The initiative, based on recommendations from a high-level committee led by former President Ram Nath Kovind, requires constitutional amendments and political consensus

Voters queued outside polling stations in India's Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday to vote in the first provincial election being held in a decade in the Himalayan region that has grappled with years of militant violence.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, residents are voting in elections that some hope will lead to restoration of the territory's statehood, which ended when it became a federally governed territory in 2019.