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#294 From: "Kumar, Dalip" <dkumar@...>
Date:: Mon Jan 2, 2006 5:02 am
Subject:: RE: greetings dkumar@...
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Same to you ,
  <<...OLE_Obj...>>



Regards
  Dalip Kumar

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> Dear Friend,
> Wish you and your family  a happy New year with peace ,prosperity and
> happiness.
> with best wishes
> Prabhat kumar, Kisan Vikas Trust,B403Vaishnavi plaza,West Boring Canal
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#293 From: prabhat kumar <kvtango@...>
Date:: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:20 am
Subject:: greetings kvtango@...
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Dear Friend,

Wish you and your family a happy New year with peace ,prosperity and happiness.

with best wishes

Prabhat kumar, Kisan Vikas Trust,B403Vaishnavi plaza,West Boring Canal Road, Patna80001,MO9334330432

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#292 From: uday kumar jha <u_daykj@...>
Date:: Sat Dec 24, 2005 10:54 am
Subject:: Re: IndiaTimes Debate on Reservation u_daykj@...
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jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...> wrote:

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#291 From: prabhat kumar <kvtango@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:56 am
Subject:: Jal Biradri and Bihar Chintan kvtango@...
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Dear Friends

National Jal Biradari was organized a National water conference on Nov. 11^th and 12^th at Tarun Bharat Sangh Bikampura, District- Alwar, Rajsthan, I attended the meeting on 9^th and 10^th, there was a discussions on the Rashtriya Jal Biradari and future straggly following secretion issued by Jal Biradari had 5^th National water meet �

Prabhat, Patna.

Issued by Jal Biradari at the 5^th National water meet (Translated to Hindi)

Bhikhampura water Declaration on 12^th November 2005.

1. The 5^th national water meet unanimously opposed the privatization apposes the privatization of water and resolves to National satyagraha to stop it.

2. In the context of the River linking Project under the National water policy, it has earnestly been requested to the Government that the details of River linking project and smallest information be supplied to both the beneficiaries and the participants. The Jal Biradari would not only compel the Government for this but is would itself take it to the people through the Gramsabha and local groups. Jal Biradari would not let this project go ahead until all aspects that is involves are discussed and shared.

3. The Jal Biradari is worried at the increasing water pollution and the failure of the the Government system to control it. The Biradari Demands an assurance that lows of pollution control are strictly followed. In this regarded the Biradari is committed to works at its own for awareness in the society and take precautionary measures.

4. Jal Biradari is frim in its opinion that the present water policy opens the road to privatization of water which would benefit the society of its ownership right on water. The River linking project would not be able to quench the thirst of water of the land and the people of India. This is a road to destruction. Social water management is the only and best alternative to this problem. So, Jal Biradari would strive for effective social water management through water literacy construction of small water structures and all other fronts with peoples participation.

5. The Government is adopting the policy of �Divide and Rule� for those societies, institutions and individuals who are vehemently opposing the intention of Government and private sector to capture the natural resources. Jal Biradari is of the opinion that because of this social water disputes are increasing for water. The society and institutions /organizations may not become its instrument. The linking of Rivers would disintegrate the society. Therefore, society and organizations should give up their lust and firmly unite such unity would benefit and serve the interest of society and organization both.

Seminar by Bihar Chintan in Patna

On the eve of the establishment of the sate of Bihar, the Bihar Chintan Organized a seminar on The Various Aspects of Reconstruction of Bihar Challenges and possibilities in the IIBM auditorium at Patna on 11the Dec. 05.

Dr. Piyush Kamal Sinha on behalf of the Bihar Chintan threw light on the philosophy and objectives of Bihar Chintan and said that as a symbol Bihar is present not only in India but abroad too. That Bihar Chintan is a �Chaupal�, the village �Ghoor� (Bonfire made of waste during winter where people warmth up) where dialogue and deliberation give birth to a sere of collective responsibility.

The convener of Bihar Chintan Shri Uday Jha dwelt upon the topic of the seminar and elaborated the ancient glossy, the morbid present and threw light on the regeneration of Bihar through collective participation and action.

Renowned critigue Dr. Khagendra Thakur referred to the ill-effects of globalization with respect to Bihar and held that colonialism and the non-implementation of land reforms were the root couse of the present state of affairs and despite innocent potentialities. Bihar sharply slipped down on the graph of developments. He said that change of Government in Bihar would not lead to any basic change as basic changes follow only when unethical economic policies undergo pro-people changes. And for this he stressed the need of mas awareness and mass movement.

Journalist Shri Chandrashekharam Threw light upon the history of struggle of establishment of Bihar since 1885. And finally on 22 March 1912 the notification was issued constituting the state of Bihar.

Er. Prof. Santosh Kumar said that land, human resource and water were the priceless capital of Bihar but water has become a curse instead of boon.

Prof. Bharti S. Kuamr, Member, National Executive, All India Progressive women�s Association (AIPWA) declared that the light for the basic rights of half of the population, that is women would continue relentlessly till their empowerment is realized.

Prof. Anuratha said that water and tatent were the twin capital of Bihar and by making us of the two a new Bihar would be constructed. Shri Uday Jha, convenor, Bihar Chintan, thanked all those present in the seminar and hoped that there �Ghoor� deliberations would spark off a sense of responsibility and commitment and have far reaching consequences.

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#290 From: Pravesh Kumar <krpravesh@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:22 am
Subject:: Fwd: Role model overcoming hardships krpravesh@...
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FYI

** Role model overcoming hardships ** Debabani Majumdar reports on the Bihar girl flown to London to address a Unicef conference. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4530792.stm > Role model overcoming hardships By Debabani Majumdar BBC News Guriya completed five years of study in nine months Thirteen-year-old Guriya Khatoon has been enjoying her first trip abroad. Two years ago, she could not read or write. This week she addressed a United Nations children's conference in London where she was hailed as a model in self-improvement. The unassuming, giggling teenager is from one of India's poorest states, Bihar. The UN's children's fund (Unicef) chose her to represent the socially excluded children of India - those who have been deprived because of poverty and their social class - at the launch of Unicef's report on The State of the World's Children 2006. 'Purdah' Guriya is one of six children from a poor Muslim family in the Karmadi village in Gaya district of Bihar state. She has seen dire poverty. Guriya had been a child labourer since she was nine-years old Her father, Mohammad Salim Ansari, is an unskilled labourer, working across the country in Mumbai (Bombay). Her mother, Rehana Khatoon, is a farm labourer in the village. When Guriya turned nine, she started working as a labourer on the farm with her mother. Her younger sister took over Guriya's role of looking after the home and the other children. Guriya says she had always wanted to study but she faced stiff opposition from her family. "My mother said we are Muslims and in our community girls are kept in purdah so how dare I speak of studying and moreover we could not afford it... we are too poor." But Guriya's insistence paid off and she was sent to a local Islamic school (madrassa) for four hours every day. But she had to promise her mother that she would do all the household chores after school. But after only a few months her parents found they could no longer afford the school fees. After returning to work as a child labourer, Guriya got her chance to study when volunteers from a women's development programme, Mahila Samakhya Samiti, visited the village to speak about free education. Guriya convinced her mother to let her go to the organisation's informal residential school for nine months in September 2003. Long walk to school At the school she met other girls from similar backgrounds. Guriya walks eight km everyday to her school In nine months she completed five years worth of studies and learned to read, write, as well as karate, yoga, painting, embroidery and other skills. After completing the course she joined a regular government school in the next village and is now in seventh standard. Seeing Guriya's transformation, four of her friends from the village were also enrolled in school and now three of her sisters and a few cousins have started their education. Guriya is prepared to put up with hardship. "I walk eight kilometres to school every day with my friends and then in the afternoon we all sit in our courtyard and I help others with their school work," she says. Anupam Srivastava is the communications officer for Unicef in Bihar and says Guriya's spirit set her apart. "We were looking for someone who can represent socially excluded children in India. Guriya has individual strength by which she has overcome her circumstances but what makes her special is that she is committed to helping other children in her village study and learn" Karate Guriya is prepared to be tough with adults. Guriya wants to be a karate teacher "My friend was being married off, so I told her father that if you get her married before she is 18, the police will come and get you for breaking the law, so do you want to go to jail? I told my parents the same thing," she laughs. Today Guriya dreams of being a karate teacher. "I want to teach karate, I am teaching the girls in my school as well. You need to learn to protect yourself or else you will be always scared. I also want to go to college eventually but I do not plan that much for the future." During her first time in London she was not nervous, but excited about the prospect of addressing a huge audience. "I told the governments and especially the parents that they should send their children to school. "I told children that even if you are faced with millions of troubles and poverty there is no reason to be scared as you have to be brave and it feels nice at the end." With an enthusiastic 'yes' she finished her interview, perhaps the only word in English she picked up for her trip to London. Unicef and the Bihar government have promised to help her continue her studies. So it seems Guriya may actually realise her dream of teaching karate and going to college.

_________________________________________________

Pravesh Kumar
Consultant, Child Protection (NISD-UNICEF)
National Institute of Social Defence
West Block-1, Wing-7, Gr. Floor,
R. K. Puram
New Delhi-110066 INDIA
Phone: 91-11-26185028
Fax: 91-11-26711397

Email: prkumar@...

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#289 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:58 pm
Subject:: IndiaTimes Debate on Reservation sukhi_in
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http://o3.indiatimes.com/reservationcricket/archive/2005/12/20/384914.aspx?Pending=true

Jai Shankar Tarun

Software Engineer

Bangalore

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#288 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:47 am
Subject:: Nitish Kumar wants big IT leap for Bihar rakujha
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Nitish Kumar wants big IT leap for Bihar
Patna | December 17, 2005 11:15:07 AM IST

Barely a month into his office, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wants to wave the magical IT wand for Bihar - one of India's most economically backward states.
Nitish Kumar said his government plans to take a big leap into e-governance by developing special website pages on the state's official portal to know the exact progress of ongoing development projects and the grievances of people online.

"The days are over when one had to wait for days to know the progress of developmental projects. The times have changed; now we will arrange things on our official website in such a way as to know everything minute-wise," he said.

"It will make for transparency, accountability and responsibility to work with a target to achieve good governance and development across the state," Nitish Kumar told IANS here.

The chief minister said his government would set up "gyan kendras" (knowledge centres) in every village to provide Internet facilities as part of an ambitious project to spread IT in rural Bihar.

