The BJP has wrenched power in “yet another state”. The Congress is looking at long-term gains by refusing to back Shibu Soren. But the Jharkhand verdict has also opened the eyes of the two mainline parties to a disturbing realisation: their failure to “nurture” tribal leaders. “Both of us stand exposed as out-and-out upper caste parties who have failed to create, and worse, nurture tribal leadership. The mandate’s message is the...

Bihar is India's new miracle economy. In the five-year period between 2004-05 and 2008-09, Bihar's GDP has grown by a stunning 11.03%, way beyond the definition of 7% growth for a ``miracle economy''. In this period, Bihar - traditionally a laggard state that actually saw a 5.15% negative growth in 2003-04 - is the second fastest growing state, just a shade behind Gujarat's well-publicized growth of 11.05%. The latest CSO...

Women and child development minister Krishna Tirath is writing to all chief ministers urging them to join the ambitious child protection scheme, frustrated over the government’s failure to kickstart the plan. In an internal note to her ministry, Tirath has accepted that progress on the Integrated Child Protection Scheme is “not satisfactory”, and has effectively questioned her own ministry’s efforts, The Telegraph has learnt. Tirath has also suggested involving the Prime Minister...

The near total political paralysis of one of India's largest states, Andhra Pradesh, over its proposed carve-up, raises fresh questions about how the world's largest democracy will handle questions of identity and territory in this young century. Telangana, the new state proposed, is not a fresh demand, but even as it seems closer than ever to materialising, it opens a Pandora's box in a vast country of over a billion...

There has been uproar in southern India's Andhra Pradesh assembly in protest against the government's decision to create a new state. Lawmakers have shouted slogans against the decision to carve out a new state of Telangana in its north. An estimated 35 million people will live in the new state, Telangana. Separately, a four-day strike called by a regional political party demanding a separate state has begun in India's tea-producing Darjeeling...