Sunday Editorial The future of Panchayati Raj in Bihar: an unavoidable hazard of intimate politics By Ratnakar Tripathy Family = Panchayat: The biggest family in the world lives in BAKTWANG, India. A man called Ziona Chana has 39 wifes and 94 children Probably the most important thing to remember about Panchayati politics is that its human social context is radically different from state level or national politics. Unlike large scale politics, Panchayati politics is not impersonal and anonymous if we focus on the candidate-voter relation. The implications of this are immense. If this is difficult... 

Bihar Panchayat polls 2011: why people prefer Mukhiya’s post to Sarpanch’s? Patna: the Panchayati Raj in Bihar is being welcomed by all as simply an extension of the goodness of the Nitish regime. But we need to pause and examine the Panchayat  politics on its own since it has a briefer history and has had just a few round of elections.  It is to be noted that operating at a highly localized level, the problems with the panchayat institutions need to be identified separately and should not be mixed up with the more general issues of Bihar without due analysis. April 23, 1993 forms a...