From borders to ballots: Bihar's voters focus on ground realities
Live Events
(You can now subscribe to our
(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel
With India and Pakistan agreeing to end aggressive manoeuvres, political discourse in parts of Bihar has swiftly shifted to the upcoming state assembly elections. While Indo-Pak tensions still surface in casual conversations, most voters are focused on everyday concerns - employment, migration, corruption, law and order, healthcare, education, infrastructure - and, above all, the caste census Those who've lived through earlier conflicts between the neighbours say plainly, "Wars are never good. They are always bad." But many in the younger generation, keen on "action," don't entirely agree. Still, there's consensus across age groups that local issues demand more urgent attention.In Bihar's litchi and mango belts, theft from orchards is a growing concern. In Purnea district, one villager shared an unusual story: after cremating his father in their orchard last month, thefts mysteriously stopped. "Some say they've heard my father's voice near the orchard," Tanu says with a smile. Even so, villagers are aware they need more practical solutions.In Sitamarhi, which borders Nepal, the recent India-Pakistan tension sparked debates with an unexpected twist - caste. Some villagers focused on the caste of the armed forces' top brass and urged others to declare their caste openly during census. This push came just days after the Pahalgam terror attack. One local put it bluntly: "There is no identity sans caste."When asked whether Operation Sindoor would influence the elections, a Muzaffarpur villager shrugged: "All that is fine. But in Bihar, there's only one reality - jaat ki baat (caste talk). Everything else is secondary."On infrastructure, another Muzaffarpur resident observed, "Bihar is no longer a dust bowl, but there's no proper planning - in cities or villages. City infra is a total mess." He even compared Pakistani missiles to Bihar's crumbling bridges.Many also feel that health and education need a major push. "Jobs are there," said one youth, "but not enough to go around."While the election heat hasn't peaked yet, there's cautious optimism. "We just hope our problems are resolved as swiftly as Pakistan was taught a lesson," said a villager.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
30 minutes ago
- First Post
Can debt-ridden Pakistan afford to hike its defence budget?
Pakistan is expected to raise its defence budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The country's Planning Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, confirmed the move over the weekend, citing tensions with India as the reason. This comes as Islamabad's total public debt has reached a staggering PKR 76 trillion (around $269 billion), as per its economic survey 2024-25. However, the country's defence spending remains dwarfed by India's read more Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Asim Munir holds a microphone during his visit at the Tilla Field Firing Ranges (TFFR) to witness the Exercise Hammer Strike, a high-intensity field training exercise conducted by the Pakistan Army's Mangla Strike Corps, in Mangla, Pakistan May 1, 2025. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) via Reuters Pakistan is increasing its defence budget amid recent tensions with India. The country's Planning Minister, Ahsan Iqbal, said on the weekend that the government will hike its defence budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The move comes even as Pakistan remains debt-ridden and the country faces economic instability and high inflation. As Pakistan increases its defence budget, we take a look at how it compares with India's. Pakistan to raise defence budget Pakistan's Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal confirmed on Saturday (June 7) that the government will increase the defence budget. 'It is our national duty to provide the armed forces with whatever they need in this budget to bolster their capacity and defend our country in the future. It has been proven that we have a dangerous neighbour (India) who attacked us in the night, but we gave them a befitting response,' he was quoted as saying by Pakistan's Dawn. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Iqbal said the country must 'remain ready to respond if they attack again'. The likely step comes amid Pakistan's economic woes. The country's economic survey 2024-25 revealed that Islamabad paid $7.8 billion in external debt service payments in the previous financial year. A boy plays with a soccer ball next to a smouldering pile of rubbish, ahead of the World Environment Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, June 4, 2025. Reuters The country is spending more than 1.9 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on debt service payments, according to the survey. Pakistan's total public debt has reached a staggering PKR 76 trillion (around $269 billion), almost double since 2020-21. Of this, Islamabad owes $87.4 billion to other countries and multilateral agencies. Pakistan has to pay China $15 billion – the largest amount among bilateral lenders. This is followed by Japan at $3 billion and France at over $1 billion. The Shehbaz Sharif government's decision to hike the military budget comes amid significant damage to Pakistani airbases and air defence systems in the strikes by India under Operation Sindoor in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack. Pakistan's military budget Pakistan will unveil its annual budget for the coming fiscal year today (June 10), reported to be a PKR 17.6 trillion budget. According to Reuters, analysts predict a rise of about 20 per cent in the country's defence budget. Pakistan had increased its defence budget by 16.4 per cent last year. Pakistan allocated PKR 2.1 trillion for defence in the FY 2024-25, including $2 billion for equipment and other assets. The country's military expenditure stood at $10.2 billion for 2024-25, data by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) revealed. