Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who scrapped the MLA Local Area Development Fund (MLALAD), has now asked the Centre to make alternative arrangements to implement projects for its parliamentary variant — the MPLAD — in the state. Kumar says the reasons are technical. The MLALAD has been replaced by the Chief Minister’s Local Area Development Scheme, under which a body of engineers will be in charge of executing development works....

The Bihar government has shifted its focus to agriculture with the intent to make the state a “pioneer” in the second green revolution, stung by the lukewarm response of investors coupled with the Centre’s “non-cooperation” in ushering in an era of industrial growth. Chief minister Nitish Kumar has constituted an agriculture cabinet comprising 17 government departments. The department is aided by agriculture scientist and former director-general of the Indian Council of...

After Bihar complained against the clandestine experiments of GM food crops in the state, it is Madhya Pradesh's turn now. State agriculture development minister Ramkrishn Kusmaria has written to the Centre against the clearance by Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) to GM Maize trials in the state. GEAC is the statutory authority under the environment ministry to clear trials and introduction of genetically modified crops. It had come under flak from...

Expectations of changes resulting from a movement bereft of a clear political and ideological thrust would be far-fetched. FROM the vacuum left by mainstream politics to the confusions of ideology and practice emerging out of half-baked socio-political engagement – the political trajectory of Anna Hazare's “anti-corruption” satyagraha movement demanding early introduction of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament can well be summed up thus. The wide support that the movement received from...

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has come out in support of the former Law Minister and co-chairman of the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, Shanti Bhushan, and his advocate-son Prashant Bhushan, saying their integrity is “absolutely beyond doubt.” On Monday, Mr. Kumar said the case of the surreptitious compact disc, which allegedly contains a conversation between Mr. Shanti Bhushan, the former Samajwadi Party general secretary, Amar Singh, and the former Uttar Pradesh...