oppn parties Bihar Moves From the Devil (Liquor) to the Deep Sea (Drugs)

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  • Allahabad HC said that the UP Police is acting as law unto themselves as they detained a person unlawfully even before his arrest
  • Kolkata witnesses traffic snarls on the first day of the Durga Puja festival as revellers start pnadal-hopping
  • Neha Bora was subsequently released and Dipke is to appear before a magistrate today at noon
  • Delhi Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, Neha Bora of AISA, student leaders and supporters ahead of a rally in Connaught Place demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation. The protest followed the detention and jailing of two CJP leaders earlier in the week over demonstrations at Jantar Mantar
  • The Reserve Bank of India is considering further monetary tightening to counter capital outflows and increase the cost of betting against the rupee, according to bankers and analysts cited by Reuters. The measures follow recent rate increases and steps to drain liquidity as pressure on the currency and inflation concerns persist
  • India directed oil marketing companies to stop diverting sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol production in the 2026–27 supply year, according to a new tender issued on Friday. The companies have invited bids for 11 billion litres of ethanol made from alternatives including corn and broken rice, amid concerns about domestic sugar supplies and prices
  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India's trade imbalance with China was growing sharply and attributed the problem partly to restrictions on Indian goods and services entering the Chinese market. China subsequently said it was ready to work with India to address mutual economic and trade concerns; India's trade deficit with China reached $69 billion in the first half of FY2026–27, up 27% year-on-year
  • Indian equity benchmarks extended their recovery on Friday, with the Sensex rising 413.66 points to close at 74,729.27 and the Nifty 50 gaining 148.80 points to settle at 23,146.15. Information technology shares, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS, helped lift the indices
  • India defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the opening women's T20 International in Raipur, taking a 1–0 lead in the three-match series. Deepti Sharma and Niki Prasad combined in an 82-run stand after India's top order collapsed, helping the hosts chase down Zimbabwe's total of 114 for five
  • Indian wrestler Komal won bronze in the women's 59 kg category at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating Kazakhstan's Viktoriia Khusainova 7–2. Fellow Indian Amruta Pujari advanced to the women's 72 kg final after recording two pinfall victories
  • Indian shuttler Jagsher Singh Khangurra secured a bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Cairo
  • The Supreme Court of India upheld the Bombay High Court's decision quashing the 2020 write-off of ₹8,415 crore in additional tier-1 bonds issued by Yes Bank (Yes Bank). The court ruled that the bank's administrator lacked the authority to extinguish the bonds under the final reconstruction scheme, strengthening bondholders' claims
  • The Supreme Court issued notices to the Election Commission of India, Delhi Police and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, in separate petitions concerning electoral-roll revision and protests held in Delhi on October 10–12. The court also directed the preservation of CCTV footage linked to allegations of police excesses
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a person converting from Hinduism to Islam cannot automatically claim backward-class reservation benefits in the new religious community solely on the basis of their previous caste status. The judgment upheld the Madras High Court's decision striking down a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order that permitted such certification for specified communities
  • The Election Commission of India ordered a Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls in 14 states and three Union Territories, using January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date for voter eligibility. The draft rolls are scheduled for publication on November 12, claims and objections will be accepted until December 11, and the final rolls are due on January 4, 2027
Delhi HC refuses to ban CJP's Tiranga rally at Central Park in Connaught Place today /////// Police says will control and regulate it /////// NDMC closes the park for the public on Friday and Saturday
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Bihar Moves From the Devil (Liquor) to the Deep Sea (Drugs)

By Slogger
First publised on 2017-04-11 20:45:56

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.
Alcoholics in Bihar, where total prohibition has been imposed under draconian laws, are adopting another, more damaging, poison. There are reports that they are converting to substance abuse. Heroin, ganja, cannabis, inhalants, sedatives and opiods are all seeing a rising sale graph and drug peddlers are creeping out of the woodwork. Though bootlegging has till now not assumed the gigantic proportions it was expected to, the problem of drug abuse and their open availability is even worse. There are stray cases of people dying after consuming spurious liquor but that happens in states that allow liquor sale too. What is deplorable is that the state government has not been able to take effective steps to check availability of psychotropic drugs and their increasing abuse by alcoholics.

Although the problem of drug abuse is an old issue in the state, with newspaper reports as far back as 2002 saying that there was an alarming increase in substance abuse in Bihar. A report in The Times of India in 2002 pointed out that contraband drugs seized had more than doubled to 131 that year compared to just 61 in 1999. It also reported that drugs were now sold in front of schools and colleges. But the post prohibition scenario is more alarming for the simple reason that drug abuse is now replacing alcoholism. Alcoholics are not known to be substance abusers but prohibition in Bihar is throwing up a new phenomenon.

Alcoholics who would have never indulged in substance abuse are being pushed in that direction simply because liquor is not available. The proof of this lies in the fact that the state had sent 38 doctors to get special training in de-addiction at NIMHANS in New Delhi. The state government, at the time of announcing prohibition, had sought to justify it by saying that it had consulted health experts and had taken measures to handle cases of withdrawal symptoms and worse. But it had not factored in the whole scale conversion of alcoholics to substance abuse. In seeking to deliver the people from the devil, the state government has pushed them into deep sea.

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