标签： Asia

For more than two weeks, tens of thousands of angry students and unemployed job aspirants have filled the streets of Ranchi, the capital of India’s eastern Jharkhand state, turning a local exam controversy into a major political showdown over systemic corruption in government recruitment processes.

The current wave of unrest is rooted in results from a preliminary civil service examination administered by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) in April, which were publicly released in July. Almost immediately after the results were announced, unsuccessful candidates took to social media to share leaked answer sheets that exposed glaring inconsistencies: multiple candidates who secured top spots had answered far fewer questions correctly than low-ranking or failed applicants. The irregularities sparked widespread allegations of result manipulation and kickbacks, rapidly mobilizing young people across the state.

Since July 25, protesters have maintained a continuous encampment at a major Ranchi stadium, with many sleeping in open-air facilities and dozens launching hunger strikes to amplify their demands. On Monday, thousands of demonstrators marched toward the Jharkhand State Assembly to escalate their call for a complete overhaul of the state government’s broken recruitment exam system. Local law enforcement deployed increased security across the city, with large numbers of police officers and media personnel on site to monitor the unrest.

This agitation in Jharkhand comes on the heels of a nationwide protest movement known as the “cockroach protests,” which drew thousands of young job seekers to New Delhi to demand action over widespread exam paper leaks across the country. Organized by the loosely organized Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)—a grassroots movement unaffiliated with any established political party—the five-week national protest wrapped up on July 25 after Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from his post. The CJP movement had already gained cross-country support from unemployed youth in nearly every Indian state, laying groundwork for the current protest in Jharkhand.

In response to growing pressure, Jharkhand’s ruling government has already taken a series of steps to address the protesters’ anger. The JPSC chairman stepped down on July 22 and has since been questioned by investigators, followed by the resignation of three additional JPSC commission members. After multiple rounds of negotiations with protest leaders last weekend, the state government agreed to cancel the disputed JPSC exam, alongside two other tainted recruitment exams. The state’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has launched a full investigation into the allegations, which has so far led to more than a dozen arrests. Investigators are also probing the selection process for a private contractor that handled key portions of the exam administration, after candidates raised red flags about the firm’s hiring.

Despite these concessions, protest organizers have made clear that demonstrations will continue until all of their core demands are met. Their top remaining demand is the transfer of the entire investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s top federal investigative agency, which protesters argue will be able to conduct an independent probe free of local political interference.

Unlike the national CJP movement, which intentionally stayed outside of established party politics, the Ranchi agitation has drawn open support from across India’s political spectrum. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which holds the opposition majority in Jharkhand’s state assembly, has organized its own parallel demonstrations, raised the scandal in legislative proceedings, and publicly joined calls for a federal CBI probe. Even the Indian National Congress, which is a coalition partner in Jharkhand’s ruling state government and the national political rival of the BJP, has publicly expressed support for the protesting students.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, leader of the regional ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party, has pushed back against the escalating unrest. In comments Sunday, Soren claimed that outside vested interests are working to destabilize democratic governance in the state, warning that the protest movement must not be exploited for political gain. He nonetheless reaffirmed the state government’s commitment to delivering justice to aggrieved candidates and holding all wrongdoers accountable.

The unrest in Jharkhand underscores a growing national crisis in India, where persistent irregularities and corruption in government job recruitment have fueled widespread anger among the country’s large youth population, which faces chronically high unemployment rates.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — As the country prepares for its October-November 2025 general election, New Zealand’s independent Electoral Commission has kicked off a national outreach campaign on Monday, calling on all eligible voters both domestically and overseas to complete their voter registration or update their personal information ahead of a strict new enrollment deadline. The change, which came into force after legislative approval last December, eliminates the long-standing rule that allowed eligible voters aged 18 and older to register or update their details on election day itself, even when they arrived at polling stations to cast their ballot.

Under the new regulation, all voters must finalize their registration and confirm up-to-date contact and address information no later than 13 days before election day. For this year’s contest scheduled for November 7, the final enrollment deadline is set for October 25. Early voting will open October 21 for overseas voters and October 26 for domestic voters, and any citizen who fails to meet the enrollment cutoff will be turned away from polling places when they attempt to vote.

