Jeffrey Witsoe (left) releases his book on Friday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

The result of the Assembly bypolls would pave trends for the future, said US academic Jeffrey Witsoe on Friday.

Speaking at Jagjivan Ram Institute of Parliamentary Studies and Political Research, he said the bypolls would prove if the JDU-RJD alliance keeps Nitish’s supporters from the extremely backward classes and Mahadalit community back or loses them to the NDA.

Witsoe, the writer of Democracy against Development: Lower-Caste Politics and Political Modernity in Postcolonial India and assistant professor of anthropology at Union College, Schenectady, New York, said: “During the period when Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi were chief ministers, Bihar was widely considered to be the worst-governed state in India. For a part of this period, Lalu was in prison on corruption charges but continued to effectively rule the state by cellphones. At the same time, crime went up. Still, Lalu and his wife won the 1995 and 2000 elections, a remarkable achievement in India where governments are routinely voted out of power for poor performance.”

Witsoe’s book is a product of his 13-year research.

Teaching tips

Magadh Mahila College hosted a lecture-cum-interactive session for faculty members from different universities on Friday.

The event organised by ICFAI group explained dwelt on teaching methodologies with various case studies. Kumar Satyaki Ray, a faculty from ICFAI Business School, Calcutta, explained the importance of active learning and how it could be accomplished in the best way through case methods.