
India's Modi outlines conditions for Kashmir elections in first talks since autonomy revoked
CNN
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told leaders from the former state of Jammu and Kashmir that elections would be held there after the region's constituencies were reconfigured, following the revocation of its semi-autonomous statehood, meeting participants said.
The talks on Thursday were the first between Modi and Kashmiri leaders since the government scrapped the Himalayan region's special status in 2019, detaining thousands of people and imposing a months-long lockdown. The government then split the disputed Muslim-majority region into two federally administrated union territories.
More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the “Highway of Death” due to car bombs and snipers.












