Women have shown generally less support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. In 2014, if only women had voted, the B.J.P wouldn’t have won the historic majority it did in the lower house of Parliament, according to Mr. Roy, who analyzed the data for his new book, “The Verdict: Decoding India’s Elections.”

What do women care about in this election? Jobs, Mr. Roy said.

Record unemployment has hit women particularly hard. According to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent think tank, of the 11 million jobs India lost in 2018, 8.8 million had been held by women.

It’s little surprise, then, that several political parties, including the B.J.P. and the Congress Party, have proposed policies specifically intended to improve the job picture for women.

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Here’s what else is happening

U.S.-China relations: The F.B.I. has started barring Chinese scholars from visiting the U.S. if they are suspected of having links to Beijing’s intelligence agencies, a sign of the mounting concerns in both countries over espionage, commercial theft and political meddling.

ISIS: The Red Cross kept secret the identity of a nurse who was abducted by the terrorist group in late 2013 in Syria to increase her chances of survival. Now that the Islamic State has collapsed, the aid group has broken its silence — identifying her as Louisa Akavi from New Zealand — in the hopes that the public can help find her.

Julian Assange: The extradition of the WikiLeaks founder to the U.S. will be a long and complex process of legal filings, hearings and administrative decisions that could take at least a year, experts said.

Seychelles: The president of the archipelago made an impassioned plea to save the world’s oceans, from the inside of a submersible craft 400 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean.