-The Hindu Business Line Clientelism - tying benefits to political choices - cannot work because voting preferences cannot be ascertained. Do parties and their local agents link access to government services and benefits from government welfare schemes to how voters vote, or are expected to vote? This political strategy, which social scientists refer to as clientelism, depends on a massive investment in local leaders who collect information on voters' party preferences, vote choices...

-The Business Standard Intrastate inequality can only be corrected through reform of budgetary allocation formulae between districts within states The hoopla surrounding election results in India is reminiscent of nothing so much as a horse race ("...and X romps home the winner!"). The difference is that for the horse and its handlers, the work is done when the race is over. For the winners in the recent round of state elections,...

-The Times of India Shanti is a small, bird-like woman with unkempt grey hair, a wizened face and an innocent, trusting smile. The constant smile is remarkable because her life is unbelievably difficult. She lives in a mud hut in Katihar district of Bihar with her paralyzed husband. Her daughter has been married off and her son has "gone away somewhere to find work", never to return. She has no land,...

-Governance Now Professor Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a research programme of the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and one of our leading ‘election watchers', maintains that we must not read too much in the higher voting numbers and credits the election commission for preparing more accurate voter rolls. Excerpts from an interview with Trithesh Nandan: * What do you make of the phenomenon of higher turnouts? Everybody...

-Governance Now In spite of having Aadhaar as well as PAN card, many migrants in south Delhi's Sangam Vihar could not get a voter's card, and will not be able to vote Many residents of Sangam Vihar, a constituency in south Delhi with migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in majority, will not be able to exercise their franchise in the Delhi assembly elections. They do not have voter cards despite repeated...