The previous Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) government, which ruled the state for 15 long years, paid little attention to encourage e-governance except launching an official portal, connecting some district headquarters with the state capital and launching some department portals and computerisation of land records.

Former chief minister Rabri Devi had announced last year that 9,000 village councils in the state would be computerised. But nothing was done on that front. Her husband and RJD chief Lalu Prasad had often rubbished IT as a "tool of the elite".

During RJD rule when Lalu Prasad, chief minister from 1990 to 1997, and his wife Rabri Devi, chief minister from 1997 to February 2005, ruled Bihar, the state lagged far behind in the field of information technology.

Nitish Kumar, who took over Nov 24, said he would use e-governance to establish a direct link with millions of people to know their problems, grievances and anything related with development of the state.

"I will no more depend on anyone to know the progress of developmental works, grievances of people and implementation of governance. It will be just a click away from me," Nitish Kumar said.

The government plans to set up a Public Grievance Cell at the chief secretary's office as well as at the office of the Bihar police chief for redressing public grievances. The chief minister said he would personally review the government performance on this front every month.

The officials responsible would be taken to task if they fail to act on the public grievances. "I will take strong action because the grievances and its progress (to redress it) will be online," he said.

(IANS)

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#287 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:42 am
Subject:: Nitish promises 'light of development' for Bihar rakujha
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Nitish promises 'light of development' for Bihar

PTI[ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2005 12:20:29 PM]
NRI Special Offer!

PATNA: Alleging that the 15-year RJD rule forced the people to live in "darkness", the Nitish Kumar government has promised to bring the "light of development" by turning Bihar from power-deficient to power-surplus state.

More than two-thirds of the villages are yet to see electricity and even people in majority of the towns get not more than 4-5 hours of power supply a day...the Lalu-Rabri duo had forced people of Bihar to live in "darkness", Energy Minister Vijendra Prasad Yadav said.

Promising to bring a turnaround in the situation, Yadav said the NDA government in pursuance of its slogan 'Naya Bihar Nitish Kumar', is committed to enhance power generation and streamline the distribution system, besides undertaking on a war-footing electrification of villages to reach the fruits of development to every village and household.

"Our target is to make Bihar a power surplus state by 2010, the Energy Minister said. The minister lamented the present power availability in the state where against the requirement of 2500 mw, the supply was not more than 600-700mw.

And out of the available power, almost 90 per cent is drawn from the central pool, he said adding the domestic generation was abysmally low at 40-50 mw from the total installed capacity of over 500 mw.

The two existing power stations at Barauni and Kanti in Muzaffarpur together have capacity of 510 mw, but with majority of the units closed due to poor maintenance the actual generation is not more than 40-50 mw, he said.

A substantial portion of electricity that is available is going waste due to faulty transmission and distribution system, Yadav said.

The Minister said the Nitish government had chalked out elaborate programmes to increase power generation at the two existing units at Barauni and Kanti and also start new power projects to raise domestic power production to 5000 mw.

He said a sum of about Rs 600 crore had been approved under Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojna for renovation of the closed units of Barauni and Kanti.

Another Rs 2250 crore had been earmarked for expansion work at these two power units, he said adding the expansion programme would be a joint venture between the state government and the NTPC, which would also look after the operation and maintenance work.

He said many ambitious power projects were in the pipeline. These included one at Nabinagar in Aurangabad of 1000 mw, another unit of same capacity at Kursaila in Katihar district, besides 1000 mw plant at Pirpainti in Bhagalpur district and a gas based power plant at Bihta near Patna.

The money for these new power pojects would be mobilised either from World Bank, the Centre or private parties, he said

In addition to enhancing power generation capacity, equal emphasis would be on streamlining transmission and distribution network, Yadav said, adding services of the power grid corporation would be taken for the purpose.

The minister said the new government was committed to effectively execute Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Power Project, in which the centre would hold 90 per cent share and the state 10 per cent.

The scheme envisages to provide power free of cost to people living under below poverty line, dalits and to public utilities like schools and community halls.

Major power bodies like Power Grid Corporation, National Hydel Power Corporation (NHPC) and Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) had been allocated different districts under the project.

The scheme would be so implemented in Bihar that maximum villages would get electrified by 2009, the minister said.

He said for improving distribution old cables would be replaced. A sum of Rs 846 crore had been approved for streamlining the distribution system in 12 out of 16 power divisions in the state. Patna, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Chapra, Sahars a, Darbhanga and Munger would be among the districts covered in the first phase, he added.

To check power theft, the minister said he had directed the officials to strengthen revenue collection and conduct surprise checks to catch power thieves.

He said those excelling in revenue collection would be rewarded and poor performers punished.

The chairman of the BSEB had been told to submit a monthly report to the minister on the power situation and corrective steps taken to plug the loopholes, he said.

He said to overcome shortage of field staff like meter readers, line men, accountants etc trained hands would be recruited on contract basis for one year.

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#286 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:40 am
Subject:: World Bank ready to help Bihar rakujha
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World Bank ready to help Bihar
Abhay Singh
[ Monday, December 19, 2005 03:03:20 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK

PATNA: The World Bank, which prepared its "Bihar: Towards Development Strategy" roadmap following a seminar held in June, has expressed its willingness to put the state on the path of accelerated growth and development by extending active co-operation to the new dispensation in the state.

The World Bank country director Michael Carter called on Bihar finance minister Sushil Kumar Modi and CM Nitish Kumar in that order and was visibly satisfied that the new dispensation was well disposed towards the roadmap prepared for the state, which includes the Rs 350-crore Bihar Livelihood Project that envisages micro-financing to self-help groups, construction of rural roads for linking villages in five districts, a four-lane Lucknow-Muzaffarpur highway, upgradation of irrigation facilities and solution to the problem of waterlogging in North Bihar and financial management for effective utilisation of funds, Modi said.

Sixty per cent the Lucknow-Muzaffarpur highway will be in UP and 40 per cent in Bihar.
"The government is satisfied with the project. The World Bank aid is going to play an important role in the areas considered right by the government," Modi said, adding that the government, which is studying the roadmap, would extend all co-operation.

Carter had detailed discussion with the CM in the presence of chief secretary G S Kang and development commissioner J K Dutta. Carter appeared enthused.

"The World Bank would support government's efforts to accelerate development. The priority sector of development is the livelihood project.

It will be ready for implementation in the second half next year," Carter said, adding that the other areas of development are also on its agenda.

Dutta said the detailed plan has to be prepared and submitted to the World Bank for implementation with the loan to be made available.

Moreover, the CM told Carter that the government has allotted Rs 1,200 to 1,500 crore for the roads to be constructed on priority basis because the fund could not be utilised due to elections this year.

However, the government has decided to link all the villages having a population of more than 500 with roads, which would require heavy investment.

The World Bank has agreed to meet the shortfall, Dutta said, adding that a decision has been taken to appoint a consultant to make a detailed report on implementation of the scheme in five selected districts.

A full World Bank team is to arrive here in January.

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#285 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Sat Dec 17, 2005 10:06 am
Subject:: Jinhe Naaj Hai Es Hind Pe Wo Kahaan Hain?? sukhi_in
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When you look and observe the development happening around these days, It gives a bad and insecure feeling that In which Direction we are heading off.

Ganguly Dismisal from Indian team will be discussed in Parliament, and Who are interested in it - Somnath Chaterjee, Budhadev Bhattacharya, Pranav Mukherjee, What a height of favourism..................Tomorrow Lalu and his supporters will ask that any Yadav also should be included in team and The Day is not far when Politicians will seek reservation for backward classes there..................

Government is trying to put a bill in parliament where reservation is demanded for SC/ST in Private Sector------What a tragedy........It seems that Government will never let this complex go off from Our Sc/St brothers that they are no longer the backwards......the time has come when your talent will be recognised in the private industry..........If anybody , irrespective of caste and religion, has talent, have right to get proper job.........If due to reservation, an employee is taken into Organisation, How the Private Sector Companies will deal with the clients if the quality of work is compromised...............But Politicians does not want to think for the development of the country, and How can they think when they dont have time, plying the dirty game of discriminating the people on the basis of caste and religion............

The time has come when Government are decided by the caste factor(BIHAR)...what a tragedy...

It gives a feeling, the time will come when India will be virtually divided into different peices based on these facotrs.................I think before it happens , It will be better to divide it into Different states and Make it United States Of India..............

Sometimes I think, Jinhe Naaz Hai Es Hind Pe Wo Kahaan Hai?????

Regards

Jai Shankar Tarun

Software Engineer

Bangalore

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#284 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:47 am
Subject:: Amitabh blockbuster dubbed in Bhojpuri vagishkj
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Amitabh blockbuster dubbed in Bhojpuri

Indo-Asian News Service

Mumbai, December 14, 2005

&lt;script&gt;&lt;/script&gt;&lt;noscript&gt; &lt;a href="http://xads.zedo.com/ads2/r?n=294;c=1;x=3328;u=j;z=[timestamp]" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img border="0" width="180" height="150" src="http://xads.zedo.com/ads2/x?n=294;c=1;x=3328;u=j;z=[timestamp]" alt="Click here"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

Imagine the Amitabh Bachchan baritone in Bhojpuri!
That seems to be the purpose of enterprising Bihari producers Baldev and Kamal who have got together to dub and release one of Bachchan's biggest blockbuster, Namak Halaal, in Bhojpuri.

The dubbed Bhojpuri version is entitled Babua Khiladi Dadua Anari - the babua being Bachchan and the dadua being the late Om Prakash who plays his grandfather.

The 1981 hit, directed by Prakash Mehra, has been released in two small centres of Bihar.

Film distributor Ajay Chowdhary says: "We've released Babua Khiladi Dadua Anari in only two towns - Hajipur and Begusarai. We'll put it out in other centres, according to how the film performs."

He admits this is an attempt to ride the sympathy wave that has swept across the nation after Bachchan's hospitalisation for an abdominal problem.

Big B's super hit film has been dubbed in Bhojpuri as Babua Khiladi Dadua Anari. Interestingly all the songs of Namak Halaal, including Bachchan's evergreen Pag Ghunghroo and two Parveen Babi's sizzlers, Jawaani Jaan-e-man and Raat Baki, have been re-recorded in Bhojpuri.

"We've competition from Bachchan-ji's new film Ek Ajnabee. We don't know how much of the Bhojpuri audience wants to watch him speak in Bhojpuri. But the response so far is encouraging."

