-The Indian Express Never mind what the bhadralok class thinks. The poll campaign has exploded the myth of Bengali exceptionalism. As West Bengal is witnessing the pathology of the prevalent electoral politics, the illusory character of the “cultural capital” the Bengali bhadralok community boasts of is becoming increasingly clear. Yes, this bhadralok class — quite often fixated at the glory of the late 19th and early 20th century Bengal — loves to...

-Article-14.com Citing lack of data, India’s labour, railway, agriculture ministers have claimed no one died because of a Covid-19 lockdown imposed at a four-hour notice a year ago. That is not true. At least 989—likely an underestimate— people died between March and July 2020, as per a database built by volunteers New Delhi, Bengaluru, Atlanta (US): A year after the announcement of India’s Covid-19 lockdown on 23 March 2020,  the effects of...

-The Indian Express Amid recent questions about the ECI’s autonomy, a look at how the body has steered India’s electoral history. On March 15, the Citizens’ Commission on Elections (CCE), chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur, which examines critical aspects of conducting elections, released the second part of its report. Titled “An Inquiry into India’s Election System,” the report evaluated the integrity and inclusiveness of the electoral rolls, increasing...

-Article-14.com While the Trinamool Congress sails ahead of its opponents on fielding women candidates, the relatively higher numbers of women in Bengal politics is part of a longer trend of gradual inclusion, to which more than one party has contributed. New Delhi: With 50 women candidates, or 17% of the 291 seats from where it is contesting a heated assembly election in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has once again...

-The Statesman Assembly elections in the States of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and the Union Territory of Puducherry to be held between 27 March and 29 April come at a time the prestigious US-based Freedom House report has lowered India’s rank from a “free” to a “partially free” country and Sweden’s V-Dem Institute which once described India as the world’s largest democracy as an “electoral autocracy.” The government can either...