The new enrollment cutoff is part of a broader package of electoral law amendments introduced by the country’s incumbent center-right National-led government, which is currently campaigning for a second consecutive term in office. Other changes included in the legislation are a ban on voting for incarcerated prisoners and an increase to the cap on allowable anonymous political donations. Governing officials argue the deadline change is a practical reform designed to address lengthy election result delays. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, leader of the National Party, explained in a July interview with Radio New Zealand that the 2023 election, which allowed on-the-day registration, took three full weeks to finalize the final result — the longest delay in New Zealand’s electoral history.

The change has drawn sharp criticism from center-left opposition parties, led by the Labour Party, who claim the reform is a partisan move designed to suppress special votes — a category that includes ballots cast by overseas voters, domestic voters voting away from their home electorate, and voters registering on election day. In recent decades, special votes have consistently leaned in favor of left-wing political parties. Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins told reporters in July that the change risks disenfranchising tens of thousands of eligible New Zealanders, and pledged to reverse the regulation if his party wins the November election.

Even with the new deadline in place, Electoral Commission officials still project that the final election result will not be confirmed until 20 days after voting concludes, a mere three-day reduction from the 23-day wait that was projected without the cutoff. Roughly 700,000 special votes are still expected to be cast in this year’s election.

Latest commission data shows that 89% of all eligible domestic voters have completed their registration so far. While voting itself is voluntary in New Zealand, enrollment is mandatory for all eligible citizens residing in the country, with a fine of 100 New Zealand dollars (approximately $59 USD) for those who fail to comply.

More than 1 million New Zealand citizens currently reside overseas, though exact figures for how many of those are eligible to vote have not been confirmed. Eligible overseas voters can participate by downloading ballot papers from the Electoral Commission website, having their ballots witnessed by a third party, and uploading the completed document digitally. Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le Quesne confirmed that the October 25 deadline applies to overseas voters as well, noting that many eligible voters living abroad can also cast ballots in person at New Zealand embassies and consulates around the world.

The commission’s new outreach campaign is specifically targeting young eligible voters, who have historically been the most likely to delay registration until close to election day. The campaign will run targeted advertising across social media, online gaming platforms, and streaming services to reach this demographic. Electoral Commission Chair Simon Moore noted that as of the campaign launch, roughly 440,000 eligible voters remain unenrolled nationwide, and nearly half of those — 200,000 — are between the ages of 18 and 25. “That’s the cohort we really need to get the attention of,” Moore said.

As the United Nations prepares to select a new leader to succeed two-term Secretary-General António Guterres when his tenure ends on 31 December, Costa Rican economist and diplomat Rebeca Grynspan has claimed an early lead in the race, bringing her Jewish heritage and deep family connections to Israel into the global spotlight.

The first unofficial, secret straw poll held by the UN Security Council on 30 July delivered a strong opening showing for Grynspan, who currently leads the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). She earned 10 votes in the “encourage” category, four “no opinion” votes, and just one “discourage” vote out of the 15 total Security Council members, which include five permanent members and 10 rotating elected members. Individual country votes are not made public, and while subsequent rounds of voting could shift the standings, Grynspan’s single objection leaves her well-positioned ahead of other contenders. The Security Council is on track to finalize its preferred candidate by October, though any of the five permanent members holds veto power that could immediately end her campaign.

Longstanding informal regional rotation practices at the UN have led to widespread expectations that Guterres’ successor will hail from Latin America, a geographic alignment that works in Grynspan’s favor. Born in 1955 to a Jewish family in Costa Rica, Grynspan’s background is rooted in a history of displacement and tragedy: her parents were European Jewish refugees who fled rising Nazi persecution in the years before World War II, and multiple members of her extended family were murdered in the Holocaust. If selected, she would make history as the first woman, the first Central American, and the first Jewish person to take the top UN post.

