Q&A: Kashmir dispute

[abhisays]

So what of the future?

In Indian-administered Kashmir, many people are wary of confidence building measures (CBMs) which they fear may be used as a ploy to convert the LoC into a permanent border.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reiterated that Kashmir's borders cannot be redrawn, but they can be made "irrelevant".
The Pakistani and Indian armies are for the most part observing a ceasefire along the LoC .
In what seemed like a major break from its position over the Kashmir question in 2008, Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari, denounced separatist violence as "terrorism". However, his spokesperson later clarified that the remark was about non-Kashmiri militants fighting in Kashmir.
Even so there has overall been a huge decline in militant violence in Indian-administered Kashmir over the past three years - but any satisfaction this may give the authorities has to be offset by the large number of demonstrations against Indian rule that have grown over roughly the same period of time.
In the summer of 2008, the government of Indian-administered Kashmir decided to transfer to a Hindu religious trust 100 acres of land on a mountain route leading to an important shrine.
This sparked widespread protests among Muslims in the valley. The decision was then rescinded, which in turn triggered large-scale protests in the Hindu-majority districts around the city of Jammu.
Last year protests raged throughout the Kashmir Valley for nearly two months after the alleged murders of two women by security forces.
And this year, the deaths of a number of civilians, mostly teenagers, in renewed clashes with security forces have led to the widespread unrest in the Kashmir valley.