17 dead in China crash as holiday travel rush gets underway
Beijing (AP): A traffic accident in southern China killed 17 people and injured 22 others early on Sunday as the annual Lunar New Year holiday travel rush got underway, authorities said.
The accident occurred outside the city of Nanchang in Jiangxi province, according to the local traffic management brigade.
It wasn't clear how many vehicles or what types were involved and the cause was under investigation, the brigade said.
Such accidents, often caused by fatigued drivers and poorly maintained or overloaded vehicles, used to be common, but tighter regulations have reduced their frequency in recent years.
Enforcement efforts on the condition of vehicles and drivers and passenger numbers are redoubled around the time of the holiday, China's most important for family gatherings when tens of millions of migrant workers return to their hometowns.
With the end of most COVID-19 restrictions, the number of such trips is expected to double this year to more than 2 billion on and around the weeklong festival season that starts this year on January 22.
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Bihar has 'failed' on all parameters during 21 years of NDA rule: Tejashwi
Patna (PTI): Launching a frontal attack on the Bihar government, RJD's national working president, Tejashwi Yadav, on Thursday, alleged that the state has "failed" on all parameters during the 21 years of NDA rule.
His remarks came four days ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in Bihar on March 16. Six candidates—five from the ruling NDA and one from the RJD are in the fray for five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar.
In a post on X on Thursday, Yadav wrote, "The NDA government failed on all parameters despite years of a double-engine government. Bihar continues to rank at the bottom of most development indicators even after 21 years of NDA rule."
"Bihar is a unique state where the NDA's double-engine government has been in power for decades, yet the state still performs poorly across several socio-economic indicators. Bihar is the poorest state in the country, has the highest migration, the highest levels of crime and corruption, the highest unemployment, the highest level of multidimensional poverty and highest school dropout rate in the country, lowest literacy rate in the country, and the state has the lowest per capita income in the country," he wrote.
He further claimed that Bihar is the state where farmers' income is lowest in the country, lowest per capita consumption in the country, lowest computer literacy in the country, lowest electricity consumption in the country, lowest basic infrastructure in the country, lowest quality education in the country and the lowest industrial units in the country.
Yadav, who is also Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, said the state is lagging in almost every development indicator. He accused the government of avoiding accountability while running the administration through bureaucratic control, state resources and caste politics.
Ironically, despite being lowest on all development parameters, Bihar is leading in buying expensive gas, leading in buying expensive electricity, leading in buying expensive petrol-diesel, and here buying property is more expensive than in Delhi and Mumbai, he alleged.
State BJP spokesperson, Neeraj Kumar, refuted the charges levelled by Yadav and told PTI, "RJD leader should have compared the current situation in Bihar with the period between 1990 and 2005 when the state was governed by Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi. The condition improved only after the NDA government led by Nitish Kumar came to power in 2005."
