West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced that the state’s rural areas are now free of open defecation, adding that her government’s next priority will be solid waste management. She made the announcement on Twitter on the night of August 2. The mission The state’s sanitation drive, called ‘Mission Nirmal Bangla’, has reached around 1.35 crore households in rural Bengal. Its stated goal was to make every village open defecation free (ODF) by October 2. In her post, Banerjee said she was pleased to share the news and thatRead More

The Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government announced on August 1 that residents would receive 200 units of “lifeline electricity” free, with a 50 percent subsidy for those using between 201 and 400 units. The decision came less than eight months before the national capital votes, renewing questions about how much such pre-election offers sway voters. A familiar pattern Parties routinely try to reach different groups of voters with promises before an election is called and the model code of conduct takes effect. Free electricity and water were among the mainRead More

A number of welfare schemes first tried out by Nitish Kumar’s government in Bihar have been taken up by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre for nationwide implementation, drawing the attention of policymakers in Delhi. The most recent example is the Centre’s Nal Se Jal scheme for piped water, which was modelled on Bihar’s Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal programme. From Bihar to the Centre Before that, Bihar’s Har Ghar Bijli Yojana, launched in November 2016 to give electricity connections to more than 5 million households, becameRead More

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on August 2 that land disputes lie at the root of most violent crime in the state, and called for steps to reduce them. He was speaking at a meeting of the state’s revenue and land reforms department in Patna. Tackling land disputes Kumar said that close to 60 percent of violent crimes in Bihar stem from disputes over land. To bring these down, he said, a new survey and settlement of land records was being carried out, alongside several other measures that theRead More

A BJP legislator in Uttar Pradesh has publicly backed Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the main accused in the 2017 Unnao rape case, even though the party expelled Sengar earlier in the same week. A video shows Ashish Singh Ashu, the BJP MLA from Mallawan, speaking warmly about Sengar at a party function on Friday. What the MLA said Referring to the jailed former MLA as a brother, Ashu told the gathering that Sengar could not attend because he was facing a hard period. He said everyone’s good wishes were with himRead More