PATNA: A Bihar-based NGO has brought out a 202-page newsletter "Bihar Insight" on floods in Bihar. The inaugural issue, supported by a German organisation Heinrich Boll Foundation, has focused on the problems of floods coincidently at a time when the state is ravaged by one of the worst recorded floods.

Being launched at a time when the state is reeling under the devastating impact of floods, it has more inclusive purpose of highlighting the issue on a national scale to attract the attention of the state, business and civil society actors. It also wants to give a direction to a host of voluntary efforts that have come up all over the country to respond to the plight of the flood-affected, said Deepak Bharati of "Samajik Shaikshanik Vikas Kendra" (SSVK).

The newsletter is a compilation of news clippings on floods in Bihar published during the month of July 2004 in more than a dozen national and regional newspapers.

Bharati, who has been running an NGO at Jhanjharpur in Madhubani district for more than one and half decade told TOI, "It was our desire to acquaint the wider society and the country with the contemporary reality in Bihar. The motivation was to give the problems in Bihar, and more importantly local initiatives at seeking solution to them, prominence at the national level".

"We will continue to publish regularly on a quarterly basis news and debates from Bihar on various issues such as drought, Dalit rights, gender rights, social action and advocacy, health, governance, disaster management, child rights, food right, education and environment", Bharati said.

The inaugural issue of "Bihar Insight" is an effort to keep the debate on various social issues alive among the policy makers, intellectuals as well as politicians. "We wish to reach out to all those interested in the upliftment of Bihar so that a plurality of thoughts go into seeking solutions to the problems of the state", Bharati said.

Some of the experts on disaster management and floods including Dinesh K Mishra, Neeraj Labh, Mukul Sharma, Raghupati, Vijay Pratap, Arun Das, Baagish K Jha, Ranjeev and Hemant are in the advisory panels of the newsletter.

Way back in 1991, a New Delhi-based NGO Centre for Science and Environment had brought out a special issue on Bihar floods and its coping strategy in which several Bihari experts had made valuable contribution.