-PTI The wives of ministers in the Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar are richer than their husbands, details of movable and immovable assets declared by the ministers for the year ended December 31, 2011 have revealed. The property details of the ministers and their family members were posted on the Bihar government website before the Assembly election.   The ministers, whose spouses have earned more movable assets, are: Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi,...

-The Economic Times BJP on Tuesday attempted to tap the perceived angst among OBCs over Congress promise for an enhanced Muslim sub-quota by terming the proposal as an " anti-backward move".  It is planning protest march in all 403 constituencies of UP on January 13 with the message that Congress was robbing the OBCs of their "rightful share".  Unlike Congress' other rivals, which includes OBC parties that do not have the luxury to...

In Bihar, the coupon system to distribute PDS grain fails to prevent corruption. AT the Jamaluddin gram panchayat in Patna district on January 26, 2007, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar launched an ambitious reform of the public distribution system (PDS) in Bihar: a coupon system. He claimed that it would “empower the poor and stop black-marketeering” and that it was “not a simple coupon but a powerful weapon in the hands...

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in an article on left-wing extremism (“From Tirupati to Pashupati?” The Hindu , October 14, 2011), observed candidly: “It is not the naxals who have created the ground conditions ripe for their ideology — it is the singular failure of successive governments both in the States and the Centre.” There lay the main cause of the festering sore of naxalism, often characterised as left-wing...

U.P.'s GDP grew at 7.28 per cent in the past five years, but the State ranks low in virtually every area of socio-economic development. IF statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) are the only criteria to evaluate the performance of a government, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh will have to be rated as one with highly impressive credentials. For, India's most populous State has recorded a...