Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to address the nationon Thursday on the central government's decision of scrapping Article 370 andsplitting the state into two Union Territories

According to sources, PM Modi would explain the government'shistoric step of the abrogation of Article 370, which earlier gave specialstatus to the state of Jammu and Kashmir in his address.President Kovind onWednesday signed the abrogation of Article 370 which accorded a special statusto Jammu and Kashmir, after a resolution regarding the same was passed in bothhouses of the Parliament earlier this week.

The Centre also passed the Jammu and Kashmir(Reorganisation) Bill 2019 which bifurcated the state into two UnionTerritories – Jammu and Kashmir (with a legislature) and Ladakh (without legislature).The bill was cleared amid vocal opposition from various political parties, with125 members voted in its favour and 61 voted against it.

PM Modi's expected address comes days ahead of his customaryaddress to the nation on the occasion of Independence Day.On Wednesday,Pakistan announced that it will downgrade the diplomatic relations and suspendbilateral trade with India, after the Narendra Modi government scrapped Article370, Article 35A and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistan government expelled Indian High Commissioner toPakistan, Ajay Bisaria, as part of their downgrading process. The processentails that all the staff would be pulled back. The diplomatic relations havepreviously been downgraded in 1999 and 2002. On the matter of revocation ofArticle 370, India has maintained that it was an internal matter of thecountry.