State-owned broadcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio from Friday began broadcasting weather reports on Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Gilgit in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in their prime-time news bulletins.
The weather segment of the news bulletins on DD and AIR included the update on cities of Mirpur, Muzaffarabad and Gilgit in PoK.
With summer temperatures rising, comprehensive weather coverage in news by Doordarshan and All India Radio as the national public broadcasters from across the entire territory of India has assumed focus, an Information and Broadcasting ministry statement said.
While DD News carries weather reports in its news bulletins every day in the morning and evening, All India Radio News carries all-important weather updates throughout the day in its main bulletins, the statement said.
"These weather reports cover every small detail from every nook and corner of the country while highlighting extreme weather conditions across the country, temperatures of various places from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Gilgit to Guwahati, Baltistan to Port Blair," it said without specifically stating that the PoK cities have been added in the weather updates.
The state broadcasters have started the practice, but private news channels may follow suit, a ministry source said.
The move comes after the India Meteorological Department (IMD) Regional Meteorological Centre started including cities under PoK in its forecasts, a departure from its earlier format.
The IMD has started including Gilgit-Baltistan and Muzaffarabad, which are parts of PoK, under the Jammu and Kashmir meteorological sub-division since May 5, Kuldeep Srivastava, the head of the Regional Meteorological Department that gives forecast for the northwest meteorological division of the IMD, had said.
IMD Director General M Mohapatra had said they have been mentioning areas under PoK under its daily weather bulletin ever since the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir in the two union territories in August last year.
However, officials said it's now being mentioned explicitly under the Jammu and Kashmir subdivision.
These cities of PoK have now found a place in the overall forecast of the northwest division.
The northwest division consists of nine sub-divisions -- Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi-Chandigarh-Haryana, Punjab, east Uttar Pradesh, west Uttar Pradesh, east Rajasthan and west Rajasthan.
The development assumes significance as New Delhi has asserted that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir belongs to India.
The inclusion of Muzaffarabad and Gilgit-Baltistan in the forecast comes amid Pakistan's Supreme Court allowing elections in Gilgit-Baltistan. India had strongly reacted to the development.