Israeli media outlets have dedicated extensive coverage to Grynspan’s family ties to the country, noting that her sister Frida Greenspan relocated to Israel at age 17 and currently resides in Mevaseret Zion, a town just outside Jerusalem. Greenspan’s children have all served in the Israeli military, some holding officer ranks, and she told Israeli outlet Ynet that the family “are Zionists by birth.” The reporting adds that Grynspan has relatives living in the occupied West Bank, and Israeli media has framed her as one of the most pro-Israel candidates in the field, emphasizing that she is open about her Jewish identity and has maintained close working relationships with Israeli officials based in Jerusalem for decades.

Despite these widely reported connections, it remains unclear how Grynspan would approach the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict if she became Secretary-General. The candidate has rarely centered Israel in her public political profile, leaving her potential approach to the UN’s longstanding policy positions on Palestine untested. Even Israeli analysts acknowledge that her perceived closeness to Israel could become a significant liability in a contest where candidate support is needed from governments holding deeply opposing views on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and its ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

A key contradiction has already emerged in Grynspan’s record: under her leadership, UNCTAD has published some of the UN system’s most critical assessments of the economic harm Israeli policies have inflicted on the Palestinian people. UNCTAD reports have repeatedly documented the economic costs of occupation, the damaging impact of Israeli movement restrictions across the occupied West Bank, and the total collapse of Gaza’s economy following Israeli military operations, directly linking Palestinian economic suffering to Israeli policy choices.

In January 2024, Israel’s foreign ministry cut diplomatic ties with multiple UN agencies and international bodies over their reporting on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, labeling the coverage anti-Israel. UNCTAD was included on that list, with Israel accusing the agency of publishing “dozens of virulent anti-Israel reports.” Notably, however, Israeli officials have not publicly targeted Grynspan personally, in contrast to their repeated public attacks on current Secretary-General Guterres and other senior UN leaders.

Israel Hayom, a newspaper widely aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has examined Grynspan’s public comments on Gaza, noting that she has repeatedly called for full, unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza and has insisted that aid must not be politicized or weaponized for political ends. The outlet concluded that “despite the candidate’s identity”, Grynspan largely adheres to the UN system’s traditional, longstanding position on the conflict. An opinion piece in Israel Hayom went further, arguing that Grynspan’s candidacy has been quietly promoted to key member states — most notably the United States and Israel — through a carefully framed narrative centered on her identity as a daughter of Holocaust survivors, her familiarity with Hebrew, and her close family ties within Israel.

Israeli media also suggests that Israel can wield indirect influence over the selection process, noting that Israeli positions on candidates tend to filter through to the permanent Security Council members that ultimately hold decisive power: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Ynet also reported that multiple candidates in the race have already sent representatives to court Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon in a bid to win his implicit backing.

For decades, Nirmala Bawaskar, a widowed housemaid in Maharashtra’s Sambhajinagar district, lived without a personal bank account. She signed official documents with a thumbprint and had little say over how household money was spent. That all shifted when she joined the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, one of India’s largest state-run targeted cash transfer programs for women. Today, the 1,500 rupee ($17) monthly stipend she receives through the scheme has not only given her financial autonomy she never experienced before, it has also transformed her life: motivated by the program, she even taught herself to write. As Bawaskar puts it, the small sum has been a lifeline, particularly covering unexpected medical costs for her family.

Bawaskar is one of more than 26 million women who originally enrolled in the scheme, launched in June 2024, just five months ahead of Maharashtra’s hotly contested state assembly election. The initiative was framed by the ruling Mahayuti alliance – led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its regional partners – as a groundbreaking effort to recognize women’s unpaid household labor and expand their financial independence. Eligibility was restricted to women aged 21 to 65 from low-income households, excluding income tax payers, government employees, and households already receiving similar welfare benefits.

The timing of the launch was no accident. It came on the heels of disappointing results for the Mahayuti alliance in the 2024 national general election, and quickly became the defining political issue of the state campaign. While the ruling coalition positioned the scheme as a long-overdue investment in women’s well-being, opposition parties decried it as blatant vote-buying – even as they pledged to roll out similar cash transfer programs if elected. When the Mahayuti secured a landslide majority far larger than pre-election polls predicted, alliance leaders openly credited Ladki Bahin for their victory.

