Omar Abdullah, the pro-India Kashmiri leader has been sworn in as the new chief minister of the Indian-administrated state of Kashmir, reported Press TV .
The swearing in ceremony was held in Jammu on Monday, and several important dignitaries attended the gathering.
Abdullah's National Conference Party (NCP) won most seats in a recent stare parliament vote but fell short of an overall majority to form a government of his own.
The NC party had secured 28 seats in the 87-member state assembly in the recent elections.
The new government was formed after the NC party forged a coalition deal with the Congress Party, which leads India's central government in New Delhi. The Congress had won 17 seats in the state elections.
Abdullah, 38, is the disputed state's youngest ever chief minister. He comes from a famous political family in Kashmir. Both his father and grandfather have been chief ministers in the past.
He hoped that strained relations with Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir in its entirety, would be improved under his office in Indian ruled Kashmir.
The Himalayan region is in the grip of a nearly two-decade old insurgency against Indian rule that has left more than 47,000 people dead.
India accuses Pakistan of supporting and sheltering Kashmiri separatists, but Pakistan denies the allegation.
Kashmir is divided into Indian and Pakistani-controlled zones and has been the trigger for two wars between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, since their independence from Britain in 1947.
Compared with past years, the situation in Kashmir has improved after the two south Asian neighbors began a slow-moving peace process in 2004.
