New Delhi: The goverment on Saturday released the maps of newly created Union Territories (UTs) of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh and the map of India depicting these UTs.
In a statement, the Ministry of Home Affairs said the UT of Ladakh consists of two districts of Kargil and Leh while the rest of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir is in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
In 1947, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir had the following 14 districts – Kathua, Jammu, Udhampur, Reasi, Anantnag, Baramulla, Poonch, Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Leh and Ladakh, Gilgit, Gilgit Wazarat, Chilhas and Tribal Territory.
By 2019, the government of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir had reorganised the areas of these 14 districts into 28 districts.
The names of the new districts were – Kupwara, Bandipur, Ganderbal, Srinagar, Budgam, Pulwama, Shupian, Kulgam, Rajouri, Ramban, Doda, Kishtivar, Samba and Kargil.
Out of these, Kargil district was carved out from the area of ??Leh and Ladakh district.
The Leh district of the new UT of Ladakh has been defined in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Removal of Difficulties) Second Order, 2019, issued by the President of India, to include the areas of the districts of Gilgit, Gilgit Wazarat, Chilhas and Tribal Territory of 1947, in addition to the remaining areas of Leh and Ladakh districts of 1947, after carving out the Kargil District.
The maps prepared by Survey General of India depicting the new UTs of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, as created on October 31, 2019, along with the map of India, are released, the statement said.
On the recommendation of Parliament, the President effectively dismantled Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and gave assent to the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and supervision of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir has been reorganised as the new Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the new Union Territory of Ladakh on October 31, 2019, the statement said.
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So what’s next? Are we going to try to make this map a reality? Of course it’s the same map that we always saw in our school books, but re-drawing it now at the government level attributes it a new urgency and purpose. I can see the ghost of General Sunderji lurking in this map. He used to say India can take on Pakistan and China together. God alone knows what these two leaders from Gujarat have on their mind for we the poor Indians!