmation to be made by i. a candidate for election to the state legislature ii. a member of the state legislature iii. a deputy minister and a minister (including the chief minister) of the state government and iv. a judge of the state high court should ‘bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the State as by law established.’ Note that the allegiance here is exclusively to the constitution of J&K state and not to the Constitution of India in addition.[Rediff]

So here you have a pampered state which does not owe allegience to the Indian Union and still get subsidised by the country and no political party in India has the guts to abrogate this.

Magnum Software Services, located on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city and the nerve center of a 15-year revolt against Indian rule, has become the first company in the region to bag an international back-office services contract. The firm has recruited 315 young Kashmiri men and women in recent weeks to format medical files and research data for a Singapore client. Soon it also plans to provide accounting and legal transcription services.[NY Times]

Besides this foreign investment, there are Indian companies investing in Jammu and Kashmir as well. Other than tourism and export of Kashmiri shawls, now new industries are popping up creating more employment, which alone can lead to a decrease in terrorism.

Q: So what happens if you go to one of the schools where you are involved and a young Muslim kid comes up and says

The Macroeconomics team of PricewaterhouseCoopers is predicting that India will win 10 medals in the Athens Olympics.

The Indians managed only one bronze medal in the previous edition at Sydney, but the analysis, which takes into account factors like population, average income levels, whether the country is the host nation and whether it was previously a part of the Soviet Bloc, predicts an unprecedented haul for the country.[Rediff]

Note that the study does not take into account the number of medals India has won in the previous Olympics. Also it does not take into account of the fact that India did not send troops to Iraq.

While a diplomatic or political solution to Kashmir seems far away, an economic solution would be a good start from the Indian point of view. Already the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been getting massive funds from the Indian Union.

The Union government’s aid to J&K has therefore far outstripped the growth in the GDP, which has averaged roughly 5% in this time frame. What does this mean? J&K gets a larger and larger share of central expenditure on states. In fact, it gets 10 percent of all central assistance and J&K has received more than any other state since 1995! Far out of proportion to its fair share, which by population should be about 1 percent: that is, J&K gets roughly ten times what it deserves.[Rajeev Srinivasan on Rediff]

But what is needed is more and more Indian companies setting up shop in the state so that there is economic development as well as assimilation. And the Govt. of Jammu and Kashmir is going in that direction.

FOUR leading leather companies from Chennai, including one that makes shoes for Florsheim brand, have committed to set up facilities in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) either on their own or through collaborations with local partners. Apart from the leather sector, Mr Sayeed and Mr Sahasranamam said, the K.K. Birla group has committed to set up another textile unit at a cost of Rs 560 crore, while others like the Oswal and Dhainik Bhaskar groups are also keen on setting up textile units. [Businessline]