-The Indian Express According to Punjab govt officials, a large amount of paddy from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is illegally brought to the state, to be sold at the higher price it would fetch in the mandis here. Jalandhar: For the past few years, mandis in Punjab have been procuring at Minimum Support Price (MSP) more paddy (non-Basmati) than the state produces. This is because a large amount of paddy from Uttar...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Nitish’s claims and Bihar’s reality -MV Rajeev Gowda and Akash Satyawali
-The Hindu The Chief Minister says he has delivered good governance and prosperity, but data show otherwise As Bihar goes to the polls, it is important to scrutinise Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s repeated claims about delivering ‘sushasan’ (good governance) and ‘taraqqi’ (prosperity). Does the reality justify these claims? Or are these boasts similar to the ‘Gujarat Model’, merely effective as propaganda? Poor on many indicators Bihar’s economy has performed poorly under the Janata Dal...
More »Socialism has been a handy weapon in successfully fighting COVID-19 pandemic -Shah Alam Khan
-The Indian Express Countries more successful in curbing COVID-19 are welfare states, ruled by left-of-centre parties. There is a lesson here. A plea has been filed before the Supreme Court, seeking to remove the words “socialist” and “secular” from the Preamble of the Constitution. But despite a persistent erosion over the last couple of decades, both principles were central to the type of republic our political forefathers had imagined. With the embrace...
More »Migrant workers express hurt over lockdown but older voting loyalties also remain -Nistula Hebbar
-The Hindu Every election hangs between the two points of mahaul (atmosphere) and samikaran (voter block equations), goes the popular wisdom on polls in Bihar. JEHANABAD: Mrityunjay Kumar worked as a tailor at a small boutique in Noida when a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was announced. He found himself without a job and far from his home in the Mahmudpur village in Jehanabad district of Bihar. Like many...
More »Bihar Shows What Happens if Agri-Trade is Left to ‘Free Market’ -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in In 2006, chief minister Nitish Kumar scrapped the APMC Act in Bihar and the destructive effects can be seen in the seething anger amongst farmers. What the Narendra Modi Government recently did through passing laws to deregulate agricultural trade, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had accomplished 14 years ago, in 2006. Soon after becoming chief minister in alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he scrapped Bihar’s Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC)...
More »