The film has been professionally dubbed in Mumbai by various artistes.

Interestingly all the songs of Namak Halaal, including Bachchan's evergreen Pag ghunghroo and two Parveen Babi's sizzler Jawaani jaan-e-man and Raat baki, have been re-recorded in Bhojpuri.

Plans are afoot to dub other Hindi films in Bhojpuri to meet the rapidly rising demand for films in that language in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh

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#283 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:46 am
Subject:: Bihar: dawn of New Caste Battles-V Krishna Ananth, EPW, Dec.3,2005 vagishkj
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EPW Commentary

December 3, 2005

Bihar: Dawn of New Caste Battles?

Few can defend the demise of the Lalu Yadav raj, but it would be ahistorical to celebrate the victory of the Nitish Kumar-led alliance. The latter has won by participating in a "social-engineering" process, that seeks not empowerment of the lower castes but a reworking of the socio-political agenda to ensure that the upper castes regain their hold on the political establishment by co-opting individual leaders from among the backward castes and even accord them positions of prime importance. And this time the "others" in society � the OBCs and the dalits � will not give up their rights without a fight.

V Krishna Ananth

In the mainstream media in Delhi and the studios of innumerable TV channels, much has been made of what they see as the positive outcome of the Bihar elections. The Lalu Yadav-Rabri Devi regime had long lost its legitimacy, but will the new government really herald a new dawn in this troubled state? Those who claim so only reveal their caste and class biases.

The election results only formalised the end of Lalu Yadav�s hold on Bihar; the process had begun five years ago. Nitish Kumar could have become chief minister of Bihar in February 2000 itself. Indeed, we forget that he was sworn in as chief minister by then Bihar governor, Sunder Singh Bhandari on the ground that the Samata-Janata Dal (United)-BJP combine he headed was the largest pre-poll alliance in the new assembly. The combine had won 122 seats and within hours after the results were declared, seven independent legislators had appended their signatures in a letter to the governor declaring their support to Nitish Kumar, taking the combine�s strength to 129 in a house of 324 (including present-day Jharkhand).

The Samata Party leader was at that time a reluctant participant in this process. For Nitish Kumar knew the price the independent MLAs � many of them in jail when they were elected � would demand for their support. He would have to make them ministers. Nitish Kumar was certainly no stranger to thus taking the help of persons with a criminal record. Everyone in Bihar knew that he had sought the support of Surajbhan Singh, a powerful warlord from Mokammah in Barh. And in February 2000, Surajbhan Singh had been elected from Mokammah and was in a position to command his fellow independent MLAs to support whoever he wanted as chief minister.

MLAs of the Congress Party, 23 in all, were also waiting to support Nitish Kumar. They were willing to defy their party high command provided they were offered berths in the cabinet. This had happened in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh a couple of months earlier when a number of Congress MLAs had left the party to form the Loktantrik Congress Party under Naresh Aggarwal, which had promised support to the Kalyan Singh-led BJP.

Virtue of Necessity

Nitish Kumar decided in 2000 to make a virtue of a bad situation. He realised that even if he bartered ministerial berths in return for support from the independents and the 23 Congress MLAs, he could only survive on a day-to-day basis for the motley combine would only have a bare majority in the assembly. Moreover, he would have trouble keeping his own party colleagues happy without accommodating them in the cabinet. So Nitish Kumar refused to �compromise� on �principles� and stepped down from the chair within a week of being sworn in.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, meanwhile, was prepared to pull out all stops to ensure that his wife, Rabri Devi, remained chief minister. He put his man, Mohammed Shahabuddin on the job to gather the independents behind the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Shahabuddin swung into action and had all the independents holed up in a Patna hotel the night before Nitish Kumar was expected to face the assembly for a vote of confidence. For his part, Lalu Yadav promised cabinet berths to all the 23 Congress MLAs as long as all of them agreed to follow the high command�s order: that it was their duty to rally behind Rabri Devi in the defence of secularism.

After having led the Janata Dal to a sweeping victory in the 1995 elections, Lalu Yadav�s RJD, however, had lost the mandate in the 2000 elections. At the time of the 1995 elections, Nitish Kumar�s Samata Party, then hardly a year old, and claiming to have captured the imagination of the poor and the hapless in Bihar, consisted of an array of leaders representing a cross section of castes (other than the yadavs). But the Samata Party ended up securing just seven seats, though it had contested in as many as 310 constituencies; the BJP on the other hand won 41. The anti-Lalu forces seemed to rally behind the BJP in 1995.

By February 2000, all this had changed. It was Lalu Yadav�s turn to suffer losses all over. The RJD�s strength went down from 167 to 124 � a loss of 43 seats. And these were gains for the Samata and the Janata Dal (U), who together secured 54 seats while the BJP�s strength increased from 41 to 67. It is a different matter that the BJP won most of its seats from the Jharkhand region. The February 2000 verdict was the culmination of a process determined by three major factors: One, that the Lalu Yadav agenda of social justice through affirmative action, initiated in Bihar from the time Karpoori Thakur was chief minister in 1970 and furthered as a political project in the post-Mandal era, was losing its cutting edge. Sections within the other backward castes (OBCs) and more particularly the most backward castes (MBCs, known in Bihar�s political parlance as the Annexure I castes based on Karpoori Thakur�s reservation formula of 1970 for state government jobs) had been alienated from Lalu Yadav. This was happening as well with the dalits, who had been kept out of the democratic process over the years but were beginning to assert their rights; in some places as the cadre of the far-left groups and in other places in Ram Vilas Paswan�s Dalit Sena.

The second feature that influenced this process was the consolidation of the upper castes behind the Janata Dal (U)-BJP combine. This, indeed, was a significant development and its roots could be traced to the mobilisation against Mandal on the streets. The pre-Mandal era had not witnessed such consolidation. The rajputs and the bhumihars, for instance were rarely together when it came to making a political choice in the pre-Mandal decades. And the brahmins too had their own conflicts with the other upper castes in the region. This changed with Mandal. The unity of upper castes was taking place even as the internal unity of the OBCs and the dalit-OBC political alliance, struck in the aftermath of Mandal, was beginning to crack.

The most decisive factor in this regard was the consensus of sorts that appeared among the upper castes to rope in sections of the OBCs and even concede the political leadership to an OBC leader. The evolution of Nitish Kumar as the leader of the anti-Lalu Yadav forces was of critical importance in this process: a phenomenon that V P Singh would describe as the Mandalisation of the political establishment. After the Mandal Commission report was implemented, V P Singh would argue, the political parties across the spectrum had been cannibalised. Govindacharya, an important ideologue of the BJP until a few years ago, reworked his party�s socio-political strategy on these lines and described this as social engineering.

The third factor responsible for the decline of Lalu Yadav lay in the foregrounding of the slogan of development by the JD(U)-BJP combine. This did mean a lot in a state that was perhaps ranked the lowest insofar as all indices of social and economic development are concerned. And in the five years after February 2000, the Rabri Devi government did little to correct these matters. Given these factors and the fraud that was committed on the people of Bihar in April 2005 � the dissolution of the state assembly just when it appeared that Nitish Kumar would manage a majority � seemed to have pushed people in October-November 2005 to punish Lalu Yadav; perhaps in the same way as the people of the region punished Indira Gandhi and her party in the general elections of March 1977.

Be that as it may, the verdict this time has been decisive. Lalu�s RJD has been reduced to just 54 seats � one less than the BJP! And Ram Vilas Paswan�s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) has been reduced to a rump. From 29 seats it had won in February 2005, the party candidates made it in only 10 seats. It is another matter that Paswan�s party is stronger than the Congress in Bihar. The Janata Dal(U)-BJP combine has 143 MLAs in the 243 member Bihar assembly; 21 MLAs more than the majority needed. Nitish Kumar must be a happy man.

History-Sheeters in New Regime

But barely 10 hours after he was sworn in as chief minister, Nitish Kumar had the unpleasant experience of asking one of his newly sworn cabinet colleagues, Jitan Ram Manjhi to step down. It turned out that Manjhi was an accused in a major scandal involving the selling of fake degrees for BEd courses. This was the ugly face of Bihar�s political scene in full glare � the mafiosi�s hold over all departments of government activities in the state. Manjhi, who had won from the Barachatti assembly constituency in Gaya, bordering Jharkhand, was minister in the RJD government of Rabri Devi in 1999 and was forced to quit when the scam surfaced. He joined the JD(U) soon after.

Only the na�ve will believe that Nitish Kumar was unaware of this when he included Manjhi as one of the 12 ministers to be sworn in along with him. Nitish Kumar�s proximity and even dependence on Ranjit Kumar, the key accused in the CAT question paper leak a couple of years, is known in Bihar and Nitish had even planned to eventually field him as his party�s nominee in Nalanda or Barh, the two constituencies from which Nitish Kumar himself contested during the May 2004 general elections. That did not happen because Nitish Kumar lost from Barh and did not have the luxury to quit Nalanda after that.

The new Bihar chief minister�s �commitment� to �values�, something that he wore on his sleeves in February-March 2000, did not come in the way in April this year when he admitted over a dozen history-sheeters who had won as LJP MLAs in February 2005 but were disgruntled with Paswan on the issue of supporting the JD(U)-BJP combine. Nitish Kumar is now doing what Lalu Yadav did after February-March 2000.

Upper Caste Influence

There is another serious problem that Nitish Kumar will have to handle in the future, given the complex nature of the social forces that his JD(U) represents. While Sharad Yadav, the other leader of the JD(U), cannot aspire to replace Nitish Kumar for he still has miles to go before the yadavs invent him as their leader in place of Lalu Yadav, the chief minister of Bihar cannot be oblivious of the harsh reality that the kurmis or those who constitute the Annexure I castes (the MBCs) do not constitute such a large social group as to determine the course of political choice in Bihar on their own. In other words, Nitish Kumar is aware that the JD(U) owes its victory to the upper caste social base, which had, over a period of time, realised the need to invent a leader from among the OBCs who was also anti-Lalu Yadav.

In a larger sense, Nitish Kumar had played his role in the �social-engineering� framework; which is not the same as the agenda of �social-justice� enunciated by Ram Manohar Lohia. Rather than empowerment of the OBCs in the political sense, the end-game of social engineering is to rework the socio-political agenda to ensure the continuance of upper caste hold over the political establishment by co-opting individual leaders from among the backward castes and even accord them positions of prime importance. The BJP had put this strategy in place in Uttar Pradesh (through Kalyan Singh) and in Madhya Pradesh (through Uma Bharati) and in Bihar, it is Nitish Kumar.

