Bharti Airtel has resumed post-paid mobile services in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) this week – more than 70 days after the government imposed an unprecedented lockdown on the state. The Economic Times quotes a company statement as saying: ‘As per the guidelines of the authorities, Airtel has resumed post-paid mobile services in Jammu & Kashmir, and as a special gesture, the company is waiving post-paid plan rental charges for the service suspension phase for Airtel Thanks customers.’
In August 2019 the government repealed the special status accorded to J&K under Article 370 of the Indian constitution, and parliament passed the ‘Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act’, which seeks to dissolve the state and reorganise it into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir in the west and Ladakh in the east. The act will come into force on 31 October 2019. J&K is understood to be the only state in India with a Muslim-majority population.