Kashmir has been hogging the limelight in the monsoon session of the parliament. Be it the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under the Indian Constitution, the ‘blunders’ of the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the three-decade old political turmoil in the Valley and the ongoing crackdown on militants and separatists, parliamentarians have devoted significant amount of time to the issues plaguing the beautiful Valley. But no one made more impactful speech than Amit Shah, arguably the most powerful home minister of the country after Sardar Patel. Shah laid out the vision of the BJP-led government to deal with the problems of Jammu and Kashmir based on three key issues: development, transparency and zero tolerance for separatism. The speech of the union home minister has inconceivably raised expectations among the people, especially in Kashmir Valley, who have been battered and bruised in the past three decades of insurgency. It is also a fact that similar statements have been made in past as well but what makes it different this time is that the Hindu rightwing party is showing an intent to straighten out problems in Kashmir. Significant progress has been made in terror funding case which will not be discussed here. On the issue of development, the clean-up should start at the civil secretariat. If Jammu and Kashmir has lagged behind in terms of infrastructure development, bureaucracy has to share equal blame because it has become used to offering the ruse of conflict for its underperformance. Bureaucracy in J&K has moulded itself into a monolith that doesn’t move or oblige the needs of the system. In this regard, it is quite heartening to see that a series of reformative orders have been issued by the state administration recently to speed up the decision making by the bureaucracy. Hopefully, these will start showing results in coming days and a new system based on equitable development and transparency evolves in the state. Corruption is rampant in the state departments like Public Works and Forests, and this has been stated by none other than Governor himself. Yet, barring a hit here with known political connotations and another hit there, there hasn’t been much progress to crack down on the menace of corruption which has eaten into the vitals of our state. More needs to be done in order to send out a message that corruption will not be tolerated. The intentions of the Governor’s administration, which has the full backing of the Centre, seem to be noble. It is time to set the ball rolling.