This indeed is where the Bihar poll results should cause concern. With Lalu Yadav out and Nitish Kumar in, the upper castes who had lost their control over social, political and other institutions of the democratic state in the post-Mandal era will now be waiting to wrest full power in Bihar. Unlike in the past, when the �others� in society � the OBCs and the dalits � believed that they were condemned to live without many of the rights that the republic of India had guaranteed to its citizens, they have been empowered in the past decade. And they will not give up their rights without a fight.

The spread and the growth of the far Left parties as well as the expression of political and social assertion that Bihar has witnessed in the past decade is clearly a reflection of this assertion. A political and an ideological challenge to the remnants of the feudal era is now an important factor that guides the political discourse in Bihar. The social groups that backed Nitish Kumar and helped him replace Rabri Devi will now want him to treat the CPI (Maoist) challenge and other such assertions of democratic rights as a problem that needs to be tackled quickly and with an iron hand. They are bound to pressure Nitish Kumar to treat the Ranvir Sena with compassion.

And it will be a long way before all the people of Bihar are in the democratic mainstream. It will take a while before civil society is revived and the rule of law is established. The arrival of Nitish Kumar in place of Lalu Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi does not hold any promise in this regard. It is another matter that the Lalu-Rabri regime had to be brought to an end.

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#282 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:23 pm
Subject:: BRINGING BACK BIHAR-part III rakujha
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BRINGING BACK BIHAR


PART-3

What needs fixing: look at a day in the life of Patna top cop

There are no short-cuts in the long haul that Nitish Kumar faces in
Bihar. But there are first steps waiting to be taken. The Indian
Express travels across a hopeful state to begin a series on what the
new CM can do right away if he has to justify his mandate. We also
open the series to readers for their comments, ideas. Go to
expressindia.com or email bringbackbihar@....


 		  		  		  VARGHESE K GEORGE & J P YADAV


                         Posted online: Tuesday, December  13, 2005 at
0324 hours IST 		 PATNA, DECEMBER 12:
  It's barely past 9 pm and for two hours Kundan Krishnan has been
fielding telephone calls. "This could be the 200th call on my
mobile,'' he says, as it buzzes again. "It's the same everyday.''

Krishnan is Senior Superintendent of Police, Patna. In all of Bihar,
that's perhaps the most coveted job for any police officer. Not only
because he is one of the select few to have an official cellphone�no
SP outside Patna has one.


Krishnan's office also keeps him in close contact with political
leaders, from whom all power emanates in Bihar's distorted modalities
of governance. And for that reason, it makes very exacting demands on
him, too, for the men and women who jostle for his attention brook no
delay.

Look at his day, and a picture of Bihar's political elite and its hold
on policing emerges.

Just as he finishes arrangements to send an MLA back to jail after his
oath-taking ceremony, there is a visitor who says he was the
''president of Indian Trade Union''. He has been robbed of Rs 1500 by
a ''policeman in civil dress,'' he complains. He is sent to the
Kotwali PS.

Then a six-member group strides into Krishnan's office. One of them,
Shyam Bahadur Singh, is the newly elected JD(U) MLA from Ziradei in
Siwan. The frail middle-aged MLA is obsequious before the SSP. He
needs security. He has defeated Ejajul Haque, a relative of Mohammad
Shahabuddin. Singh, too, has a history-sheeting past. ''But now I am
reformed,'' he pleads.

The Patna Police has a sanctioned strength of only 37 for personal
security. But there are already 500 men on the job at the moment,
their charges including politicians, lawyers, doctors and judges.
''Even a poor person is entitled to security for his life and
property. But can we give individual security to everyone?'' wonders
the SSP.

Field officers of the state police say most of their time is occupied
by such frivolous tasks, leaving little time for crime control or
investigation. With the middle-level staff severely hit by pending
vacancies, low motivation and inadequate skills, policing is becoming
increasingly difficult. In Patna, out of 435 posts at the level of
sub-inspector, 200 are vacant. ''Naturally, the force is
overstretched,'' says Krishan.

Many investigating officers cannot read post-mortem or injury reports
that come in English. ''We need skill upgradation for the force,''
says Ratn Sanjay, SP, Muzaffarpur. ''Periodic and assured promotions
will motivate the inspectors,'' adds Shalin, SP, Nawada.

Bihar's dismal law and order can be seen two ways. Try to fix it all
in one go, and the challenge would appear insurmountable. But address
the little things first, and a momentum for reform can be set.
Increasing funding and tinkering with organisational weaknesses can
put the Bihar police back on track. Which will the Nitish Kumar
government go for? Or will is just let things be?

That 200th call to the Patna SSP could be a sign of things to come:
''Yes sir, but it is difficult, sir... There is a warrant from the HC
already, sir.''

It does not take a doctorate in linguistics to deconstruct that.

Send us your opinions on bringbackbihar@...

    ********************************

Law and order: Do-able must-do list for Nitish



  The Indian Express spoke to several top serving and retired police
officers to piece together a "do-able" must-do list for the new
administration.
          � Create Police Commissionerates in Patna, Bhagalpur and
Muzaffarpur: This will give magisterial powers to the police. From
arms licenses to permits for alcohol sale, police will play the
dominant role unlike dual control currently shared with the DM.
Commissioners would be from senior rank, helps in supervision,
response.
          � Dedicated anti-kidnapping cell: District police is too
ill-equipped and slow to tackle kidnappings. Special cell in Patna,
headed by an IG-rank officer, can coordinate with districts, track
kidnappers' movements.
          � Recruit, recruit: Assuming there is no vacancy, Bihar has
88 policemen per lakh population�the lowest in India (national
average: 123). Add to this 12,000 vacancies for constables, 2500 at SI
level; 200 in Bihar Police Services and 44 in IPS rank. After 1994,
there has been no recruitment for Sub Inspectors. Of the 1600 SIs
recruited then, 80% will retire without getting a promotion. Several
thanas aren't even notified making it difficult to track funds.
          � Modernise: Over the last 5 yrs, the state has not used more
than Rs 200 crore under the Centre's police modernization programme.
In Muzaffarpur, Bihar's third biggest town, the police have one,
decade-old, photocopier. Except in Patna, no other SP has an official
mobile phone in Bihar

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#281 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:15 pm
Subject:: Bihar to probe killings, say no tension rakujha
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http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=66880

Dec.14,2005

Bihar to probe killings, say no tension

Patna: Denying that Muslims were feeling insecure after the killing of five of them two days back, the Bihar government Wednesday asserted that no event would be allowed to take a communal shape.

"I have directed the police not to allow anybody to build a situation which can take communal shape," Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters here.

While the government says the killings in Chilraon village in East Champaran district Monday were a result of a land dispute, the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and its ally Congress claim it was the work of communal forces.

The RJD and the Congress have accused the government of failing to protect the minorities and claimed that a sense of fear had gripped Muslims in the state.

They alleged that communal forces had become active in the state after the Janata Dal-United and Bharatiya Janata Party took power from the RJD last month, ending its 15-year rule.

Five Muslims were shot dead by upper caste landlords in Chilraon village in a clash over a dispute over 75 acres land. Over a dozen people of both camps were seriously injured in the incident.

The government Tuesday ordered a probe into the killing. The police have arrested 20 people.

The Commissioner of Tirhut range and the deputy inspector general of Bettiah have been asked to probe the incident and submit a report within 15 days.

The government has announced Rs.50,000 each to the families of the killed. The issue was raised in parliament by RJD Tuesday.

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#280 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:12 pm
Subject:: bihar tops the list of blacklisted NGOs rakujha
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Times of India, 14th Dec.2005

NEW DELHI: As many as 355 NGOs, with the highest number of 113 in Bihar, have been blacklisted because of their involvement in corrupt practices, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Responding to supplementaries during Question Hour, he said out of these, 106 NGOs were blacklisted due to submission of forged documents and no funds were released to these NGOs.

He said over Rs 4.50 crore had been misutilised by these NGOs.

The blacklisted NGOs in Bihar accounted for the highest amount of misutilisation of Rs 87 lakh.

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#279 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:09 pm
Subject:: Bihar madrassas to get facelift rakujha
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http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=66987
December 15, 2005

Bihar madrassas to get facelift

Patna: The Bihar government would help madrassas or Islamic seminaries in the state to improve and modernise their education system.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar gave this assurance Wednesday during a visit to a khanqah (a Muslim religious place) at Phulwarisharif near here.

During the election campaign for the state elections in November, Nitish Kumar had promised that if voted to power he would visit the Phulwarisharief khanqah and improve the condition of madrassas, which were in a shambles.

There are over 4,000 madrassas in the state, including over 1,000 Islamic schools run by the state government.

Some madrassas in the state are modernising their education system by introducing courses like computers and laboratory science. Some are even encouraging their students to join the National Cadet Corps or the Scouts and Guides.

About 100 Hindu children are enrolled in these madrasas, breaking the myth that these institutions are only for the Muslims.

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#278 From: "sushil kumar jha" <sushiljha76@...>
Date:: Wed Dec 14, 2005 7:47 pm
Subject:: Re: Bihar girl to perform at Unicef function in UK sushiljha76@...
Send Email

BBC had interviewed this girl yesterday. she was in london and we invited her to bush house. she is really a courageous girl.

On Wed, 14 Dec 2005 Rajesh Jha wrote :
>Bihar girl to perform at Unicef function in UK
>
>Indo-Asian News Service
>
>Patna, December 10, 2005
> A poor girl from Bihar has been selected by UNICEF to represent the
>children of India at a function in London on December 14 for the
>release of its annual report.
>
>Guriya Khatoon, 14, a resident of Gaya district will attend the
>release of UNICEF's 'State of the World's Children 2006' report.
>
>A Class 7 student of the Mahila Shiksha Kendra in Gaya, Khatoon
>hails from a poor Muslim family and lives with her mother who works
>as a labourer in nearby villages to earn a livelihood.
>
>Her father was disabled in an accident about five years ago and
>moved to Mumbai with his relative, leaving the two in Gaya.
>
>Khatoon's mother said that her daughter joined the Mahila Shiksha
>Kendra a few years ago to study despite all odds and poverty.
>
>"It was her sheer zeal to break the shackle of social exclusion that
>made her a rare role model in her village," she said.
>
>"It is great honour for Bihar," said Anjani Kumar Singh, project
>director of the Bihar Education Project Council.
>
>Singh said Khatoon will also address the function to share her
>experiences about social exclusion.
>
>Earlier, a Dalit girl from the state, Lalita, from the rat-eater
>community known as Mushhar, was featured on the cover of
>UNICEF's 'State of the World's Children 2004' report.
>
>She was the first girl from India to get the rare honour.
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
><*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
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>
><*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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#277 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:16 pm
Subject:: Bihar moves to make space for freshwater dolphins vagishkj
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Bihar moves to make space for freshwater dolphins

Special sites will be developed as the rapidly shrinking Ganges threatens their existence

IANS

Patna: Alarmed by a rapid decline in the population of dolphins, Bihar plans to develop special sites along the Ganges river to protect them.

