India's Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav (C) poses with copies of the 'Mahakumbh' coffee table book and documentary film with AFP photographer Prakash Singh (R) and Publisher M.P. Yadav (L) in New Delhi on April 23, 2013. The book and film documents this year's Kumbh Mela festival, the world's largest religious gathering where nearly 120 million pilgrims converged in Allahabad over two months. Yadav on April 26 will present a lecture on the organising of the religious event at Harvard University in the US.
Unemployed Indians stand in queues to register themselves at the Employment Exchange Office in Allahabad, India, Monday, March 25, 2013. Employment offices have been flooded with applicants after Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav pledged to give unemployment benefits to unemployed graduates between the ages of 35 to 40.
A year ago, 38-year-old Akhilesh Yadav became the youngest chief minister of India's most populous state - Uttar Pradesh. To celebrate his first year in office, Yadav has flooded the media with full-page advertisements.
Days before, he was also seen distributing free laptops, the home screens of which had tamper proof screensavers of him and his dad, Mulayam Singh Yadav.
If the last Uttar Pradesh election was about Rahul Gandhi trying to make his mark in the state, and Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh trying to dethrone Mayawati, the next one - the 2014 general elections - will be about much higher stakes. After a long time, Uttar Pradesh will be back in political focus as the key hunting ground for at least four prime ministerial hopefuls, some stated, some unstated.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, right, speaks with a survivor of a stampede at a railway station, during a visit to meet with injured pilgrims at a local hospital in Allahabad, India, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. At least 37 people died during the stampede on a railway station platform where thousands of Hindu pilgrims heading home from the Kumbh Mela religious festival had gathered.
Khairair (UP): Martyred soldier Lance Naik Hemraj's family ended their six-day-old fast on Monday after the visit of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, top BJP leaders and assurances by Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh that steps will be taken to get back the severed head.
The end of the protest came in the evening when Akhilesh met the family and offered juice to Hemraj's fasting wife Dharamwati, mother Meena Devi and cousin Narendra, offering all help to the family as well as for the development of the village.
Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh visited the family of the martyred soldier and announced that the government would give Rs 46 lakh to the family. We are also talking to other ministries so that the family get a petrol pump, he said.
India's Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav (C) arrives at the Vidyagyan Leadership Academy in Bulandshahr on December 16,2012. The state of art school imparts free education and accommodation to the poorest and poor children from villages of district state of India.
