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India's election-season freebies, from subsidies to goats, raise questions about fairness
• NEW DELHI (AP) -- Just before village council elections, Southern Tamil Nadu state Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha went all out to gain favor with rural voters. Schoolgirls received laptops. Farm workers got cows and goats. Homemakers were given spice grinders and fans.
• The price tag for the giveaway, which started in 2011 and continues today: 20 billion rupees ($322 million) in a state of about 70 million people.
• Freebies are a fact of life in Indian politics, and items like livestock are only part of it. All three parties seen as the front-runners in upcoming elections have enticed voters with subsidies on electricity, cooking gas or grain.
• The largesse could give sputtering growth a short-term boost, but there are growing concerns that the subsidize-everything mentality they represent will damage government finances and the economy. Growth is expected to be less than 5 percent in the 2013-14 fiscal year, far below the 8 percent rate the country averaged in the past 10 years. A crisis of confidence stemming from erratic government policymaking is partly to blame by deterring business investment.
• India's Election Commission said this month it plans to require political parties to explain how they will pay for any "welfare measures" announced in the run-up to the vote, to be held by May.
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In a saga of family unity, six brothers form the core of the West Bank's best soccer team
• WADI AL-NEES, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian farmer Yousef Abu Hammad sired enough boys for a soccer team -- literally. Over the years, his 12 sons have formed the core of what is now the top-ranked team in the West Bank.
• The current roster includes six of Abu Hammad's sons, three grandsons and five other close relatives. The players from the hamlet of Wadi al-Nees consistently defeat richer clubs and believe their strong family bonds are a secret to their success.
• Having no distractions also helps.
• There's little to do in the village except play soccer. It is perched on a hilltop just south of the biblical Bethlehem and has only about 950 residents, virtually all members of the Abu Hammad clan. Until the late 1980s, Wadi al-Nees had no running (Continued on page 33)
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