Bihar elections: Changing paradigms of a failed state

Bihar, historically has always been a politically active state. A state, where people eat and sleep with politics. With feelings of caste and religion deeply rooted in the mindset of an average Bihari, any election eventually turns out to be a caste warfare. A dismal literacy rate of 47 percent also is one of the factors why caste and religion play a dominant role in elections in Bihar.

Laloo Prasad Yadav was the first person to realize this. His social engineering found a large audience in the form of poor, underprivileged people in rural sections of Bihar. Development went for a toss and casteist politics became the call of the day. He (mis)ruled the state first himself, and then with a proxy from 1997 till 2005, when JD(U) with the support of BJP first ousted him from the power.

Once a best governed state during independence, Bihar turned into a mess which no one cared to clear. The first winds of change was seen in 2005, when JD(U)-BJP combine won fair number of seats in Assembly and laid claims for forming a coalition government in Patna. With Ram Vilas Paswan playing a "king-maker" role, Laloo was almost certain to be ousted from power. That was when, once a strong ally, and then a power in Center, the great Congress Party came for his help. Congress agent and Bihar Governor, Mr Buta Singh dissolved the assembly and thwarted NDA, which was almost certain to form government in Bihar. President rule was imposed on Bihar and re-election was scheduled for October-November. People of Bihar, sensing the foul play, gave NDA complete majority this time to lay claims for power and Nitish Kumar became the Chief minister.

This was the turn around moment for many's fortunes.

Nitish Kumar, because he got a chance to undo whatever bad was done during Laloo-Rabri-Congress regime. With the extensive work done on improving infrastructure and law and order in Bihar, he established himself as "Vikas Purush", never before heard in the history of the state. People began to see a light at the end of the long dark tunnel of 15 years misrule by RJD.

Laloo Yadav, because he was relegated in the back seat for the first time in his political career. In subsequent elections his vote bank began to erode, so much so that in 2009 general elections he managed to win only 4 seats out of 40.

Congress, sensing that there is no more steam left in Laloo, started distancing itself from him. In 2010 assembly elections, it for the first time went all alone contesting on all seats on offer in Bihar. If exit polls are anything to go by, it clearly shows that Congress can dent hard the vote bank of RJD-LJP combine. For now, we can wait till November end to see the actual results.

Ram Vilas Paswan, once touted as king-maker, now is nowhere near to his glory days. He too suffered the similar fate as that of his now staunch ally Laloo. His disastrous showing in Lok Sabha elections 2009 was a clear signal that people can't be fool again and again on casteist agendas.

Rabri Devi, a reluctant and least qualified person to ever sit on CM's throne, with due respect, can peacefully go back to her kitchen. Seriously, how can you expect a simple housewife with 5th grade education as her only achievement in life to rule over second most populous state. This was a blasphemy and something for which people of Bihar can never forgive Laloo.

And finally Bihar, which till 2005, a laggard state in every aspect, has begun to show some signs of recovery. With increased investment in infrastructure, greater emphasis on education, vastly improved law and order situation and a visibly better governance, Bihar can look forward to attain its long lost glory.

Development is the new theme on which elections are set to be fought over in Bihar now. May the politics over caste and religion be history now and so may Laloo and Paswan.

Pokharan test II - Its significance in India's modern history

Pokharan test in 1998 in many ways was a landmark incident in modern Indian history. It was the first time when India openly shrugged off her nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament stance against the powerful international lobby despite the numerous sanction threats.

Since the end of World War II, world was inequitably divided into two groups: one with nuclear power and the other without it. 98 percent of the countries of the world fall into the later with only USA, UK, France, Soviet Union and China being the privileged ones. Just after the aftermath of WW2, a Non Proliferation Treaty for Nuclear weapons was conceptualized among the nations winning the war. The treaty said that only four of the nations namely, the USA, the UK, the Soviet Union and France were authorized to produce and maintain their nuclear artilleries. Any other country if found to work with this technology will be dealt with firm hands and will have to face consequences in the form of political and economical ostracisms and even with military incursions. China being a major power at the time of formation of treaty was treated as an exception and thus it too became a part of the Big four. And thus a BIG five was formed which for the next four decades maintained its hegemony over the world till India became the first country to challenge that, which we will come in subsequent passages.

Subsequently, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was created to endorse the earlier one, the NPT, specifying ways in which the sanctions would be applied to the violating countries. Most of the nations in the world were forced to endorse both the treaties with a few exceptions like India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran etc.

