The almost definitive breakup between JD(U) and BJP after their failed seat-sharing talks for Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls has started surfacing as a major concern for the two parties running a coalition government in Bihar, making their leaders voice hopes about UP and faith in Bihar.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Seva Yatra tour of a Maoist-hit district in southern Bihar on Friday brought unexpected disappointment to thousands of ordinary people waiting for hours to seek remedies for their grievances as the petitions of many of them were allegedly torn apart.

An alleged “fake” encounter of a dalit youth in Bihar by the Special Task Force on suspicion of his being an active Maoist sympathiser has led the Opposition parties to seek a CBI probe and adequate compensations to the slain 20-year-old’s poor family.

In Bihar’s relentlessly aggressive politics, chief minister and JD(U) strongman Nitish Kumar and his party remained compulsive winners throughout 2011 as they both kept getting stronger mainly by the numerous defections from the Opposition parties, restraining the rebels and starting populist programmes.

In a political masterstroke that will benefit all the three major constituents of Jharkhand’s coalition government, chief minister Arjun Munda has announced a scheme of lifelong monthly pension for all activists of the four-decade movement for a separate state.

A two-day summit of MLAs and MLCs of Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal (United) at the hill resort of Rajgir saw chief minister and party stalwart Nitish Kumar hearing out their concerns and suggestions with patience and offering them perceptive advice about politics and governance.

The NDA is fuming over allegedly distasteful comments by a senior RJD leader about Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and the ruling JD(U)’s women’s wing.

The cold wave sweeping Bihar for a week brought khaki and khadi into an unseemly collision course when a ruling BJP legislator was found publicly humiliating a poor police constable on duty for allege

The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s plans to begin milk distribution in Maharashtra by only the natives of the state on Sunday brought out sharp reactions from political parties in Biha

Ending the fifth leg of his state-wide Seva Yatra amid growing criticism from the Opposition parties, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar returned to Patna on Saturday and self-assuredly emphasised the sustained usefulness of his on-the-spot inspection of development schemes in several districts.