Meera From Khabar Lahariya

In any other election year, Banda would have come to life. Candidates would organise carnival-like public meetings, zip in and out of the town in long convoys of cars decked up with party flags, and vehicles transformed into election floats, fitted with loudspeakers belting out Bollywood-inspired songs adapted to take pot-shots at their rival candi...

Almost all the 4,500 residents of Chandaur, a small village in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, are gathered in front of the primary school to discuss the assembly elections in the state, but within minutes it turns into a full-fledged protest.

Sampat Pal is the founder of the famous Gulabi Gang, a group of women in pink saris and armed with lathis who have vowed to fight violence against women in a region notorious for its record of rape crimes, dowry deaths and domestic violence.

In any other election year, Banda would have come to life. Candidates would organise carnival-like public meetings, zip in and out of the town in long convoys of cars decked up with party flags, and vehicles transformed into election floats, fitted with loudspeakers belting out Bollywood-inspired songs adapted to take pot-shots at their rival candi...

Almost all the 4,500 residents of Chandaur, a small village in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, are gathered in front of the primary school to discuss the assembly elections in the state, but within minutes it turns into a full-fledged protest.

Sampat Pal is the founder of the famous Gulabi Gang, a group of women in pink saris and armed with lathis who have vowed to fight violence against women in a region notorious for its record of rape crimes, dowry deaths and domestic violence.