The Parliament of India has scrapped Article 370 and provisions under 35A of the Constitution which granted special status to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, along with the order stating, “It (announcement) shall come into force at once". While introducing the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill in the Parliament, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government has decided to bifurcate the state into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir, which will have a legislature, and Ladakh, which will be without a legislature.

On August 15 (2019) a news report emerged that two artifacts were stolen in the past, a lime stone-carved relief sculpture and a Krishna bronze sculpture, were returned to India. More than 30 such artifacts have been returned to India in the last five years as an act of repatriation of objects of cultural importance. Although this is good news, much needs to be achieved in the field of protecting India’s valuable artworks, which have become the victim of malicious design of international smugglers who are earning huge returns from such illegal trade.

Development in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have both internal and external ramifications

Technology has come to play a vital role in a nation’s defence system. The armed forces have a mutual connection with technology. Many technologies that are routinely used in civilian life, like the Internet or the global positioning system (GPS), actually have a link to or are derived from, military innovations. In the case of Artificial intelligence (AI), the research and development (R&D) in civilian and military domains started almost simultaneously.

On July 9, al-Qaeda’s Emir Ayman al- Zawahiri incited violence against India and Pakistan by vehemently criticizing these neighboring countries for the plight of Muslims in Kashmir. Zawahiri’s video message titled “Don’t Forget Kashmir” was released by al-Qaeda’s propaganda arm, As-Sahab media foundation, on the online messaging platform Telegram. [1] Al-Qaeda, which struggled for many years to establish its foothold in the region, considers Kashmir as a core component of its Islamist campaign in South Asia.