Latest news with #BiharDiwas
Time of India
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
City's iconic govt buildings lit up with tricolour
Patna: Iconic govt buildings surrounding Gandhi Maidan — including Biskoman Bhawan, Gyan Bhawan, Bapu Sabhagar, Shrikrishna Science Centre, and Udyog Bhawan — have been illuminated with tricolour theme to mark the Independence Day celebrations on August 15. This initiative, led by Patna Smart City Limited (PSCL), aims to foster a sense of national pride and unity among citizens. Adding to the festivities, the flag hoisting ceremony at Gandhi Maidan will be broadcast live across 15 variable message display (VMD) screens installed throughout the city, ensuring widespread public participation. The Independence Day parade will feature 15 tableaux showcasing various themes, including social issues and cultural heritage. "For those unable to attend the parade, it will be live-streamed on VMD screens at 15 locations across Patna city," said a PSCL official. "The govt buildings are illuminated with blue LED lights on the occasion of Bihar Diwas, pink lights are lit up for women empowerment, orange and yellow for the state's heritage and culture, multicolour for Diwali, and tricolour for Republic and Independence Day celebrations," the official added. Even other govt buildings on the Nehru Path, including Vishwasaraiya Bhawan, Vikas Bhawan and New Secretariat building, and the flyovers across the city have also been illuminated with tricolour LED lights. Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area. "Get the latest news updates on Times of India, including reviews of the movie Coolie and War 2 ."
Indian Express
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
From matrubhoomi to karmabhoomi: Bihar BJP reaches out to migrant voters in states
BJP leaders from Bihar are traveling to Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana among other states to hold interactive sessions with migrants who are registered as voters in Bihar and appeal to them to support the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Assembly elections. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is running this programme in 25 districts, including Saharanpur, Noida, Chandauli, Kushi Nagar, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Ghaziabad among others, where Bihar-origin people are in significant numbers. The BJP leaders, including state and district party office-bearers, former MLAs and MPs, are spending four to five days every month in the assigned districts of UP, holding meetings with Bihari migrants, social media influencers, NGOs and Chhath Puja committee members. The party has appointed coordinators for every district to facilitate smooth dialogue between the visiting leaders and the migrant voters. A co-coordinator, of Bihar origin, is also appointed. In these meetings, Bihar BJP leaders talk about the development carried out by the NDA government in Bihar. 'If UP is your karmabhoomi (place of work), Bihar is your matrubhoomi (motherland),' is the mantra being used by the BJP leaders to appeal to the voters for their support. 'This programme is part of the BJP's 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat' campaign under which the party is reaching out to people of Bihar origin in different states. In UP, this programme is being run in 25 districts. It will continue till the Bihar elections,' said Subhash Yaduvansh, UP BJP general secretary and in-charge of the campaign in the state. Yaduvansh on Saturday held a virtual meeting with the Bihar BJP leaders scheduled to travel to UP in the coming days. According to BJP leaders, an estimated 2 crore people from Bihar have moved to states like UP, Haryana, Delhi and Maharashtra in search of livelihood. Sources said the BJP had started the meetings with Bihar-origin people days after observing Bihar Diwas in different states in March this year. People from Bihar are invited to these programmes, served state-specific cuisine as BJP leaders make their presentation. The BJP leaders are also collecting contact numbers of the visitors and their respective constituency details so that they can contact them again during the polls. BJP national president J P Nadda addressed one such meeting in New Delhi where he accused past RJD governments in Bihar of bringing 'jungle raj' to the state. He appealed to the gathering to vote for Bihar's development as they voted for Delhi in the recent Assembly polls. Organisationally, the BJP has divided Delhi in 14 district units. Delhi BJP's Purvanchal Morcha president Santosh Ojha told The Indian Express that the leaders from Bihar visited all 14 district units of the national capital. He, however, refused to divulge the details of the agenda of these meetings. On the controversy over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, Ojha said none of the Bihar-origin people attending the meetings expressed any problem with EC exercise in the state. In Haryana, these meetings are being held in Sonipat, Gurugram, Panipat and Faridabad districts where a large number of workers in industries are from Bihar. Faridabad BJP district president Pankaj Poojan Rampal said, 'In these meetings, we are not asking people to vote, we are making them aware of the party's policies and what the government is doing.' He said party leaders from Bihar were communicating better with the migrants because of language connect. BJP's former Pataliputra MP Ram Kripal Yadav has visited Faridabad at least four times since April for the interactive sessions. On June 10, he held a meeting with Faridabad Purvanchal Seva Samiti. Haryana BJP has appointed conveners for these meetings in various districts.