Since independence, India has followed a policy of non-alignment, which helped India maintain an equal distance from two major blocks developing after the WW2, namely the capitalist block with USA as its head and the communist block with USSR as its lead. India knew that endorsing any of the treaty like CTBT or NPT will eventually come in the way of maintaining an independent foreign policy. Also, India after independence was surrounded by nations which were not exactly friends with her. Pakistan in collusion with China and USA always used to threaten and transgress the Indian borders as were in 1948, 1965, 1971 and later on in 1999. In 1971, after its creation, Bangladesh also joined the chorus along with Pakistan. China in 1962 war also made clear its intentions of animosity. So, with these insurmountable problems India's harmonious existence has always been in danger.

In the wake of these threats, Congress government with Indira Gandhi as its head conducted the subdued first test in Pokharan. Subdued, because India was not a big power then to face international sanctions from all corners and to jeopardize its growth. India was still a country which needed much international support and aid for its existence. It has not become self dependent. Fifteen years later BJP government came into power overcoming much of the political turmoil with AB Vajpayee becoming Prime Minister of India the third time in three years. Due to some political pressure and due to some existential pressure, the BJP government in order to show India's mettle to the world and hence the government's mettle to its people conducted the TEST in 1999, which in many ways established India as an important player in the world politics.

India successfully conducted three nuclear tests in Pokharan under the able guidance of our former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, then the chief of nuclear operations. International community reacted sharply with USA, UN and other nations imposing several kinds of bans and sanctions on India. India was banned from participating in most of the international economic forums and several countries cut on the imports from India. Japan, Canada, etc suspended providing aid to India. USA however did not succeed in getting G-8 countries taking collective action against India. Germany, France and Russia continued their economic ties with India. With passage of time, several other countries let go their hard stance over India.

Pokharan II marks an important chapter in the history of India as a evolving democratic, independent nation. Although, India did a diplomatic blunder by openly admitting to the world about the tests, it in many ways helped India gain a prominent position among the powerful nations. India became only the sixth nation in the world to openly admit to have the capacity of producing nuclear technology and hence the weapons on its own. In the hindsight, the tests look like an eventuality which was bound to happen to challenge the old world order and form a new world order with new evolving paradigms. As described by UN General Secretary Mr Kofi Annan - "We can not have two parameters for evaluating different nations. At one hand CTBT allows the exclusive club to maintain and produce nuclear weapons and at other hand it restricts other countries (India and Pakistan) not to have them".

National Highways - India

NH1:

Delhi - Ambala - Jalandhar - Ludhiana - Amritsar - Atari (Indo-Pak Border)

Length in State(s): Delhi (22), Haryana (180), Punjab (254)

Total Length: 456 km

NH2: 

Delhi - Agra - Kanpur - Allahabad - Gaya - Dhanbad - Kolkata

Length in State(s): Delhi (12), Haryana (74), Uttar Pradesh (752), Bihar (202), Jharkhand (190), West Bengal (235)

Total Length: 1465 km

NH3:

Agra - Gwalior - Indore - Nasik - Thane - Mumbai

Length in State(s): Uttar Pradesh (26), Rajasthan (32), Madhya Pradesh (712), Maharashtra (391)

Total Length: 1161 km

NH4:

Thane - Pune - Hubli - Bangalore - Chittoor - Chennai

Length in State(s): Maharashtra (371), Karnataka (658), Andhra Pradesh (83), Tamil Nadu (123)

Total Length: 1235 km

NH5:

Cuttack - Bhubaneswar - Visakhapatnam - Vijayawada - Guntur - Nellore - Chennai (Junction with NH 6 near Baharagora)

Length in State(s): Orissa (488), Andhra Pradesh (1000), Tamil Nadu (45)

Total Length: 1533 km

NH6: 

Hajira - Dhule - Nagpur - Raipur - Sambalpur - Baharagora - Kolkata

Length in State(s): Maharashtra (813), Chattisgarh (314), Orissa (462), Jharkhand (22), West Bengal (161), Gujarat (177)

Total Length: 1949 km

NH7: 

Varanasi - Rewa - Jabalpur - Nagpur - Hyderabad - Bangalore - Salem - Madurai - Kanyakumari

Length in State(s): Uttar Pradesh (128), Madhya Pradesh (504), Maharashtra (232), Andhra Pradesh (753), Karnataka (125), Tamil Nadu (627)

