India allows diplomats to observe polls

Foreign diplomats from 15 countries were allowed to observe local elections in India's Jammu and Kashmir yesterday, as New Delhi highlighted the first vote in the disputed Himalayan territory in a decade.

It was the first time India has invited foreign diplomats to witness voting in the region, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government stripped of its partial autonomy five years ago, though Delhi has hosted similar trips on other occasions and a G20 meeting on tourism there last year.

More than 9 million voters are eligible to choose members for the region's 90-seat legislature in the three-phase election, the second phase of which was underway yesterday. The vote is the first in the region since 2014.

The visitors included diplomats from embassies of the United States, Mexico, Singapore, Spain and South Korea, among others, officials in Srinagar and New Delhi said. They visited polling stations across the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley.

"It is a rare opportunity to come to Kashmir and see the electoral process in action and see democracy.

It looks very smooth, everything is very professional," said Jorgan K Andrews, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy.