";s:4:"text";s:4742:"Over the last seven decades, Union Territories have been upgraded to states but this was the first time a state was downgraded to a Union Territory.To this day, I fail to understand the need for this move, except to punish and humiliate the people of the state. There was no time stamp on these safeguards.It was understood that so long as J&K remained a part of India, the special status enjoyed by it would remain. Even a cursory glance at poverty figures would show that J&K has some of the lowest levels of poverty in the country.
On Saturday, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said troop levels in Afghanistan would drop to below 5,000 by November. I know what I believe but you can draw your own conclusions. All that J&K asked for was to have certain safeguards built in the Constitution to protect this unique status. The Human Rights Act Article 11: Freedom of assembly and association Article 11 protects your right to protest by holding meetings and demonstrations with other people You also have the right to form and be part of a trade union, a political party or any another association or voluntary group. Having been a member of the most empowered Assembly in the land and that, too, as the leader of that Assembly for six years, I simply cannot and will not be a member of a House that has been disempowered the way ours has.With almost all of my senior colleagues still detained in their homes, the NC is yet to meet to decide its next political course of action and I will work diligently to strengthen the party, carry forward its agenda and continue to represent the aspirations of the people while we fight against the injustices heaped on J&K in the last one year.
What came as a shock was the humiliation heaped on the state by downgrading it and splitting it into two Union Territories. Afghan assembly approves Taliban prisoner release - BBC News Ashraf Ghani said he would sign a decree releasing the prisoners on Sunday A novel acceptor-induced cooperative supramolecular co-assembly based on a dendritic electron donor and 1,2,4,5-tetracyanobenzene acceptor has been successfully developed. It was alleged that Article 370 has fuelled separatism and allowed militant violence to thrive in Kashmir, an end was supposed to herald the end of terrorism. Sadly these very democratic rights were trampled on a year ago. Finally, it was suggested that Article 370 was always meant to be a temporary provision. Some of us, senior office-bearers of the J&K National Conference, had a meeting with the PM just days before the August 5 developments. It’s not a meeting I will forget in a hurry. The nominated representative of the Union government usurped powers, that should have been vested with the legislature and a popularly elected government, to rewrite J&K’s constitutional relationship with the rest of India. It’s still impossible to come to terms with what I saw being rolled out on my television set that morning. J&K has kept its side of the promise by remaining a part of the Union, the last 30 years of militancy notwithstanding. That same year, President Ghani said more than 45,000 members of the security services had been killed since 2014.
About 150 of them are on death row, according to AFP.The Loya Jirga said in a resolution that the decision to free the 400 was made in order to "remove an obstacle, allow the start of the peace process and an end of bloodshed.
These are external links and will open in a new windowAn Afghan grand assembly of elders has approved the release of 400 Taliban prisoners accused of "major" crimes.The Loya Jirga said the decision was made to remove a barrier to peace talks between militants and the government.The Taliban had been demanding the release of the prisoners, whose crimes include attacks on Afghans and foreigners. Article 370 has kept the people of J&K in poverty was another claim. We have always believed in democracy and peaceful opposition. So what does one conclude from this? In fact, a number of these leaders are still under illegal detention a year later. A UN report in February 2019 claimed that more than 32,000 civilians have died during the 19-year war.