Total Length: 2369 km

NH8: 

Delhi - Jaipur - Ajmer - Udaipur - Ahmedabad - Vadodra - Mumbai

Length in State(s): Delhi (13), Haryana (101), Rajasthan (688), Gujarat (498), Maharashtra (128)

Total Length: 1428 km

NH9: 

Pune - Solapur - Hyderabad - Vijayawada - Machillipatnam

Length in State(s): Maharashtra (336), Karnataka (75), Andhra Pradesh (430)

Total Length: 841 km

NH10: 

Delhi - Fazilka - Indo-Pak Border

Length in State(s): Delhi (18), Haryana (313), Punjab (72)

Total Length: 403 km

NH11: 

Agra - Jaipur - Bikaner

Length in State(s): Uttar Pradesh (51), Rajasthan (531)

Total Length: 582 km

NH12: 

Jabalpur - Bhopal - Kota - Bundi - Tonk - Jaipur

Length in State(s): Madhya Pradesh (490), Rajasthan (400)

Total Length: 890 km

NH13: 

Solapur - Chitradurga - Shimoga - Mangalore

Length in State(s): Maharashtra (43), Karnataka (648)

Total Length: 691 km

NH14: 

Beawar - Sirohi - Radhapur

Length in State(s): Rajasthan (310), Gujarat (140)

Total Length: 450 km

Do networks bother you?

We’ll try to find out the total number of ways to reach a destination from a source for any given network.

In how many ways can you reach the Destination from the Source as shown in the network above?

Pretty easy. Right?

Total of 4 ways. Quite clear from the diagram.

• Start - A - C - D - E - G - Destination
• Start - A - C - D - F - G - Destination
• Start - B - C - D - E - G - Destination
• Start - B - C - D - F - G - Destination

For this diagram, it was easy to visualize all the paths from Source to Destination.

But, what if the diagram is:

or, increasing the complexity a bit further:

Would you still be able to picture out all of the possible paths for the given diagram?

We need utmost care to not possibly miss any of the paths, if we go on counting all of the paths in the network.

Let’s figure out a simple process by which we’ll able to find out the total number of paths to reach a destination from a source for any given network, however complex it may be.

For all the nodes we need to fetch the following information:

• Total incoming paths to a Node

And, the steps are:

1. Calculate total incoming paths to any node

2. Outgoing paths will contain a value which is the sum of all the incoming paths

3. So, all subsequent nodes from N can be reached by the sum of the number of all the incoming paths.

4. And, last but the most important point to consider: We’ll always assume that the total number of ways to reach our source node is 1. So, all the outgoing paths from source will start with value 1.

That’s it.

Enough of concepts.

Let’s get down with solving the networks we saw earlier.

Problem 1:

Find the total number of ways to reach Destination from Source.

Total incoming paths to B = 1 (As all the paths emanating from Source contain value 1)

Therefore, Outgoing paths from B = 1

Total incoming paths to E = 1

Therefore, Outgoing paths from E = 1

Total incoming paths to D = 1+1+1 = 3

Therefore, Outgoing paths from D = 3

Total incoming paths to C = 1+3 = 4

Therefore, Outgoing paths from C = 4

Total incoming paths to F = 3+1 = 4

Therefore, Outgoing paths from F = 4

So, Total number of ways to reach Destination = From C + From D + From F = 4+3+4 = 11

So, a total of 11 ways to reach the Destination from Source.

Problem 2:

Find the total number of ways to reach Destination from Source.

Total incoming paths to B = 1

Therefore, Outgoing paths from B = 1

Total incoming paths to G = 1

Therefore, Outgoing paths from G = 1

Total incoming paths to E = 1+1+1 = 3

Therefore, Outgoing paths from E = 3

Total incoming paths to C = 1+3 = 4

Therefore, Outgoing paths from C = 4

Total incoming paths to H = 3+1 = 4

Therefore, Outgoing paths from H = 4

Total incoming paths to F = 4+4+3 = 11

Therefore, Outgoing paths from F = 11

Total incoming paths to D = 4+11 = 15

Therefore, Outgoing paths from D = 15

Total incoming paths to I = 4+11 = 15

Therefore, Outgoing paths from I = 15

So, Total number of ways to reach Destination = From D + From F + From I = 15+11+15 = 41

So, a total of 41 ways to reach the Destination from Source.

Hope, problems from networks don’t become a problem for us in future. :)

Cheers.