India Today 12th September 2016 | Page 3

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF December 1977 September 1982 June 1983 July 1984 November 1986 May 1989 January 1990 April 1990 May 1993 November 1993 May 1995 September 1995 November 1995 September 1996 July 1998 February 2000 July 2000 August 2000 May 2002 October 2002 April 2005 October 2005 September 2008 August 2010 October 2010 September 2014 H aving edited india today for 40 years, the one axiom about history that rings truest for me is that it keeps repeating itself. Nothing reflects this more than our coverage of Kashmir, as you can see from the covers displayed above. Kashmir has been like a gaping wound. It has bled, it has been bandaged, only to bleed again. We have put Kashmir on the cover 26 times—more than any other issue. There have been covers about despair, optimism and some that reflected utter dejection. More than 44,000 lives have been lost in the Valley since 1988, and stories of mass migration, allegations of forced occupation and a saga of cross-border infiltration continue unabated. The brightest hope for Kashmir is that a Hindu right-wing party that rules the country, the BJP, and a Muslim soft separatist party that has roots in the Valley, the PDP, are in an unlikely partnership. Our cover story this week analyses why so much has gone wrong and what can be done to fix it. This golden opportunity to find a cure must not be squandered. I hope our next cover on Kashmir will be a happier one! (Aroon Purie)