-The Hindu In Bihar, ‘development’ comes laced with caste. For the upper castes, it is Modi’s pitch on investment that matters while for Backward Classes, Nitish’s social welfare agenda makes him a governance icon. The BJP, having no regional match for Nitish, has banked on Modi’s popularity. “Development” is a word that one encounters frequently across poll-bound Bihar, with people across caste lines using it to explain their political preferences. However, this...

-The Times of India PATNA: After beef and quota controversies, the issue of escalating pulse prices has taken centre stage in campaigning for the Bihar assembly election. While Union ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Radha Mohan Singh have offered to bring down pulse prices by 50% within two days after NDA comes to power in the state, the Nitish Kumar government says the Centre is not serious about bringing down the prices...

-BBC This is the story of an extraordinary uprising, a movement of 6,000 barely educated women labourers who took on one of the most powerful companies in the world. In a country plagued by sexism they challenged the male-dominated world of trade unions and Politics, refusing to allow men to take over their campaign. And what's more, they won. You may well have enjoyed the fruits of their labour. The women are tea pickers...

-The Hindu Forced dietary restriction has no place here. In the current battle for Bihar, caste has emerged as a more potent weapon than religion. There may be some churning among urban youth on caste-based quotas, their stated views depending not just on whether they have benefited from the present system but also on how they wish to be perceived — as pragmatic or forward-looking?. But cutting across the urban-rural divide, slicing through...

-PTI BHUBANESWAR: A day after chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced Rs 1,000 crore package for farmers hit by drought conditions in 12 districts, Odisha government today identified four more districts facing water scarcity.  "Reports received from field level say that crop loss to the extent of 33 per cent and above have also been been experienced in 16 more blocks spread over four districts like Balangir, Bargargh, Jharsuguda and Nuapada. Therefore, these...