To India next, where the general election is underway. All this week, the BBC has been speaking to influential voting blogs. Amongst them, more than 18 million new first-time voters heading to the polls, where we can now speak to our South Asia correspondence, Samira Hussain, who's in Kerala Forest. So Samira, just tell us, what have these young voters been telling you?

Well, it's been really interesting to hear from all these first-time voters We made a point to go to two different states and to speak with first-time voters from two different states. So I'm here in Kerala. And then we also went to the north in Bihat. Have a listen to what they had to say.

This is really delicious.

Are you talking with your friends about the election? And what are you guys talking about?

Decrease in the constitutional rights of Indian people.

Major issue facing in this election is confusion. To which party I need to vote. This is my first vote, so I don't want to waste that vote by giving a corrupted party.

Yeah, everything is corrupted.

Everyone is doing that.

They're working for their own benefit.

What is something that you want to see changed in your country?

A due to the lack of financial structure, the wealth distribution is unequiv.

The right to vote is a constitutional right for me. I don't want to waste that right. I need to change cast discrimination from the country.

I feel like this is the age that we start to form our political opinions. We can actually vote for the first time right now and see how it's going to unfold. So that is very exciting.

What for you is the most important election issue?

India lacks infrastructure on a huge ground.

There have been times where I was harassed, and there was so I think that government should focus on giving us such public transport where women can feel safe.

If government are providing security to the women and the female students, then there will be more educated people in the remote areas of India.

If you to small villages, people have to travel a lot to get a better treatment. And plus, the government hospitals are not so much developed.

There is some dictatorship that is going around in the country. Promotion of just one religion. So that should It cannot be done.

So does anyone else feel like that?

Having a clash between two communities, it is going to be really messy.

Political parties should not support any particular community or religion.

We all have the right to profess our religion, our culture, and we should not get influenced by anybody else.

We need someone who can spread peace and make India unite again.

We picked these two different states because if you look at Kerala, they do score really well on different kinds of socioeconomic metrics, whereas in Bihar, they score a little bit lower, significantly lower. We're talking about things like health and education. I think some of that was reflected in what you heard in terms of the concerns for some of these first-time voters.

Thank you very much, Samira. That's the BBC Samira Hussain in Kerala.