Srinagar, Oct. 2 -- By Danish Mehraj

India builds trillion dollar economies, launches space probes and mints billionaires, and its officials still ask whether the state can afford to guarantee water, electricity, healthcare and schooling.

Jammu and Kashmir sharpens the question, because the region holds the rivers and still struggles to keep its own homes warm.

Providing these four necessities free of cost is an investment the state can finance, and it returns to citizens money they have already paid.

Winter makes the case plainly, as Chillai Kalan, the forty days of harshest cold in Kashmir, turns electricity into a question of survival. It runs the heaters, keeps pipes from freezing and lets children study after the early sunset.

A...