OMAR MUST JUGGLE DNA TO RESTORE PARADISE

OU can take the Kashmir out of Abdullah but you cannot take the Abdullah out of Kashmir. Last week, J&K's new Chief Minister Omar Abdullah posted on X: "I am back" - a Kashmiri Schwarzenegger acting as The Terminator who incinerated his political enemies. With 3.2 million followers, the 54-year-old, British-born, third-generation Abdullah's post was a deadly DNA denouement. During his swearing-in ceremony, he followed the family tradition of donning a sherwani and pajama which signaled locality, heredity and continuity. His political pedigree mandates he favors both more power for the UT (read himself) and dialogue with Pakistan and that Jammu and Kashmir is different from other states. Omar, too, is different now. He is J&K's first CM to swear by the Indian Constitution after Article 370 was flung into the trashcan of turbulent history.

- PRABHU CHAWLA