Officials identified pollution and poaching as major factors behind the fall in the number of river dolphins.

The rapidly shrinking Ganges and the river's changing course were also threatening the dolphins, they said.

R K Sinha, who heads the Central government's dolphin conservation project, warned the dolphins would disappear unless urgent steps were taken to clean up the Ganges.

Bashir Ahmad Khan, Bihar's principal chief conservator of forest, said the dolphin protection sites to be set up under a Central government conservation programme would also become tourist attractions.

Bihar's departments of Forest and Environment and Tourism had started identifying such sites. "We will soon send a proposal to the central forest and environment department for approval, as well as for funds," he said.

According to researchers, India's river dolphin population is estimated to be a little over 1,500. Half of these are found in the Ganges in Bihar but their numbers have dropped drastically over the past few decades.

The dolphins are often killed for their skin and oil. Fishermen also kill them to use their fat to prepare fish bait. Untreated sewage, rotting carcasses and industrial effluents that find their way into the Ganges during its 2,500-km journey across several states from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal have also affected the dolphins.

In the 1980s, the Gangetic delta zone alone had around 3,500 dolphins. Nearly a decade ago, a dolphin sanctuary was set up on the Ganges at Kahalgaon near Bhagalpur. This is Asia's only freshwater dolphin sanctuary, spread over an area of 50 km.

In 1996, freshwater dolphins were categorised as endangered species by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), a forum of conservationists, NGOs and government agencies.

Despite an order issued by the Patna High Court in 2001 that asked the state government to check poaching, three dolphins were reportedly killed last year.

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#276 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:11 pm
Subject:: Financial mess in Bihar vagishkj
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Financial mess in Bihar
by Ambarish Dutta

The tribune, 14th Dec.2005

Soon after Mr Nitish Kumar was crowned as 32nd Chief Minister of Bihar on November 24, his initial remarks were �khajana khali hai� (exchequer is empty).
Notwithstanding his appeal to the Centre to declare Bihar as a �backward state� and his decision to publish a white paper on the state`s financial health by the next budget session, which he inherited from the previous RJD regime, Mr Nitish Kumar is aware of the expectations of the people who had been suffering for long from tardy development and poor governance.

He has already raised the slogan �do it now�, planning major administrative reforms to overhaul official machinery. After 15 years of Mandalisation of Bihar politics, the people by and large have voted beyond caste lines, responding to his slogan for development this time.

It is indeed an uphill task for the new NDA Chief Minister, but going by his own admission of the complete breakdown of the machinery, he has the advantage to begin from scratch.

A cursory glance of Bihar�s vital financial statistics may prove to be quite intimidating as they tell the tale of a state lagging behind the rest of the country almost on all indicators of development.

To begin with, the Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Modi, who holds the Finance portfolio, himself admits that presently �the state spends three times more than its earnings�.

The financial liabilities of the state for 2003-04 stood at Rs 37.453 crore,which were three times more than the revenue receipts.

Interest payments increased by 11 per cent from Rs 3,022 crore in 2002-03 to Rs 3,343 crore in 2003-04, primarily due to the continuous reliance of borrowings for financing the deficit.The state borrows Rs 1,100 crore every month to pay salaries and pension to its employees.

The fiscal deficit too increased by 46 per cent- from Rs 2,988 crore in 2002-03 to Rs, 4,363 crore in 2003-04.

The poor financial management has led to the gross fiscal deficit at 5 per cent of GDP the revenue deficit at 2.6 per cent of GDP and the state debt at 29 per cent of GDP. The infrastructure index is among the lowest in the country.

As many as 43 per cent people live below the poverty line against the national average of around 28 per cent. The state has the highest rate of illiteracy at around 52 per cent against the national average of 35 per cent.

For the man on the street, there is no relief. The per capita income is among the lowest estimated at Rs 6,200 a year against the national average of Rs.21,000.
Bihar is reported to be witnessing the lowest level of urbanisation estimated at 10.3 per cent against the country�s 25 per cent.

Health indicators are bad too with a high infant mortality rate and a high population growth.

A recent report prepared by the state finance department indicates that between 1994 and 2004, Bihar attracted foreign direct investment of just Rs 740 crore as compared to Gujarat�s (Rs 13,475 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (Rs 19,000 crore).

Exports from Bihar too are virtually non-existent. Investment in export-oriented units(EOUs) between 1993 and 2004 stood at only Rs 17 crore.EOUs in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, on the contrary,attracted Rs.42,440 crore and Rs. 58.937 crore respectively, during the said period.

In the non-agricultural sector,the growth rate of GDP in Bihar in the 1990s was just 3.19 per cent, while for the rest of India it was 7.25 per cent.

During a recent seminar organised by the Homair Centre for Career guidance on �development of Bihar�, the member secretary of the Asian development research institute (ADRI) Mr Saibal Gupta, shared the views expressed by other participants who observed,�While India has entered the 21st century, for Bihar it is still the 20th century�.

But against all odds, there is a ray of hope for Mr Nitish Kumar. Despite lagging behind the country on almost all indicators of development, Bihar not only could sustain, but even surpassed the growth rate in agriculture at the national level in the 1990s.

Bihar, primarily, is an agrarian state with an abundance of rivers and fertile land.

But there was lack of political will to tackle the perennial flood problem causing damage to crops every year. The problem for farmers is further compounded due to the absence of proper irrigation and land reforms.

There was no administrative effort to ensure proper marketing of agriculture produce so that the farmers could fetch better price, or to promote agro-based industries which could generate employment.

Mr Nitish Kumar has said his priority now is to address the flood problem by constructing dams, to ensure proper irrigation leading to multi-crops, better marketing channels to benefit farmers and work out modalities for land reforms.

Mr Kumar is aware that once Bihar accounted for 25 per cent of the total sugarcane production in the country, which now has dipped to as low as 4 per cent. He is also aware of the sick jute industries.

The building of infrastructure, particularly roads and electricity, also figures on top of Mr Nitish Kumar�s agenda to give a boost to his agro-centric development efforts.

Unlike the previous regime, Mr Nitish Kumar is in no mood to depend on borrowings alone to run the state.He has already instructed the officials to chalk out plans to mop up internal resources with a better tax collection mechanism as well as to reduce non-plan expenditure to the minimum possible.

FICCI General Secretary Amit Mitra feels the new government in Bihar should focus primarily on three things � law and order, electricity and infrastructure. The fear of being kidnapped should vanish from the minds of businessmen investing in Bihar,� he remarked.

There were 1,111 cases of abduction in Bihar between 1995 and 2005. This was revealed by DGP Ashish Ranjan Singh during a recent submission before the Patna High Court.

Even before Mr Nitish Kumar could start to deliver, the state Congress leaders have started claiming that all development promises made by the NDA in Bihar were actually the plans already sanctioned by the Centre.

Finally, it boils down to a choice between �development� based on a broad consensus beyond short-term political gains and vote-bank politics.