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD To counter India's technologically advanced forces, Islamabad has focused its defence spending on maintaining nuclear capabilities and expanding its missile systems. Pakistan has an edge over India only in mobile rocket systems, 600 over New Delhi's 264, as per an Economic Times (ET) report. India, Pak comparison India has a bigger military than Pakistan and notably higher defence spending. For the 2025-26 fiscal year, India set aside $78.7 billion for defence spending, a 9.5 per cent rise from the previous year. India's military spending for 2024-25 was at $86.1 billion, as per SIPRI data. This makes the country the fifth-largest military spender in the world. The world's most populated country's defence budget has grown in the past decade. In 2013, India's military spending was at $41 billion. This nearly doubled to $80 billion by 2024, as per data from Macrotrends. India is seeking to enhance its defence capabilities by expanding the domestic production of weapon systems to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers. It has also enhanced its air power by making key purchases such as Rafale fighter jets. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD When it comes to manpower, India has 14.5 lakh active military personnel, as compared to its rival neighbour's 654,000. India boasts 730 combat-ready aircraft, while Pakistan has 452 military aircraft. India's military has 4,201 tanks and roughly 149,000 armoured vehicles, with Pakistan possessing only 2,627 tanks and 17,500 armoured units. India's naval power is also superior to Pakistan's. The Indian Navy operates 293 vessels, including two aircraft carriers, 18 submarines, and 13 destroyers. Pakistan, on the other hand, has 121 vessels but does not have aircraft carriers or destroyers. With inputs from agencies
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Five reasons why Indian sub-continent has changed post Operation Sindoor
Over a month ago, Indian jets and ground-based missile launchers inflicted the most damage on Pakistan since the 1971 Indo-Pak war. India attacked terrorist infrastructure and wrecked Pakistani airbases and radars in a swift series of retaliatory air and ground strikes. India has held the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance for the first time since its 1960 reasons why the ongoing Operation Sindoor is arguably India's greatest strategic move since the 1998 Pokharan-2 nuclear ENDS PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR BLACKMAILPakistan covertly acquired nuclear weapons capability in the 1980s before India did. India tested a nuclear device in 1974 but that device was not a weapon as in, in a form that could be delivered on to target. It is one of the sub-continent conundrums that while India tested first, it began weaponising later, only in the late 1980s after intelligence suggested that the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme was racing ahead. When the Pakistan military acquired nuclear weapons capability in the 1980s, it changed its mindset. The Pakistan Army believed that India would not punish it for terror attacks using its conventional military superiority because it feared Pakistan would use nuclear weapons. This belief was reinforced when multiple terror strikes on Mumbai, in 1993, 2006 and 2008 went unpunished. In fact, General Musharaff launched the Kargil operation just six months after the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear believed India would not use its army to strike at Pakistan. His point was reinforced by Operation Parakram in 2001-02 when India responded to the attack on India's parliament by deploying its entire military along the borders, but withdrew them six months later. This standoff led to what scholars like Commodore C Uday Bhaskar have called 'Nuclear Weapons Enabled Terrorism' or NWET. This policy has now seems to have reached the end of its life. Prime Minister Modi's government has shown it is not deterred by Pakistan's nuclear weapons or its nuclear blackmail a fact explicitly mentioned by Prime Minister Modi on May 12.2. ENDS DISTINCTION BETWEEN PAKISTANI STATE AND NON-STATEThe Pakistan Army has always used non-state actors as an adjunct of the state. In 1947, it used tribal militias from the North West Frontier regions to invade Jammu and Kashmir. In 1965, it infiltrated special forces disguised as tribals to provoke an insurrection in Jammu and Kashmir. In 1999, it infiltrated its Northern Light Infantry disguised as militants to capture the heights of Kargil. Since the 1980s, the Pak Army and its ISI honed and perfected its terror infrastructure skills in the shadow of the Afghan war (1979-1988), the West-funded proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. When the Afghan War ended, Pakistan used the leftover infrastructure of Operation Cyclone warehouses filled with weapons and tens of thousands of radicalised mujahideen, to wage war against India, first in Punjab, and later in Jammu and Kashmir. All along, the Pakistan Army kept up the pretence of violent groups like the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed being 'non-state actors', over whom the state had no control when terrorist groups like the TTP turned against it, Pakistan used the attacks to play the victim card. Each time India attempted to point at Pakistan's state sponsorship of terror, Islamabad maintained it was also a victim of terrorism. Pakistan used this stratagem to deceive the West in the two-decade War on Terror in Afghanistan (2001-2021). It deceived the US that it was with them while it was covertly training and sheltering the Taliban. 