Indian state requires candidates to own a toilet before they can run in village elections

Authorities in an east Indian state have made it mandatory for candidates contesting village elections to have a toilet in their home as part of a move to improve sanitation in the country, a senior official said. On Wednesday, the Bihar state assembly passed an act mandating that candidates must confirm that they have a toilet inside their home in […]

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Heatwave In India

A farmer sits on his parched land in the village of Gauribidanur in India’s southern Karnataka state on May 26, as a brutal heat wave continued to blister the country, claiming at least 1,100 lives and causing roads to melt in New Delhi. Pre-monsoon showers were forecast to soon provide relief to the south, where temperatures in some areas neared […]

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Envying the lower castes

Suddenly everyone wants to be low-caste, said Badri Narayan. It used to be considered an extreme disadvantage to be in one of India’s oppressed castes or indigenous tribes. But decades of affirmative action and quota systems have changed all that. Now, many lower-middle castes are agitating to be reclassified as “more backward,” in effect “struggling to move down the ladder […]

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