Jammu and Kashmir: The state assembly on Wednesday witnessed a protest by legislators from some opposition parties, who demanded that seats be set aside for members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backwards classes and women in next month's block development council elections, Kashmir Live reported.
Assam: The series of floods that struck Assam this year have displaced nearly 1.8 million children, the Business Standard reported, citing a study by Save the Children, a nongovernmental organization.
West Bengal: The state's commerce minister has said that an auction is the “most transparent way†of allocating state-owned resources, Live Mint reported. This comment comes on the heels of last month's Supreme Court decision that said auctions weren't the only way to sell national assets. The newspaper noted that the recent auctions of land in industrial parks did not find many takers.
Bihar: A recent United Nations report has found that Bihar has the highest percentage of girls getting married before the age of 18 in the country, the legal age for girls in India, the Hindustan Times reported. However, the report also noted a decline in the overall rate of child marriages in India.
Gujarat: After a decade, Britain has ended its official no-contact policy with Gujarat, which had been put in place after the 2002 Godhra riots in which three British citizens were killed. Hugo Swire, the British Foreign Office minister in charge of India, has asked the British High Commissioner in New Delhi to meet with the state's chief minister, Narendra Modi, and senior state leaders.
Andhra Pradesh: Sharmila, the younger sister of the political party leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who is in jail, will embark on a 3,000-kilometer (1,860-mile) political walk through the state on Oct. 18, The New Indian Express reports. Ms. Sharmila's journey, which would be similar to one undertaken by her fath er, a former chief minister of the state, is an attempt to counter another political march by a local leader, Chandrababu Naidu, the paper reported.
