One bill proposes a constitutional amendment to enable joint federal and state elections, while another aims to align assembly polls in Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu & Kashmir with the general election schedule.

Another patient, fleeing decades of fighting in the contested region Kashmir and later avoiding persecution as a gay man in Pakistan, recounted being detained in a center for refugees in a separate country for 10 years.

Such data dramatize the growing risks of outburst floods, says Irfan Rashid, a climate scientist at Kashmir University.

With their annual income at their fingertips, a family of saffron farmers pluck delicate crimson stigmas from crocus flowers grown high in India’s Kashmir Valley.

Born in Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1961, Bal graduated from Delhi's St Stephens College with an honours degree in history.