Much have been said and written about the state of education in Bihar describing the causes and effects elucidating shambolic state of its education system.

Recently, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Mr T. S. Thakur showed his emotions in public and exhorted and beseeched upon the executive head of the country Mr. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister, to get filled the vacancy of twenty-two thousand judges as recommended by the Law Commission in 1987.

The controversy over granting Minority Status to Aligarh Muslim University (AMI) is unfortunate and unwarranted. In this connection an article by well known legal luminary of India Shri N. R. Madhava Menon (published on 22nd Feb. 2016 in a National English Daily)) throws much light on the historical and secular reasons for granting special status to the University and explains "Why AMU should be an exception."

Every year at the US Varsities, the Indian student association invites prospective freshman and other students to celebrate Holi and to take part in one of the largest, muddiest colourful balloon fights in the United States.

The flutter created by Kanhaiya's speech all over the media and social media space shouldn't be surprising. In this age and time getting frenzy over things is the easiest thing to do. No doubt the speech was sharp, eloquent blending extempore with sincerity peppered with a tint of humor and sarcasm.

मेरा अक्सर, भारत यात्रा के दौरान, विभिन्न शहरों में जाना होता है. या तो अपने निजी कामों के कारण इन शहरो में जाना होता है या फिर किसी सेमिनार या कांफ्रेंस में अपने एकेडमिक कामों के कारण. इसी यात्रा के क्रम में, अपने अपने कार्य क्षेत्र में विशिष्ट योगदान देने वाले कई लोगों से क़रीब से मिलने, कुछ जानने और साथ ही उन से कुछ सीखने का भी मौक़ा मिलता है.

The state which just crossed over the assembly election has been witnessing agitation all around and most interestingly, none of them is for political reasons. The state witnessed the closure of shops frequently, this fortnight against the coercive revenue generating measures of the government.

King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Some good news for the Muslim world in the academic front has been reported recently by international agencies. For instance, world ranking of top 500 universities for 2015 by Shanghai University shows nine universities from the Muslim world included in the list.

Looking out the window...

Another chilly winter morning in Agartala, the sun trying to win over the clouds in the fight of superiority, the breeze has a tinge of coolness, in the distance some fog is still to be seen, the dew on the grass from the last night is evident, all make up for another normal morning in the scheme of life.

Polling in Bihar.

One of beauties of democracy is that pretty often the voiceless section determines the one who ought to get the mandate.

This was best seen when Peoples Pulse toured Bihar to assess the situation for the 2015 Assembly elections. It is clear that the battle lines were fully drawn based on caste. The upper castes like the Brahmins, Bhumihars and Rajputs along with Banias, Kushwas, Paswans, and Mushahars have predominantly decided to back the NDA - BJP, LJP, RLSP and ex-Chief Minister Mr. Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha.

An Owaisi poster in Kishanganj.

The identitarian turn in Hindi Heartland (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) since late 1980s led to the electoral viability of caste and community-centered political parties at the expanse of catch-all and class-based parties like Congress and Left wherein the parties like Bahujan Samajwadi Party and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and Janata Dal/Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar catered primarily to the interests of their respective core constituencies, namely, numerically dominant castes among OBCs and Dalits like Yadavs and Jatav-Chamars.

A caste-based rally by the RJD in Bihar.

In the popular parlance, both Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi, the leading faces of Mahagathbandhan and NDA in Bihar election, are known to pursue development centric electoral campaigns quite successfully by making identity issues subservient to developmental agenda.