The year that just got ended, despite what critics would find faults with, was not all that bad. Despite the multiple negative developments in the region, there were still some visible positive outputs, that provides for optimism in 2015.

Let us start from J&K. Undoubtedly, the elections to State Legislative Assembly and the fractured mandate was the biggest development in 2014. While the fracture mandate has beans of certain negative growth, it also provides a window of opportunity at the regional and national levels. True, PDP has won more seats in Kashmir Valley and BJP in Jammu region, with neither of them having enough seats to form the government on their own.