• Abdullah has continued with the administrative arrangement put in place during Governor’s rule although he promised his own team of bureaucrats. Questions were raised when senior officers failed to respond to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s queries on revenue and development during a recent meeting. The Cabinet expressed displeasure over this embarrassing ignorance but let the matter rest there.

• The promise of an open and transparent government remains just that. A much-publicised 24/7 call centre in the CM’s office to provide greater public access is still to start. Nor has the promise of a stringent RTI been kept. Abdullah’s key political advisor is his friend Davinder Rana, a businessman-turned-politician from Jammu who is in charge of the CM’s office. Although the CM has begun hold public interactions at district headquarters, there is no advisor who can be a political interface between the CM and people in the Valley.

• Contrary to the NC poll promise, there has been no engagement between the government and separatists. Abdullah had promised to strengthen institutions to check human rights abuses and become a “bridge between Centre and the separatists.” There has been no discussion or meeting on this so far.

• The J-K Police has two DGPs, it is ill-equipped and lacks training to make the shift from counter-insurgency to crowd-control. This was evident in the way it handled crisis situations. Stone-pelting protesters were dealt with live ammunition, people being shot above the waist. The killing of four protesters in Baramulla is one such example. Two protesters died after being hit by teargas shells which were fired to disperse the crowd.

... contd.