Kashmir situation warrants concern

The closed-door United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday, convened at the request of Pakistan on the situation in the disputed Kashmir, the first since 1965, ended without even an informal statement, prompting the Indian media to boast of India "thwarting lobbying by China, Pakistan".

While New Delhi may see, and frame, it that way, the latest conflict it has provoked with Islamabad, will not end up as the kind of net gain it assumes.

The ambitious administration of reelected Prime Minister Narendra Modi was swift in changing the status of Kashmir under India's domestic laws, insisting it was a "purely internal affair", but no change in Indian law changes the legal status of Kashmir as a disputed territory, over which Pakistan also claims sovereignty in its entirety. Besides escalating tensions not only with an estranged neighbor, and very possibly at home, it should also spark concern among the international community.