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#275 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:45 am
Subject:: The Lalu phenomenon-Give the devil his due rakujha
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The Lalu phenomenon
Give the devil his due
by A.J. Philip
Tribune
  IT is easy to rubbish Lalu Prasad Yadav, now that he is down in the
dumps. For 15 years, he has been a subject of ridicule for
cartoonists, middle writers and humourists. In journalism, the maxim
has been, "if you are short of subjects, write on Lalu". Is he a spent
  force and his Rashtriya Janata Dal a non-entity?   A cursory look at
the results suggests that if Ramvilas Paswan were on his side, by now
it would have been their nominee in the saddle in Patna. Even without
Paswan's patronage, the RJD won nearly as many seats as the BJP. This
means it is too early to write off the Lalu phenomenon.   Call Lalu by
any names � a fodder eater or a village joker or a rank casteist � his
arrival as a leader in his own right in 1990 signified a cataclysmic
change in the way politics was conducted in the state. Until then,
decisions on Bihar were invariably taken in the Prime Minister's
"darbar" in Delhi.   The chief ministers so chosen always belonged to
the Bhumihar or Kayastha or Rajput or Brahmin castes. And to fortify
the Congress' secular credentials, there was that odd Abdul Ghafoor.
Today, even a party like the BJP can't afford to ignore the caste
factor while appointing a
deputy chief minister.   The subaltern castes � the Yadavs, the Koeris
and the Kurmis � were allowed to sulk on the sidelines even when they
produced leaders of the eminence of the late Ramlakhan Singh Yadav and
Dharambir Sinha. Small wonder that when the late Chandra Shekhar Singh
and Bhagwat Jha Azad were chosen for the post of Chief Minister, few
journalists in Patna had any clue who they were. Many party workers
went to the airport, not so much to receive them as to see how they
looked like.   And what did they do to Bihar? Jagannath Mishra was in
power when
I made my first visit to Jehanabad, where the Maoists raided the
high-security district jail this month. What struck me most was the
disappearance of all the electric wires from the poles. "Thieves took
them away"  was the simple explanation I got. In any case, power never
flowed through those wires.   Central Bihar has been aflame for far
too long.
Bihar was the first state to think of land reforms but it was never
translated into action. Many cunning landlords transferred major
chunks of their land to the names of their sidekicks and even pet
animals. When the Muslim landlords of the area migrated to Pakistan,
the land vacated by them should have ideally gone to the landless but
the wielders of power misappropriated it.   Whenever the landless
resisted the domination of the landed gentry, the latter colluded with
the police to unleash  violence of the kind Arwal witnessed in the
late seventies. Massacres became dime a dozen in the region.   The
Kurmis, to which caste Nitish Kumar belongs, were the first to form
the Bhoomi Sena to fight the landless peasants, who came up with their
own Lal Senas. Incidentally, all this preceded Lalu's arrival. He did
precious little to arrest the trend even as  the senas sprouted. Now,
every caste has a sena of its own, named after a caste hero like
Ranbir Singh.   Jehanabad remains as backward as it  was in the
seventies. It was to fight militancy, rather than to spur development,
that Jehanabad was upgraded to a district in the same way the nearby
Masaurhi was made a subdivision earlier. Similarly, roads were built
in the area not to facilitate transport of goods but for the smooth
movement of the police forces. Yet, the Maoists have been growing from
strength to strength.   By the way, who are the Maoists? Ask one of
them, I can bet, he would not be able to tell who Mao was. They are
the half-clad, semi-starving landless, belonging mostly to the
Scheduled
Castes. But ask them about oppression and whether they get the
statutory minimum wages, suddenly they would become garrulous. Far
from addressing their problems, the state has been thinking of the
Punjab model to control them.   It is fashionable to quote the British
administrative
  expert Appleby, who had once described Bihar as the "best
administered state". But then he "appreciated the working of an
administrative system which was designed to control society � a system
which had been put in place by the British". This system can no longer
work in Bihar where
people have become conscious of their rights and are ready to fight
for them. Lalu's regime facilitated this process so much so that some
of the underprivileged even made bold to vote against him.   There is
no need to panic. The civil war in the US claimed more lives than any
war
between two countries. It only strengthened the foundations of
democracy in the US. Walter Hauser, who did pioneering studies on
Bihar, does not see anything amiss in the present spate of violence,
which he believes will make Bihar a stronger and freer state in
future.   Unlike his predecessors, Lalu was not dependent on the
Centre; for a long time, the Centre had been dependent on him. Yet, he
could do precious little to give  a new direction to the state. In his
first term, he came up with the
brilliant idea of setting up charwaha schools but he could not sustain
it.   He was the Chief Minister when the fodder scam, which began much
before him, was detected. Ordinarily, he should have got credit for
detecting it. But an unfriendly regime at the Centre sought to nail
him on this. It even went to the extent of giving extension after
extension to U.N. Biswas, the CBI officer who investigated the case.
A decade after the investigation, nothing has been proved against Lalu
while Biswas
had to defend himself against the charge that his house in Kolkata was
a beehive of drug peddlers. But this could not have but disoriented
Lalu. His asset, which is "disproportionate to his income", is the
kind of money a minister routinely spends on a pre-marriage party in
Punjab. Much before he came on the scene, leaders in Bihar had
mortgaged Gandhi Maidan in the heart of Patna and the Patna railway
station to a  cooperative bank to take a huge loan. Yet, in popular
parlance, Lalu
is the epitome of corruption.
  Lalu's greatest moment was when he stopped L.K. Advani's rathyatra,
which had left a trail of blood in its  wake. It is this legacy that
forced Nitish Kumar to put his foot down on Gujarat Chief Minister
Narendra Modi's earnest desire to attend his swearing-in ceremony in
Patna last week. He gave the Muslims a sense of  protection. But he
could not do much to empower them while the Yadavs moved
into the constabulary and the bureaucracy and virtually captured the
transport sector.   Lalu realised the importance of Information
Technology only when his daughter Misa got married to an IT expert.
But he failed to tap the huge potential for IT, given the large number
of trained manpower the state has. Bihar also produces the largest
number of Central services officers, which goes to prove that given
the desired direction, it can achieve great success.   Bihar has a
rich potential. The
  farmers may be poor but they do not commit suicides. Nor do they wilt
under floods and droughts, which come by rotation. They are a hardy
people, yet to be subsumed by sub-nationalism as in many other states.
Which other state will allow an outsider like George Fernandes and
Sharad
Yadav to win from the state in successive elections?   It is pointless
to blame Lalu for all the ills of Bihar. Now Mr Nitish Kumar has an
opportunity to prove that he can transform Bihar into a modern state
by tapping its huge potential. If he fails, people will conclude that
tweedledum has merely replaced tweedledee.

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#274 From: Rajesh Jha <kjrajesh@...>
Date:: Wed Dec 14, 2005 6:36 am
Subject:: Bihar girl to perform at Unicef function in UK rakujha
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Bihar girl to perform at Unicef function in UK

Indo-Asian News Service

Patna, December 10, 2005
  A poor girl from Bihar has been selected by UNICEF to represent the
children of India at a function in London on December 14 for the
release of its annual report.

Guriya Khatoon, 14, a resident of Gaya district will attend the
release of UNICEF's 'State of the World's Children 2006' report.

A Class 7 student of the Mahila Shiksha Kendra in Gaya, Khatoon
hails from a poor Muslim family and lives with her mother who works
as a labourer in nearby villages to earn a livelihood.

Her father was disabled in an accident about five years ago and
moved to Mumbai with his relative, leaving the two in Gaya.

Khatoon's mother said that her daughter joined the Mahila Shiksha
Kendra a few years ago to study despite all odds and poverty.

"It was her sheer zeal to break the shackle of social exclusion that
made her a rare role model in her village," she said.

"It is great honour for Bihar," said Anjani Kumar Singh, project
director of the Bihar Education Project Council.

Singh said Khatoon will also address the function to share her
experiences about social exclusion.

Earlier, a Dalit girl from the state, Lalita, from the rat-eater
community known as Mushhar, was featured on the cover of
UNICEF's 'State of the World's Children 2004' report.

She was the first girl from India to get the rare honour.

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#273 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Tue Dec 13, 2005 2:17 pm
Subject:: Social Justice and New Challenges sukhi_in
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Nitish Kumar said one of his primary tasks would be to maintain and enhance this social unity and utilise it for the greater good of the people.

However, political analysts and activists are of the view that Nitish Kumar's " unity motto" is easier said than implemented. Hariraj Singh Tyagi, veteran political analyst and long-standing associate of Ram Manohar Lohia, legendary socialist leader and Nitish Kumar's ideological guru, said the new Chief Minister would be making a cardinal mistake if he believed that the social unity reflected in the defeat of the RJD was a phenomenon of permanence. He pointed out that different communities had come together to support Nitish Kumar for different reasons and even their concepts of development were disparate and, at times, mutually contradictory.

A closer look at the prevailing social situation in Bihar and the way it was reflected in the recent elections substantiates Tyagi's viewpoint. The near-total support Nitish Kumar and the NDA got from the upper-caste communities such as Bhumihars, Brahmins and Thakurs is based essentially on their unconcealed animosity towards the "backward assertive" politics pursued by Lalu Prasad and the RJD.

One can often hear it being said in the upper-caste villages across the State that Nitish Kumar, the OBC Kurmi leader, is the thorn capable of removing another thorn. With the dislodging of Lalu Prasad and his brand of Backward Caste assertive politics, there are indications that large segments of the upper castes, especially the aggressive Bhumihar community, are getting ready to assert their supremacy over the State's social structure.

The growing caste tension in the districts of Jehanabad and Arwal, following the naxalite attack on the Jehanabad jail on November 13, has given ample indications of this upper-caste unrest. Upper-caste militias such as the Ranveer Sena have reportedly become active after the jailbreak. Moreover, the swearing-in of a new government, with a sizable role for the upper-caste Bharatiya Janata Party in it, has apparently given a fillip to their revival manoeuvres.

The non-Yadav OBCs and EBCs such as Malhas, Nayis, Kawars, Kewats, Binds and Tantis, rallied behind Nitish Kumar because there was an overwhelming perception among these communities that the RJD's social empowerment measures were confined to the Yadav community. But that does not mean that they would be ready to revert to the days of upper-caste domination, Hariraj Tyagi said. These communities still look forward to caste-based empowerment, and that too in a more broad-based form.

Put more specifically, the 100-odd EBC communities of Bihar, constituting approximately 30 per cent of the State's population, would want to have the same socio-economic mobility that Lalu Prasad's Yadav community, Nitish Kumar's Kurmi community and Ramvilas Paswan's Dussadh community have achieved over the past 15 years. As highlighted by Professor Kishori Das, chairperson of the Coordination Committee of Neglected and Extremely Backward Communities (CCNEBC), what the EBCs are looking forward to is a renewed and real commitment to the ideology of social justice. "We do not want slogans like the ones that Lalu Prasad gave us repeatedly since 1995, but concrete and meticulous measures that make a fast and effective change."

If Nitish Kumar is to work towards fulfilling the aspirations of this sizable segment of the electorate which helped him win, it would involve taking such steps that militate against the vested interests of not only the upper-caste communities but also against the recently empowered castes. In the context of the conflicting expectations of the upper castes and the EBCs, such measures have immense potential to cause social turmoil.

Segments of the Muslim population drifted away from the RJD and collaborated with Nitish Kumar essentially because they felt Lalu Prasad's brand of secularism had turned into a kind of political antic, which did not do any good to the community. But these sections too would want to retain the level of social protection they enjoyed during the RJD regime.

Addressing all these concerns and aspirations and at the same time balancing the conflicts that would arise out of such efforts is going to be a daunting task.

Jai Shankar Tarun

Software Engineer

Bangalore

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#272 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 12, 2005 12:58 pm
Subject:: Bringing back Bihar-II vagishkj
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Indian Express, Dec.12,2005

BRINGING BACK BIHAR

PART-2

Wife of a murdered doctor, a police station with no paper for FIRs

There are no short-cuts in the long haul that Nitish Kumar faces in Bihar. But there are first steps waiting to be taken. The Indian Express travels across a hopeful state to begin a series on what the new CM can do right away if he has to justify his mandate. We also open the series to readers for their comments, ideas. Go to expressindia.com or email bringbackbihar@....

VARGHESE K GEORGE & J P YADAV

Posted online: Monday, December 12, 2005 at 0133 hours IST

PATNA, DECEMBER 11: If Nitish needs an illustrative example of what he needs to fix for law and order, he should listen to this doctor and widow who�s as scared of her husband�s murderers as she is of her police escort. And visit a police station in the capital with a generous supply of uninvited scorpions but no paper for filing FIRs

Interpreting hope comes naturally to Dr Neena Agarwal. Just as she thought life was looking up, on Diwali day, 2004, her husband Dr N K Agarwal was murdered. Her personal loss was in that instant transformed into a statistic, as he became one of 6790 murders that year.