Time of India
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
BJP woos Bihari voters across country with 'Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat' campaign
New Delhi: The BJP is seeking to woo migrant workers from Bihar in the run-up to the assembly election due later this year. It is running a campaign, 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat', connecting with the people of Bihari origin residing in different states across the country. Besides, in March, the party organised Bihar Diwas celebrations at 65 locations where senior BJP leaders participated in programmes with non-resident Biharis . The party has listed 150 districts across the country and 75 dedicated teams have been tasked with collecting and mapping the data of Bihari voters , said people familiar with the matter. BJP general secretary Tarun Chug is in charge of the initiative and senior Bihar leaders as well as Union and state ministers are involved in the outreach programme, they said. The party has divided the outreach into two categories - 'voter' and 'supporter'. "There are people registered as voters in Bihar and there are some who have moved out but are supporters of the party. We are encouraging them to convince their family members to root for the party," Manish Yadav, state co-ordinator of the programme in Haryana, told ET. In Haryana, the party has shortlisted 14 out of 27 districts where there are migrants from Bihar. As per an estimate, there are about 500,000 Bihari residents in Haryana. The local BJP units are busy collecting and mapping data of Bihari migrants in 150 districts across states which is being fed on the BJP's internal 'Saral' app. As per the BJP's estimate, there are about 20 million non-resident Biharis living in different states, about 65% of which are still registered in Bihar as voters. This roughly translates into 13 million voters staying outside Bihar, the majority of which reside in states such as Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Telangana and Punjab. BJP is also looking at the data which was collected during the first wave of the Covid in 2020, said people in the know. The Bihar government had then announced that Rs 1,000 each would be transferred into the accounts of the migrant workers. About 1.3 million applications were received, they said. BJP experimented with an outreach to migrant voters at a smaller level during the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections, according to the people. However, Bihar is the first state where the party aims to implement it at a large level, they said.
Indian Express
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Why migration, jobs will shape the campaigns of key Bihar poll players
In Bihar, unemployment, poverty and migration have been perennial election issues. With the state heading to the Assembly polls in October-November this year, major parties have again started building up their campaign on these issues. The Nitish Kumar -led NDA government and the principal Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have often engaged in 'credit wars' for job-creation initiatives, going back to their days in the Mahagathbandhan government before Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) chief, returned to the NDA fold in January 2024. Last month, the Congress, which is a key constituent of the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, launched a 'Palayan Roko, Naukri Do (stop migration, give jobs)' yatra, while the BJP, senior ally of the JD(U), made special efforts with its nine-day Bihar Diwas celebrations to reach out to the Bihari migrants across the country. The 2011 Census data shows that migration and unemployment are closely linked. Bihar was second only to Uttar Pradesh in terms of the number of migrants spread across the country, including for those who moved to other states for employment. Must Read | Why Nitish Kumar singled out Lalan Singh for JD(U)'s 'mistake' of exiting NDA in 2022 In total, there were 74.54 lakh migrants from Bihar across 34 states and UTs, as per the 2011 Census data. Only UP, at 1.23 crore, had a larger out-migrant population than Bihar. India has a total 5.43 crore inter-state migrants, accounting for 4.5% of the country's population. As a proportion, Bihar's out-migrants count for 7.2% of the state's population. At 13.36 lakh, Jharkhand was the top destination for migrants from Bihar, followed by Delhi at 11.07 lakh, West Bengal at 11.04 lakh, UP at 10.73 lakh, and Maharashtra at 5.69 lakh. [MAP: State-wise population of migrants from Bihar] Four of the top 10 migration corridors across the country included Bihar as the source state, while there were eight such corridors involving Bihar in the top 50. The most popular migration corridor was from UP to Delhi at 28.5 lakh. Of Bihar's 74.54 lakh out-migrants, 22.65 lakh or 30% said employment was the reason for migration, making it the most cited justification followed by moving with their household at 26.6% and marriage at 24.4%. While work is the primary reason for men to migrate, it is marriage for women. Nationally, 23% of all migrants cited employment as the reason for migration. Again, only UP at 37.35 lakh had more out-migrants who moved for employment. [TABLE: Reasons for migration]In