India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into 806 districts and smaller administrative divisions.
The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh is the common high court for union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. It was established as the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir on 26 March 1928 by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. The seat of the court shifts between the summer capital Srinagar and winter capital Jammu. The court has a sanctioned judge strength of 17, 13 of whom are permanent judges, and 4 are additional judges. Since 18 July 2024, the acting chief justice of the court is Tashi Rabstan.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, a region located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and part of the larger region of Kashmir which has been the subject of a dispute between India, Pakistan and China since 1947. Jammu and Kashmir was administered by India as a state from 17 November 1952 to 31 October 2019, and Article 370 conferred on it the power to have a separate constitution, a state flag, and autonomy of internal administration.
Leh district is a district in Indian-administered Ladakh in the disputed Kashmir-region. Ladakh is an Indian-administered union territory. With an area of 45,110 km2, it is the second largest district in the country, second only to Kutch. It is bounded on the north by Gilgit-Baltistan's Kharmang and Ghanche districts and Xinjiang's Kashgar Prefecture and Hotan Prefecture, to which it connects via the historic Karakoram Pass. Aksai Chin and Tibet are to the east, Kargil district to the west, and Lahul and Spiti to the south. The district headquarters is in Leh. It lies between 32 and 36 degree north latitude and 75 to 80 degree east longitude.
Manoj Sinha is an Indian politician serving as the 2nd and the current Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He served as the Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways in the Government of India. Sinha was elected as Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, representing Ghazipur for three terms from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Sinha was in the race for the post of UP Chief Minister after 2017 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election.
Jammu and Kashmir is administered by the Republic of India within the framework of a federal parliamentary republic as a union territory, like the union territory of Puducherry, with a multi-party democratic system of governance. Until 2019, it was governed as a state administered by India. Politics in the region reflects the historical tension and dispute that the state has been a part of in the form of the Kashmir conflict. The head of state is the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, currently Manoj Sinha, while the head of government is the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, currently vacant. Legislative power is vested in the Legislative Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, although this was dissolved by the Governor on 21 November 2018. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
A union territory is a type of administrative division in the Republic of India. Unlike the states of India, which have their own governments, union territories are federal territories governed, in part or in whole, by the Union Government of India. There are currently eight union territories in India: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Delhi (NCT), Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.
The Government of Jammu and Kashmir is the governing authority of the Jammu and Kashmir and its two divisions and 20 districts.
The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, also known as the Jammu and Kashmir Vidhan Sabha is the legislature of Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Girish Chandra Murmu is the 14th Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the external auditor of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He is also the chairman of the United Nations Panel of External Auditors and the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. He is currently the external auditor of the WHO (2020-2023), succeeding the Auditor General of the Philippines. He was the Inaugural Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir till 6 August 2020. He is a retired 1985 batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre and was principal secretary to Narendra Modi during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Jammu and Kashmir is a region administered by India as a union territory and consists of the southern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and between India and China since 1959. The Line of Control separates Jammu and Kashmir from the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan in the west and north. It lies to the north of the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab and to the west of Ladakh which is administered by India as a union territory.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 is an act of the parliament of India containing provisions to reconstitute the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Indian-administered union territories (UTs) called Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, and becoming effective on 31 October 2019. A bill for the act was introduced by the Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, in the Rajya Sabha on 5 August 2019 and was passed on the same day. It was then passed by the Lok Sabha on 6 August 2019 and it received the president's assent on 9 August 2019.
Ladakh Police is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the Union territory of Ladakh, India. It came into existence on 31 October 2019.
The Administration of Union Territory of Ladakh(sic) is the governing authority of the Indian union territory of Ladakh and its two districts. The Administration is led by a Lieutenant Governor appointed by the President of India who acts on behalf of the central Government of India. Ladakh does not have an elected legislative assembly. The two districts of Ladakh both elect their own autonomous district council-the Leh Autonomous Hill development council and the Kargil Autonomous Hill development Council, which have competence over a range of domestic affairs.
Kewal Kumar Sharma is a 1983-batch retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. In November 2018, he was appointed as advisor to the governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Satya Pal Malik. Following the creation of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, he was appointed advisor to lieutenant governors Girish Chandra Murmu and Manoj Sinha. In February 2020, he was appointed as the chairperson of the JK Board of Technical Education. On October 30, 2020 he resigned as advisor to the lieutenant governor and was appointed election commissioner of the union territory. Sharma has also served as advisor to the administrator od Chandigarh, chief secretary of Goa and Delhi after which he moved to the Union HRD Ministry where he served as Secretary Higher Education, Govt. of India.
