New Delhi: The situation in Jammu and Kashmir is improving, President Pranab Mukherjee said today after winding up his two-day visit to the Valley during which he interacted with a cross-section of the population besides being briefed by Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Omar Abduallah.
“I got a good impression that things are improving,” he told journalists on board the IAF aircraft on his way back from Srinagar when asked about his assessment of the situation.
President, Pranab Mukherjee with the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, NN Vohra and the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah having a boat ride on Dal Lake, in Srinagar, on 27 September 2012. Image courtesy PIB
Mukherjee said that he had met a large number of groups and discussed a variety of issues. They included Fruit Growers Association, Saffron Growers Association, Artisan Association, led by JKPCC president Saifuddin Soz, Akhil Bhartiya Gujjar Mahasabha, All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee and Jammu and Kashmir Pahadi Association.
He said he was particularly impressed with the fact that girls constituted 85 percent of the recipients of merit awards he had given at the convocation of the Kashmir University in Srinagar on Thursday.
In the convocation address, he sought to reach out to the people of the state acknowledging that there were grievances and promised to ensure every Kashmiri lives with dignity.
The president said both state and Central governments were determined to ensure that people of Kashmir live with dignity having equal rights and equal opportunities.
The president, who took a motorboat ride on the Dal lake on Thursday, said that the de-weeding work had helped clean large parts of the water body.
On Thursday night, the president met a group of intellectuals and told them that vice chancellors and educationists should imbibe Rabindranath Tagore’s spirit of universalism and pluralism.
He called upon them not not just to achieve high standards but also maintain them on a sustained basis.
PTI
