evidence: Puducherry comprises four distinct locations and was formed out of four former colonies of French India. It includes Puducherry (then called Pondicherry) and Karaikal along India’s Coromandel Coast, surrounded by Tamil Nadu state; Yanam, farther north along the eastern coast in the delta region of the Godavari River, surrounded by Andhra Pradesh state; and Mahe, lying on the western Malabar Coast, surrounded by Kerala state. Transfer of these French possessions to the union of India took place on November 1, 1954. In 1962 Pondicherry became a union territory of India. The Government of Union Territories Act of 1963 granted Pondicherry a state legislature. The territory formally took the name Puducherry in 2006. [...] Jammu and Kashmir was formerly a state with a legislature. In 2019, after an outbreak of violence in the region of Kashmir, India’s union government passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, splitting the state into two union territories, one called Jammu and Kashmir and the other called Ladakh. The act followed a presidential order amending Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which in 1954 had conferred on the state of Jammu and Kashmir the power to have a separate constitution, a state flag, and autonomy of internal administration.