For the villagers of Anjani, a not-so-small village tucked away in north Bihar's Vaishali district, India's ambitions mean little. Anjani is yet to see the light, literally so.
The opposition hit the roof and likened rulers of the state to Hitler, Mussolini and Kim Jong Un, though the department came out with a clarification that the controversy was stemmed from 'wrong interpretation' of a paragraph in the missive that ran into many pages.
What is Change really like in Bihar? Once seen as India's basket-case, what is its turnaround story like? Archana Masih reports from India's other most talked about state.
'Bringing in Dr Mohan Yadav as the Yadav-OBC face from Ujjain as chief minister, and a scheduled tribe leader Jagdish Devda from Mandsaur district, and a Brahmin face Rajendra Shukla from Rewa, the BJP is making an attempt to put in place a new caste equation in the state keeping an eye on the general elections next year.'
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Neighbours of Lalit were surprised to see his images on news channels, recalling him as a reserved individual who seldom engaged with the community at Burrabazar in Kolkata.
The minister was on his way to Motihari to attend PM Modi's rally. He never made it.
Five days before the Big Opposition rally in Patna, one of the Mahagathbandhan's allies will walk out of the ruling alliance.
The cold wave sweeping north India continued to disrupt normal life for the sixth consecutive day on Thursday and the death toll due to the extreme harsh weather is now reported to be over 195. Approximately 31 more deaths were reported from the various districts in Uttar Pradesh with Agra recording a temperature of 5.4 degree Celsius, the coldest in the state.Seven more deaths were reported from Bihar taking the death toll in the state to 21.
Transcending ideological barriers, political parties in Bihar on Friday slammed Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray for his reported statement that influx of North Indians was one of the reasons for growing terror attacks in Mumbai.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday launched a fresh attack on north Indians, singling out the arrest of terrorists from Bihar, in the 13/7 serial blasts case.
'Corruption has to be removed from the police force... government hospitals should improve to take care of the poor...' Biharis express their expectations from the chief minister.
'The clearest interpretation of the November 8 mandate is that the backwards, Dalits and minorities, and a huge proportion of women cutting across caste and class, displayed massive consolidation to the extent that despite chipping of votes by the Left Front, by the Third Front and by the BSP, Mahagathbandhan candidates won, and in many cases by huge margins,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
The people of West Bengal have lost faith in the state police and therefore their demand for deployment of central forces, Nayak said.
Ten sensitive installations in six states and one Union territory have been declared out of bounds for the general public, with the Centre saying any information with respect to certain activities carried out at these premises may be useful to India's enemies.
It is not in the improved roads or in being able to visit the cinema and restaurants without fear or in the increased spending on education. The biggest change in Bihar is the distinct feeling of optimism -- that something good is finally happening in the state.
Ahead of the day-long Opposition meeting on Friday, Samvad Bhavan, Rajkiye Atithisala and Sadaquat Ashram have got a facelift.
BJP leaders hit back at the DMK and asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi if he agreed with the insulting remarks of its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner against the north Indians.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Several states of the country are battling grim flood situations that have affected lakhs of people and have also resulted in loss of life and property.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
The Rajya Sabha MP said for electoral success 'it is essential that the ideology of Hindutva is never lost sight of'.
The attack on North Indians in Maharashtra generated major uproar in the Lok Sabha on Monday, with demands that Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray be detained under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act and that he be disenfranchised. Members from Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party, most of them belonging to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, expressed grave concern over the attack on North Indians in Maharashtra.
As various social media content of alleged attacks on migrant workers from Tamil Nadu have turned out to be fake, Chief Minister M K Stalin has alleged the "lies spread" regarding such assaults in the state was a fallout of his recent call for opposition unity to dislodge the ruling BJP at the Centre next year.
'He has emerged as a formidable leader who cannot be ignored anymore, who cannot be mocked.'
Farmers on Saturday evening ended their three-day 'rail roko' stir that hit the movement of trains, causing inconvenience to passengers in Punjab and Haryana.
The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
Muslim youth are neither meant for being indoctrinated and hired by any destructive foreign agency like the ISI, nor are they meant for being fired by their own security agencies, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has announced an ex-gratia of four lakh rupees to the kin of those killed in the incident.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
At least 66 people were killed and over two hundred people injured when a severe nor'wester with a windspeed of 125 km per hour ripped through North Dinajpur district in West Bengal and four neighbouring districts of Bihar.
Paswan, supporting the 50 % reservation in Aligarh Muslim University, said those opposing it were out to weaken the country's integrity.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
Given the reality of the disparity and the enormous shift over the last 50 years, this can be done without an open and frank conversation with the people, something that has not begun and, knowing the style of our leader, is not expected to begin, asserts Aakar Patel.
'We were children and could not distinguish freedom from bondage, but we could understand that a momentous and happy event was imminent.'
The probe committee comprises principal chief security commissioners of the Western Railway and the Central Railway, principal chief commercial manager of the North Western Railway, principal chief medical director of the North Central Railway and principal chief personnel officer of the West Central Railway.