the 2001 Census too, UP and Bihar stood at number one and two positions in the country, respectively, in the number of migrants originating from the states. Delhi was then the top destination for migrants from Bihar, followed by UP, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana. Then too, the top reason for migration was employment, and Bihar had the second-largest number of such out-migrants. While the Census data on migration is now over a decade out of date, there are some more recent measures of migration. For instance, the 2016-17 Economic Survey of India used a Cohort-based Migration Metric (CMM) to gauge net migration as the percentage change in population between the 10-19 year-old cohort in an initial census period and the 20-29 year-old cohort in the same area a decade later. 'It is likely to capture labour migration, as other bilateral movements for reasons such as marriage are netted out in the equation,' the report says. The 2016-17 Economic Survey data shows that UP and Bihar have the highest such net migration which has increased between 1991-2001 and 2001-11. While Bihar saw 11.35 lakh people aged 20-29 years leave the state in 1991-2001, this figure rose to 26.95 lakh in 2001-11. Last December, a study by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) measured the number of passengers travelling using unreserved or general tickets, which are among the cheapest available, as a proxy for blue collar migrants. The EAC-PM report used 2023 data to show that UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were the most popular destinations for such passengers. Bihar was the origin state for four of the 10 most popular state-to-state routes with the top destinations for Bihar migrants being Delhi, West Bengal, UP and Maharashtra – a pattern that mirrors those in the 2011 Census. A 2024 report published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Delhi-based Institute for Human Development found that in 2021, 39% of Bihar's migrants cited employment as the reason for leaving the state, which ranked last in India on the 'employment condition index' that measures the quality of employment, including metrics like wages, formal versus casual work, and youth employment. This report also shows that Bihar ranked last when it came to employment levels for educated youth aged 15 to 29 years. Underlying the volume of out-migration from Bihar is the state of its economy, and persistently high levels of poverty and unemployment. Bihar's Economic Survey for 2024-25 shows that the state is still heavily reliant on the primary sector (that is, the extraction of raw materials including agriculture) for employment. Though the primary sector only contributed to 19.9% of the state's economic output in 2023-24, it accounted for 54.2% of employment – both figures are above the national average of 16.6% and 46.3% respectively. As per Bihar's Economic Survey, the secondary sector, which includes manufacturing and construction, accounted for 21.5% of the economic output and 23.6% of employment in 2023-24. Though the tertiary sector, which includes services, contributed to 58.6% of the economic output in 2023-24, it only employed 22.2% of the workforce. A comparison of Bihar's per capita income with the national average shows that the state has consistently lagged behind. Since 2011-12, Bihar has had the lowest per capita income, which stood at Rs 32,174 per year in 2023-24 compared to the national average of Rs 1.07 lakh. [CHART: Per capita income, Bihar vs national average]Data from the NITI Aayog's Multidimensional Poverty Index – which measures poverty as a composite of several indicators including income, health, education and other standards of living – found that poverty fell in Bihar from 51.89% of its population in 2015-16 to 33.76% in 2019-21. However, despite the decline, Bihar has the highest rate of multidimensional poverty in the country. The 2023-24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, which measures the spending capacities and patterns of households, shows that a rural household in Bihar spends an average Rs 3,788 per month, while an urban household in the state spends Rs 5,165, while taking into consideration the value of free or subsidised goods received through government welfare schemes. Both these figures are well below the national average of Rs 4,247 (rural) and Rs 7,078 (urban). Bihar's labour force participation and unemployment rates paint a worrying picture, particularly for the youth. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for July-September 2024, which contains data only for urban areas, put Bihar's labour force participation rate (a measure of the share of the working age population that is actively working or seeking work) for those aged above 15 years at 40.6% and for those aged 15-29 years at 24.7%. Bihar ranks as the worst state in India on these metrics. For the same period in the PLFS, Bihar's unemployment rate for those aged above 15 stood at 7.3%, which is above the national average of 6.4% but below a number of states including Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir. But for those aged 15-29 years, the unemployment rate was 23.2% – well above the national average of 15.9%, and the sixth worst among the states.
