Word: mayawati
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...image dripping with symbolism - and cake crumbs. When Mayawati Kumari, Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, turned 52 in January, aides and civil servants took turns to finger-feed her scoops of a 115-pound (52 kg) chocolate birthday cake at a party in the state capital Lucknow. The image of mostly high-caste men feeding a Dalit (formerly "Untouchable") woman was an incredibly powerful one in a country where discrimination based on caste has been banned for more than half a century but where many of the old barriers and prejudices endure. Just in case Mayawati...
...That may have to change - and fast. Mayawati's message on her birthday, as it has been since her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won a clear majority in India's biggest state 10 months ago, is that she will use her popularity there to become an important player on the national stage at the next general election. Given the fractured nature of Indian politics, that poll, due by early 2009 at the latest, is unlikely to produce any single winner. If Mayawati and the BSP can win 40 or 50 seats in the 552-member lower house - a real possibility...
...fact that Mayawati is seriously discussed as a possible next Prime Minister is evidence of how far she has come. Born one of nine children to a low-level civil servant and an illiterate mother, Mayawati used her street smarts and the affirmative-action programs designed to help India's downtrodden to study teaching and then law. She joined the BSP in 1984 and, as the head of unstable coalitions, went on to become Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister for three brief stints before last year's breakout victory when the party won outright...
...states, too, few chief ministers are untarnished by scandal. Perhaps most notorious today is Mayawati, who resigned in August as chief minister of India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, to fight charges that her freewheeling administration threatened to undermine the very foundations of the country's national symbol, the Taj Mahal. According to charges drawn up by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Mayawati and others in the state government flouted rules on the environment and competitive tendering in their plans for a $60 million tourist mall, positioned uncomfortably close behind the marble mausoleum. The construction required the Yamuna River...
...million was spent by the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh?Xwhere 645 people died from the cold?Xto entertain 25,000 guests at Chief Minister Mayawati Kumari's birthday celebrations last Wednesday...