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was hidden in a safehouse just a kilometre away from the Pakistan Military Academy, India, the mask fell off on April 16, 2025. On that day, army chief General Asim Munir who delivered a highly provocative and communal speech advocating the Two Nation Theory. On April 22, 26 Indian tourists and one Nepali national were massacred by Pakistani terrorists. Post Operation Sindoor, the Pakistan army has accorded military funerals to dead terrorists. Terrorist leaders have openly appeared on platforms with politicians. The mask of deniability has fallen off. The blame for all future terror strikes will be laid squarely at the doorstep of the Pakistan RAISES PAKISTAN'S TERROR SPONSORSHIP COSTSTerrorism was a low-cost option for the Pakistan Army. By spending a few crores on running training camps and terror infrastructure over the years, it tied down entire divisions of the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir. Every Indian Army division tied down in J&K, the Pakistan Army believed, was one less than could be deployed against it in a conventional emboldened Pakistan Army continued to inflict what it believed was death by a thousand cuts on India, spreading attacks to the mainland. When terror groups like the LeT became self-sufficient, running their outfits through public donations, the financial burden on the Pakistan Army and its ISI was further Operation Sindoor rampage by India destroyed terrorist training camps and military infrastructure inside Pakistan. A bankrupt Pakistan, living a hand- to- handout existence will have to decide where it will need to spend its precious foreign exchange on importing more fighter jets and missiles, or feeding its people. Terror sponsorship is no longer a low-cost Operation Sindoor end Pakistan-sponsored terrorism ? It is unlikely. This is because the Pakistan Army defines victory very differently, as the scholar C Christine Fair once for the Pakistan Army is not when it loses half its country and its military infrastructure is wrecked. Defeat for the Pakistan Army is only when it stops Pakistan Army is actually a gigantic business corporation. The military runs a business empire, construction companies, housing corporations, security agencies and logistics firms which benefit a key military elite. This business empire is estimated at over $100 billion. So deeply entrenched is this autonomous state within a state that there's actually a term for it, Milbus or Military Business, coined by Pakistani scholar Ayesha Siddiqa. The Pakistan Army chief is also the MD and CEO of this corporation. What Operation Sindoor has done is to force the Pakistan Army chief to do a cost-benefit analysis before launching a terror strike against India. 'Will this attack deliver more for me than the cost of retaliation from India?'advertisement4. BOOSTED INDIA'S INDIGENOUS WEAPONSOne of the key thrust areas of the Modi government was indigenous weapons systems. This paid off handsomely during Operation Sindoor when indigenously developed solutions proved to be star of Operation Sindoor was the Russian-designed indigenously produced Su-30MKI and the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile. India is the only country in the world with this combination- a fighter jet carrying a heavy supersonic cruise missile with a 200 kg warhead. Because the missile flies at nearly three times the speed of sound, it strikes targets with nine times the kinetic energy of ordinary missiles. This combination was an Indian invention — the product of the Indian engineers at Brahmos aerospace, the IAF and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The indigenously developed Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) knits all of India's ground-based air defences into one network, beating back Pakistan's repeated air assaults. India's startups too supplied drones that were used by the Indian military in strikes against Pakistani targets. Operation Sindoor's lessons will further boost the indigenous defence ecosystem, accelerating the creation of a domestic military industrial complex.5. IDENTIFIED FRIEND AND FOEIn the fog of war, the biggest challenge is to identify who your friends and foes are. For India, Operation Sindoor cleared some of the haze. The Turkiye, Azerbaijan and China nexus was always one that backed Pakistan. This was more pronounced as all three came out in strong support of Pakistan backing it with diplomatic and military support.A mercurial Donald Trump, who claimed to have used trade as a lever to get India to stop shooting at Pakistan, will only reinforce New Delhi's belief that American weapons come with strings attached. A senior MoD bureaucrat explained to me why India would never buy American fighter jets. 'Because they will never allow you to fight the wars they don't want you to.'
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Jairam Ramesh slams PM Modi for ‘failing to protect dignity of India and Indians'
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government and accused it of "failing" to protect and safeguard the dignity of India and Indians abroad. This comes after a video of an Indian student handcuffed and pinned to the floor at an airport in the United States went viral on social media. The Congress MP Jairam Ramesh again criticised the Modi government after United States President Donald Trump announced the cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan. In a social media post on X, Jairam Ramesh wrote, 'The Modi government is continuously failing to protect the honour of India and Indians. For the first time in history, a foreign head of state announced a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in India's absence. US President Trump is constantly claiming to enforce a ceasefire by pressuring India. For the past year, Indian citizens and students living in America have been repeatedly mistreated, but Prime Minister Modi is maintaining silence, or it should be assumed that he is unable to muster the courage to speak.' The Congress leader demanded that Prime Minister Modi immediately talk to President Trump and appeal for intervention in the "mistreatment" and "atrocities" being committed against Indians in America. The social media post reads, "He is the Prime Minister of India, it is his most important responsibility to protect the honour and dignity of India and Indians. We demand that Prime Minister Modi should immediately talk to President Trump and appeal for intervention in the mistreatment and atrocities being committed against Indians in America." Congress leaders have been attacking and questioning the government over Trump's self-claimed intervention during the India-Pakistan conflict. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for stopping hostilities between India and Pakistan after New Delhi's effective response to Islamabad's aggression following precision strikes on terror infrastructure. India had conducted Operation Sindoor early on May 7 and hit terror infrastructure in Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
