Paksitan announced to elevate Gilgit Baltistan (GB) to the status of a full-fledged province
with all constitutional rights.
- GB is the northernmost territory administered by Pakistan providing the country’s only
territorial frontier, and thus a land route, with China, where it meets the Xinjiang
Autonomous Region.
PRESENT STATUS
Though Pakistan, like India, links G-B’s fate
to that of Kashmir, its administrative
arrangements are different from those in
PoK.
While PoK has its own Constitution that sets
out its powers and their limits vis-à-vis
Pakistan, G-B has been ruled mostly by
executive fiat.
Until 2009, the region was simply called
Northern Areas. It got its present name only
with the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and
Self- Governance) Order, 2009, which
replaced the Northern Areas Legislative
Council with the Legislative Assembly.
The NALC was an elected body, but had no more than an advisory role to the Minister for
Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, who ruled from Islamabad. The Legislative Assembly is
only a slight improvement. It has 24 directly elected members and nine nominated ones.