05/08/2019 Jammu and Kashmir alert

Geographic overview
Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, it denotes a larger area that includes the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir (which includes the divisions Jammu, Kashmir Valley, and Ladakh), the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.

Historic overview
Kashmir was part of the Mughal Empire from 1586 to 1751, and thereafter, until 1820, of the Afghan Durrani Empire. That year, the Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, after the Sikh defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, and upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, became the new ruler of Kashmir. The rule of his descendants, under the paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until the partition of India in 1947, when the former princely state of the British Indian Empire became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and China.

Main alert
The India government revokes Article 370 of India's Constitution, which gives the state of Jammu and Kashmir its own constitution, forbids most immigration from the other provinces of India and decision-making rights for all matters except for defense, communications and foreign affairs. The motives were that Kashmire gave special dispensation moslims and was a backward oddity that needed to become a photocopy of progressive, hindu (and sectarian) India.

phone and internet links are down, troops are on the streets, local political figures have been jailed