-The Indian Express It was an interesting discussion. The subject was the recent ordinance promulgated by the government of Rajasthan banning men and women without a Class X certificate from contesting zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections. To contest at the sarpanch level, a candidate will need to have passed Class VIII (Class V in tribal areas). In this state, with a particularly poor record of literacy among women, tribals and...

-The Times of India JAIPUR (Rajsthan): For the primitive Sahariya adivasis, the panchayat polls may already be over. The only primitive tribe of Rajasthan, Sahariyas reside mainly in the Shahabad and Kishanganj blocks of Baran district. But there is barely a handful amongst them who meet the new educational qualification norms set by the government for contesting the panchayat elections. Recently the state government through an ordinance issued directives that candidates contesting...

-The Indian Express As coming-of-age rituals go, the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC) couldn't have planned it better. Acting on intelligence by its cadre, it moved in on a group of Maoists in Chatra district's Lawalong Tola on the intervening night of March 27-28, killing 10. Among the dead was Lalesh Yadav, secretary of the Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhattisgarh Special Area Committee, and his closest subordinates, thus leaving a vacuum at the heart...

At Bopara, around five or six youths assaulted Bhoop Singh with lathis on Tuesday. The victim, who is a Dalit and a relative of the newly-elected sarpanch, also named Bhoop Singh, was beaten up following a verbal duel on the ongoing controversy over the recently conducted panchayat elections. The sarpanch had triggered the casteist row by participating in the polls despite a call for boycott on the ground that all...

The family of newly-elected Dalit sarpanch of Bapora — village of Army chief VK Singh — has been ostracized for participating in election despite the village deciding to boycott it on ground that all major panchayat and zila parishad posts had been reserved for Scheduled Castes. The ostracization has led to a situation in which the new sarpanch, a brick-kiln labourer and an SC, has been given armed security by...