-The Hindu While the view about the Narendra Modi government’s culpability differs, the anger against the Nitish Kumar government on lack of employment opportunities is all pervasive Purnia/ Kishanganj: Seven months on after lakhs of migrant workers returned to their homes, many on foot, following the announcement of sudden and extended nationwide lockdown, the narrative on the ground in Bihar is divided over religious and caste lines. There are no official figures on...

-IndiaSpend.com Patna: The first time she heard of a woman leading a village in Bihar as its mukhiya (head), Ramvati Devi (name changed), 50, was astounded. “I couldn’t even comprehend how a woman could lead. How could she have any power over a man or the dominant castes in a village where she had walked all her life with her head covered?” she told IndiaSpend on a recent October day. In 2006,...

-ThePrint.in Bihar, one of India’s most populous states, has the highest judges’ vacancy in its high court. That says a lot about India’s ability to render timely justice. The number of pending cases in India’s higher judiciary and the number of vacancies in the Supreme Court and the high courts have been simultaneously increasing. The number of pending cases, which is directly related to the judge-to-population ratio, is an important tool to...

Multidimensional poverty is about non-monetary poverty and is strongly associated with the challenges of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although previously defined only in monetary terms, poverty is now understood to include the lived reality of people’s experiences and the multiple deprivations they face. India’s multidimensional headcount ratio (H) i.e. the proportion or incidence of people (within a given population) who experience multiple deprivations has reduced from 55.1 percent to...

-Scroll.in Will the people impacted by the project be heard through the cacophony of money, careerism, certitude and bombastic populism? In years that the Kosi river floods in Bihar, government officials from Delhi and Patna rush to observe the river’s “wrath” from high-flying helicopters. Inevitably, political leaders, bureaucrats and sections of the media delude the Indian public by blaming Nepal for releasing water. Then, they announce that they have the answer to save...