As Bihar lights up to the new Nitish Kumar regime, Neena is cautiously optimistic. �Nitish Kumar has good intentions but changing Bihar will take time,� she says.

The surgeon-gynecologist couple had been running a clinic in Kadam Kuan in Patna since 1997. They had, by 2004, begun reaping the monetary benefits that come with a well-established reputation. That is when Neena began to notice that her husband became nervous and moved away from her while answering certain telephone calls. She did not realise that this was Bihar�s intimation of success, and instead began imagining other demons. �I feared he was having an affair,� she recalls. �It was much later that I realised that he was getting extortion calls.�

Until Agarwal�s killers came calling. They posed as patients and waited for more than an hour in his clinic while he finished lunch in his residential quarters upstairs. Agarwal�s murder galvanised Bihar and doctors struck work for days.

Four days before the murder he had filed an FIR, saying Bindu Singh, a gangster, was threatening him from inside Bhagalpur jail. Rs 10 lakh had been demanded. Agarwal was agreeable to paying up only Rs 3 lakh. Perhaps it was the FIR that provoked the gang to strike immediately.

Neena now practises in a small clinic on Exhibition Road, started after closing down the earlier one. The equipment bought on loan � and now kept in a warehouse � has begun to drain her finances. So is the lone policeman who has been provided to her as security. He gossips around in the neighborhood � that is, when he is actually there.

It is not easy. Just outside her new clinic, an iron merchant was shot down early this year, again in an extortion bid. Neena is not sure if she should request the police to withdraw her security. Though the new government has taken charge, she still wonders whether it would be wiser to simply relocate to Delhi.

If Bindu Singh could operate successfully � making calls, demanding money and ordering violence against the non-compliant, all from inside a prison cell � what are the police doing?

The Kadam Kuan police station where Dr Aggarwal had filed his FIR offers clues to Bihar�s dismal policing record.

For one, the Kadam Kuan PS is situated in the jurisdiction of Sultanganj PS. �If someone loots our PS we will have to file an FIR in Sultanganj,� says a policeman. Like nearly 40 per cent of the state�s police stations, this one too doesn�t have a building.

It functions from two rooms in the Moinul Haque stadium. If anyone is contemplating filing an FIR, he would be well advised beforehand to carry paper, because it�s been a long while since the state�s police stations stopped receiving stationary supplies.

And yet, policemen in Kadam Kuan police station consider themselves fortunate. �We are at least a notified police station,� they say. �There are 14 police stations within Patna which are not notified by the home department. They operate for all functional purposes, but cannot lodge an FIR.�

They are also thankful for a concrete roof over their heads. �In the interiors, most police stations are thatched and snakes and scorpions fall at random,� says a constable.

In a state desperate for reform, that is a chilling metaphor. (To be continued)

Send us your opinions on bringbackbihar@...

Go to SC, seize mafia property: 7-step list for CM

		Former Bihar Director General of Police D P Ojha was sacked in the Rabri regime after he cracked down on organised crime in the state. Here is his seven-item prescription for Nitish Kumar, as told to The Indian Express: � Cancel bail: There are 100 names that run the crime syndicate in Bihar and many of them are politicians. Go to courts and get their bail cancelled. Can be done since while on bail they continue to commit crime. � Petition the Supreme Court and get them transferred to jails outside Bihar. It�s known that they run their mafia from inside the jail. � Fast-track chargesheets and arrange for special trial. � Set up special task force to arrest criminals absconding for a long time. � Use the law to attach properties acquired by the criminals. This is the only effective way out. � Identify politicians and police officials who patronize criminals and initiate action. There�s a lot of evidence available.* Ensure that no person directly or indirectly associated with crime and criminals gets government contracts. Economic leverage to criminals must be stopped.

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#271 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:23 pm
Subject:: Re: Bringing back Bihar-PartI sukhi_in
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Jai Shankar Tarun

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I have heard a saying: - Iron cuts Iron. NDA Did same to come to power and it was indeed necessary. These things cannot be stopped or removed from the system immediately.

If Nitish wins next term, then only he will be in a position to take this kind of courageous and bold steps. If someone wants to do some development, he needs to be in power and for that some compromises has to be done --- and these are the ones.

Regards

vagish Jha <vagishkj@...> wrote:

Indian Express, Dec.11, 2005

BRINGING BACK BIHAR

PART-1

�You want law and order in Bihar? Start putting these men behind bars�

There are no short-cuts in the long haul that Nitish Kumar faces in Bihar. But there are first steps waiting to be taken. The Sunday Express travels across a hopeful state to begin a series on what the new CM can do right away if he has to justify his mandate. We also open the series to readers for their comments, ideas. Go to expressindia.com or email bringbackbihar@....

VARGHESE K GEORGE & J P YADAV

Posted online: Sunday, December 11, 2005 at 0000 hours IST

PATNA I NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 10: The law and order system here is so fragile and moth-eaten that if I take drastic measures, things will crumble. But there is no alternative, I will have to do it. I will do it carefully.

That's Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar talking to The Sunday Express a fortnight after he took charge, aware that every day of his new government begins with the state asking �So what have you done for us today?�

In the capital this week to ask Prime Minister for a special economic package for the state, Nitish is well aware that it will mean little if two words aren�t brought back to Bihar�s social and political lexicon: law and order.

For, linked to this is virtually everything that troubles the state: from corruption in the government to stalled development projects, from the exodus of big enterprise to the shrinking of job opportunities, from the fear of running small business to the impossibility of getting small children vaccinated.

Since Nitish took charge, there have already been 150-plus murders and half a dozen kidnappings. Those mainly responsible are not strangers to the police, nor numerous. As D P Ojha, sacked as DG of Police in 2004 after he took on Bihar�s organised crime syndicates, says �all of the state�s crime is controlled by less than 100 people. You want law and order in the state? Identify the key ones and put them behind bars, move them out of the state if you have to, even petition the Supreme Court.�

But catching 100 dons may be tough for a CM trying to cope with a decades-old lag in fighting crime. He could start with 11.

The Sunday Express studied history sheets, talked to scores of top serving and retired police officers to draw up a list of 11 of Bihar�s most wanted dons. Mohammed Shahabuddin and Pappu Yadav are not in this list�because they need no highlighting.

All the 11 have political clout. They can and do strike at will. And they stay active even when behind bars or on the run. Some straddle states, some only Bihar.

National crime statistics say that in 2003, only 10 people in Bihar dialled 100, the police complaints number. Those were 10 very courageous citizens. Nitish Kumar says that things will change in Bihar, he will ensure that the law will take its course. He could start with this list:

1 Vijay Kumar Shukla aka Munna Shukla

A Janata Dal (United) MLA, from Lalganj, Vaishali, Shukla has 17 criminal cases of murder, extortion and rioting pending against him. He is one of the main accused in the 1998 murder of former minister in the RJD government, Brij Behari Prasad. Prasad, himself a history-sheeter, was in judicial custody and being treated in a Patna hospital. He was among the group of LJP MLAs who switched sides and contested elections on a JD(U) ticket. A strong aspirant for a ministerial berth in the Nitish government, he was denied a portfolio because of his record. But he will ask for his pound of flesh. Can the Chief Minister deny him that?

2 Anant Singh aka Chhote Sarkar

A grand moustache, military boots and a posse of gun-toting followers are Singh�s trademarks. A JD(U) MLA from Mokamah, he is known as �chhote sarkar� because he effectively runs a parallel government. His arms collection is the envy of many police officers. When Special Task Force (STF) jawans raided his residence in April 2004, nine were killed, including one jawan, in the encounter. The raid revealed an arsenal of AK 47s and SLRs and a tunnel dug around Singh�s residence perimeter. What�s that for? Guerrilla warfare was what Singh had said. In 2000, Singh was exonerated in more than two dozen cases which include kidnapping and murder. Doubtless a �clean� Singh was even more sought after by politicians. In 2000, he was RJD. Singh is expanding his business now, buying disputed property in Patna.

3 Rama Singh

What Anant Singh is to Nitish Kumar, Rama Kishore Singh is to Ram Vilas Paswan. This LJP MLA from Mahnar, Vaishali, has 16 criminal cases against him. These include abduction, murder and rioting, as well as offences under the Arms Act. He won this election from behind bars. State police sources say his operations cover all of North India. He is an accused in the kidnapping case of a prominent businessman from Kolkata and a doctor from Jharkhand. Paswan losing his clout in Bihar doesn�t mean his powerful friends are vulnerable.

4 Rajen tiwary

Tiwary lost these elections fighting as an LJP candidate. But the vote may have done nothing to change his overlordship of the Bihar-UP border areas. This father of two children has spent time in judicial custody since September 1998, being the prime accused in the murder of a CPM MLA in Purnea. Tiwary�s democratic spirit never flagged, however. Three assembly elections and one general election saw him as candidates. He won only in the 2000 state polls. Custody time hasn�t cramped his business style�he is a successful transporter, his buses ply many of Bihar�s busiest routes. Most of the time he was supposed to be in jail, he was spotted at home or in restaurants. TV journalists recall they never had to visit the jail to get his quote.

5 Bhangar Yadav

The police have been hunting him for 30 years and he exists only in narrations�the reason why we do not have his photograph. The law has 109 cases against him, says a police official in Champaran. He has Rs 300,000 on his head. But Bhangar Yadav is free to rule over more than 10 thousand acres in the riverine areas of West Champaran. Police say kidnapping, trade in contraband, sugarcane and government contracts are said to be his niche areas. His �administration� in West Champaran has a letter-head, too: extortion demands come stamped with the legend, �Bihar Sarkar, jungle party�. Yadav�s son, Amar, is the district board chairman. Junior fought and lost on an RJD ticket. But it�s Yadav senior, the chief minister has to concentrate on. Surely, there can�t be two administrative letter-heads in Bihar?

6 Surendra Yadav

He�s a PhD, not in auto theft, but you may be forgiven for thinking so. This overachieving post graduate runs Gaya�s underworld. His gang runs away with most of the stolen cars too, local police said. Abduction and attempted murder make up the rest of his thesis. Bindi Yadav, an RJD strongman, has been rendered a wannabe in Gaya. Surendra is apparently worth around Rs 5 crore, says a former DGP. His house is Gaya is certainly not modest�a huge three storey mansion, fortressed and well-guarded is the symbol of impunity in Bihar.