Post-election analysis from the Lokniti-Center for the Study of Developing Societies (Lokniti-CSDS) appears to back that claim. Survey data showed 50% of all women respondents voted for the ruling alliance, compared to just 33% for the opposition. Among registered beneficiaries of the scheme, support for Mahayuti jumped to 54%. Still, CSDS researcher Rajeshwari Deshpande cautioned against overstating the scheme’s electoral impact, noting that women were only three percentage points more likely to back the ruling bloc than men, making it premature to declare a new distinct bloc of welfare-focused women voters.

Less than two years after its launch, however, the initiative has landed in serious scrutiny following a damning report from India’s national auditor. Last month, auditors revealed that Maharashtra’s Women and Child Development Department overspent its authorized budget for the scheme by 35.41 billion rupees in its first full financial year, with total spending hitting 332.37 billion rupees. Beyond the unauthorized overspend, auditors also criticized the department for shifting 155.86 billion rupees into special reserve accounts in the final quarter of the financial year, despite no immediate need for the funds. The report argued this practice erodes financial discipline and undermines legislative oversight of public spending.

A parallel government beneficiary verification drive has also exposed major implementation gaps. After mandatory electronic identity verification (e-KYC) was introduced, more than nine million enrollees were removed from the beneficiary rolls. Roughly two-thirds of those removed – around 6.2 million people – were dropped solely for failing to complete the e-KYC process, not for being ineligible, according to records obtained by *The Indian Express* under India’s Right to Information Act. The remaining excluded beneficiaries were removed for violating eligibility rules: exceeding income or age caps, being from households with a government employee, already receiving benefits from another welfare program, or having multiple claimants in one household. Government records also show nearly 29,000 ineligible men and roughly 8,000 government employees incorrectly received payments, and while state officials say they are working to recover misallocated funds, they have not disclosed how much has been repaid to date.

The Maharashtra government has not issued a formal public response to the national auditor’s findings. A spokesperson for Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare told the BBC that verification efforts and mispayment recovery are ongoing, but declined to address the specific budget irregularities cited in the audit. Tatkare has also pushed back against framing the e-KYC removals as evidence of systemic fraud, noting that administrative barriers may have prevented many eligible women from completing the requirement.

Maharashtra’s Ladki Bahin scheme is not an outlier in Indian politics. Across the country, state governments led by parties of all ideological stripes have rolled out targeted cash transfer programs for women, who now make up nearly half of India’s total electorate. The political appeal of these programs is clear: unlike infrastructure projects or public service investments, monthly cash deposits directly to a woman’s personal bank account are immediate, visible, and deeply personal, creating clear accountability for the government that delivers them. But the popularity of these schemes also creates pressure to roll them out quickly and enroll as many beneficiaries as possible, which can lead to the kind of administrative and fiscal gaps exposed in Maharashtra’s audit.

Policy experts are divided on the long-term value of the scheme. Neeraj Hatekar, a Mumbai-based welfare economist, argues that the 1,500 rupee monthly payment makes a tangible difference for low-income women. Pointing to labor force data showing that the average daily wage for women in Maharashtra is roughly 300 rupees, Hatekar notes that even women working 20 days a month only earn 6,000 to 7,000 rupees total – making the stipend a meaningful 20 to 25 percent increase in monthly income. For women living on irregular, low incomes, that extra money can cover critical costs that would otherwise be out of reach.

Other economists warn that the long-term fiscal costs of the scheme outweigh its short-term benefits. Ajit Ranade, a prominent Indian political economist, argues that governments face a strong incentive to prioritize popular cash transfer schemes ahead of elections to win votes, but rarely account for the long-term damage to state fiscal health that comes with large sustained spending commitments. Critics like Ranade also point out that the same resources dedicated to universal cash transfers could be invested in permanent public goods – including affordable healthcare, universal education, free childcare, and improved public transport – that would reduce the cost of living for women long-term and enable greater economic participation, rather than providing a temporary monthly stipend.

Despite the scrutiny and fiscal controversy, for beneficiaries like Bawaskar, the scheme has already delivered a change that cannot be measured in rupees. While the monthly payment has not lifted her family out of poverty, it has given her something no government program had before: a bank account in her own name, and money that she controls entirely. “It’s money of my own,” she says. “That’s what matters to me.”