Travels Through The Hindi Belt

Travels through the Hindi belt: In dry state Bihar, youths resort to bootlegging as unemployment rises at an alarming 19.4%

Much like the state of Gujarat with a prohibition law for decades, Bihar, too, has slipped into clandestine liquor trade with several jobless youths joining in to make money

With labour participation rate at 38%, daily wage workers in Bihar blame demonetisation, Nitish Kumar's policies for struggle

One of the major reasons behind stark rise in unemployment in Bihar is the agrarian crisis, where more and more farmers are moving out of their farms and seeking work elsewhere. According to the censuses between 1991 and 2011, nearly 15 million farmers in India have dropped out of the profession at the rate of 2035 per day.

Travels through the Hindi belt: In Bihar's Gaya, parents forced to put kids to work in absence of solution from state

Bihar's Gaya district, home to the famour Mahabodhi temple, is infamous for being the centre of child trafficking in the state.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Motihari sugar mill in Bihar a poll plank since 2005 with no word on operations resuming yet

Narendra Modi, before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, had said that during his next visit to Motihari, he would have tea with sugar crushed at this mill.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Cast out of cow trade, Bihar's Gora village plunges into despair, poverty; MGNREGA offers no relief

Half of Gora with a population of nearly 3,000 had been engaged in the cattle trade.

Travels through the Hindi belt: For farm workers in Bihar's Darbhanga, seasonal migration to Punjab only hope of livelihood

Thousands of villagers from Bihar’s Darbhanga district migrate around March-end to work as labourers in Punjab’s wheat fields, where they toil away for over a month.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Job dreams go bust in Bihar's Madhepura after loco factory abandons locals despite acquiring farm lands

Anil Mukhiya, a local leader who has been rallying the protestors, says the villages around the facility have not been prioritised for jobs, and it has not helped generate any significant employment.

Travels in the Hindi belt: 'How bad can Rahul be, Modi hasn't set a very high standard,' say some young voters in Bihar

Bihar is a state where caste identities probably matter more than the rest of India. The upper caste, Baniyas and Rajputs are firm with BJP, just as they have traditionally been. Yadavs and Muslims are more consolidated with the RJD and the Congress than they have ever been. The swing vote in Bihar is usually the non-Yadav Other Backward Class (OBCs) and the Economically Backward Class (EBCs).

Travels through the Hindi belt: In Yogi Adityanath's Uttar Pradesh, unemployment beats national rate; sports goods industry takes hit

After Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, he has been cracking down on cow slaughter.

Travels through the Hindi belt: In dry Ramda village of UP's Kairana, Mallah community has little choice but to migrate

The current trend of migration in Mallah community is depriving the next generation of schooling as well.