7 Dhumal Singh

Another don who�s part of Bihar�s new political dawn. He defected from the LJP and was welcomed by the JD(U). He won from the Baniapur assembly constituency in Chhapra. His profitable activities are mostly in the coal mining areas of Jharkhand, however. He�s been an jail resident in Hazaribagh for a long time�he surrendered before the 2000 assembly elections. His history sheet is long as well. With three successive electoral victories, the politicisation of this don is complete. He is ready to ask Nitish Kumar for his share of the new political power. That makes it all the more difficult for the chief minister.

8 Ashok Mahto

For the backward castes of Nawada and Sheikhpura, and particularly the Koeris�one of Nitish Kumar�s strong base�Mahto is a messiah, since he had taken the upper-caste gangs in the region head on. He had run away from the local court in 2003, in a daring operation supported by his syndicate and still continues to be elusive in more than 70 cases, mostly of massacre and murder. His gang specialises in targeting upper-caste Bhumihars in the region. Mahto�s passport to political power is his nephew, Pradeep Mahto, an Independent MLA from Warsliganj. Pradeep defeated two-term MLA Aruna Devi, wife of Ashok�s arch rival, Akhilesh Singh. Mahto�s gang has promised to reduce Singh�s team to insignificance. Singh has promised likewise.

9 Bindu Singh

Patna knows him � especially traders, doctors and others with disposable income. After his arrest in 2003, police moved him away to Bhagalpur jail. But his operations hardly suffered. He sat in the jail superintendent�s office threatening businessmen in Patna and extorting huge sums, police said. Singh is accused in the 2004 gunning down of prominent Patna surgeon N K Agarwal. The surgeon was attacked in his clinic. His crime: he filed an FIR against Singh, refusing to pay extortion. The extortion calls had come from jail. Doctors went on strike after that murder. The chief minister doesn�t have that option.

10 Shankar SinghHis followers call them the North Liberation Army. But liberation perhaps is not their main calling. Singh has 10 murder cases, 16 attempt to murder cases, 9 abduction (with the intention of murder) cases, 10 extortion cases and three cases of looting against him. His territory is the Rupauli region of Purnea. His political allegiance switched from the LJP to the JD (U) between the Februray and the recent elections. But his fortunes changed for the worse. He lost on a JD(U) ticket. That doesn�t make tackling him an easier job.

11 Rajesh Kumar alias Babloo Dev

He is only 29. But a veteran already. Political observers call him Laloo Prasad Yadav�s answer to Nitish Kumar�s coddling of colourful upper caste characters. Rajesh has 29 criminal cases against him: eight of murder, eight of attempt to murder and others relating to abduction, extortion and loot. He�s an RJD MLA from Kesaria, East Champaran. Proximity to the de facto ex-CM means problems for the current one.

� Photos by Paras Nath

Send us your opinions on bringbackbihar@...

BIHAR Crime Figures

	In the last few years Bihar and alternate the position for the largest incidents of violent crime in 2003, Bihar recorded 12.4 percent of all of India�s violent crimes. However, Bihar is only 27th in 35 states and UTs in the descending order of crime rates; ie crimes per lakh population. Bihar�s crime rate is 106.3 against the national average of 160.7
	Year	Murder	Abduction for Ransom
	2000	5172	431
	2001	5190	572
	2002	6289	690
	2003	5127	711
	2004	6790	904

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#270 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 12, 2005 12:56 pm
Subject:: Bringing back Bihar-PartI vagishkj
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Indian Express, Dec.11, 2005

BRINGING BACK BIHAR

PART-1

�You want law and order in Bihar? Start putting these men behind bars�

VARGHESE K GEORGE & J P YADAV

Posted online: Sunday, December 11, 2005 at 0000 hours IST

But catching 100 dons may be tough for a CM trying to cope with a decades-old lag in fighting crime. He could start with 11.

All the 11 have political clout. They can and do strike at will. And they stay active even when behind bars or on the run. Some straddle states, some only Bihar.

1 Vijay Kumar Shukla aka Munna Shukla

2 Anant Singh aka Chhote Sarkar

3 Rama Singh

4 Rajen tiwary

5 Bhangar Yadav

6 Surendra Yadav

7 Dhumal Singh

8 Ashok Mahto

9 Bindu Singh

11 Rajesh Kumar alias Babloo Dev

� Photos by Paras Nath

Send us your opinions on bringbackbihar@...

BIHAR Crime Figures

	In the last few years Bihar and alternate the position for the largest incidents of violent crime in 2003, Bihar recorded 12.4 percent of all of India�s violent crimes. However, Bihar is only 27th in 35 states and UTs in the descending order of crime rates; ie crimes per lakh population. Bihar�s crime rate is 106.3 against the national average of 160.7
	Year	Murder	Abduction for Ransom
	2000	5172	431
	2001	5190	572
	2002	6289	690
	2003	5127	711
	2004	6790	904

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#269 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 12, 2005 8:33 am
Subject:: Bihar: Turbulence for Transformation sukhi_in
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http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2003/february/cover%20feature.htm

Jai Shankar Tarun

Software Engineer

Bangalore

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#268 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Mon Dec 12, 2005 8:28 am
Subject:: New Bihar regime Weilds stick sukhi_in
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POLITICS

New Bihar regime wields stick

Posted online: Monday, November 28, 2005 at 0156 hours IST

HAJIPUR (BIHAR), NOV 27: �Slack� government officers in Bihar got a bitter taste of the new regime on Sunday with authorities stopping salaries of four doctors and ordering to lodge FIRs against them for remaining absent from duty in Vaishali district.

Officer in-charge of two police stations have also been given marching order along with �munshis� (literate constables) of all the police stations in the district.

Vaishali DM Sanjeev Kumar Hans conducted surprise check of government hospitals and ordered stopping of salaries of four doctors and also directed lodging of FIRs against them for being absent.

Jai Shankar Tarun

Software Engineer

Bangalore

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#267 From: jai shankar tarun <sukhi_in@...>
Date:: Fri Dec 9, 2005 9:31 am
Subject:: Re: A Roadmap for Bihar Restoration sukhi_in
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Dear All,

I m in South Africa, and was discussing some of the facts with my friends here. In the process, I came to a topic which lead to a confusion which I wanna clear from you all.

Lets take a senarion (worst case may be) that there is a clash between two classes of people.Both represent respective political parties. one class is in power and then Passes a bill that people of the other class should be deprived from some of the advantages that they are having . Now If the bill is passed , Does anybody has the authority to change it, I mean does court can interfare into this.

Lets take the worst case senarion- that a bill is passed that that the Non ruling(in my example above) class of people who are enjoying the reservation , will no longer belong to that group. Means that they will be deprived from any further reservation.

In that case, Is there any body(either court, or anyother) who can interfare into this.

(Taking a case that the bill will not be revised , untill the government stays).

I want to apolozise about the fact that I m weak in knowledge related to Parliamentory affairs and related topics

Thank You All and Warm Regards

arbind@... wrote:

Staying 2000 km away from Janmabhoomi, we also share almost similar as Shri Indra Sharma. The RAJ has changed and, obviously, the Diasporas of Bihar has high hopes with the new regime. But it often happens that any thing going bellow expectation creates frustration thereby leading to distrust or disillusion. All of us in the country and abroad are curiously waiting for the RAJKARN to change and the Bihar Government to take up the issue one by one, some of them very well outlined by Shri Sharma. Task is enormous, thus priorities have to be clearly defined. Let us give some time to the new team for house keeping. In the mean time, the concerned people get together and/or invite views, suggestion, plans, and commitments, analyse it and forward it to the new Government. Bihar Chintan may take the lead. All of us should help the government, in whatever capacity we can, to prepare a viable implementation strategy keeping the ground reality in mind. My friend Vagish told � �BHAI SAHEB, SAPNE MAR RAHE HAIN�. �Bihar Chintan� was formed to keep it alive. Thanks to the encouragement of Shri Babulal Marandi (the then Minister of State with Government of India). We all have our dreams of MERA BIHAR. Let us keep it alive. ARBIND----------------------------------------- (on mail)

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---------------------------------------------------------

Jai Shankar Tarun

Software Engineer

Bangalore

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#266 From: arbind@...
Date:: Fri Dec 9, 2005 8:11 am
Subject:: Re: A Roadmap for Bihar Restoration arbind@...
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Staying 2000 km away from Janmabhoomi, we also share almost similar as
Shri Indra Sharma.

The RAJ has changed and, obviously, the Diasporas of Bihar has high hopes
with the new regime.  But it often happens that any thing going bellow
expectation creates frustration thereby leading to distrust or
disillusion.

All of us in the country and abroad are curiously waiting for the RAJKARN
to change and the Bihar Government to take up the issue one by one, some
of them very well outlined by Shri Sharma. Task is enormous, thus
priorities have to be clearly defined.

Let us give some time to the new team for house keeping. In the mean time,
the concerned people get together and/or invite views, suggestion, plans,
and commitments, analyse it and forward it to the new Government.  Bihar
Chintan may take the lead.

All of us should help the government, in whatever capacity we can, to
prepare a viable implementation strategy keeping the ground reality in
mind.

My friend Vagish told � �BHAI SAHEB, SAPNE MAR RAHE HAIN�.  �Bihar
Chintan� was formed to keep it alive.  Thanks to the encouragement of Shri
Babulal Marandi (the then Minister of State with Government of India).

We all have our dreams of MERA BIHAR.  Let us keep it alive.

ARBIND

----------------------------------------- (on mail)

Email Disclaimer:

Information contained and transmitted by this e-mail is confidential,
proprietary, and legally privileged data of Mudra Institute of Communications
Ahmedabad (MICA), that is intended for use only by the addressee. If you are not
the intended recipient, you are notified that any dissemination, distribution,
or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. You are requested to delete
this e-mail immediately and notify the originator. Any views expressed by an
individual do not necessarily reflect the views of MICA. While this e-mail has
been checked for all known viruses, the addressee should also scan for viruses.
Internet communications can not be guaranteed to be timely, secure, error or
virus-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed,
arrive late or incomplete. MICA does not accept liability for any errors or
omissions.

---------------------------------------------------------

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#265 From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
Date:: Thu Dec 8, 2005 10:03 am
Subject:: A Roadmap for Bihar Restoration vagishkj
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This letter was carried on one of the Bihar related egroups.
Vagish

A Roadmap for Bihar Restoration
by Indra Sharma

December 5, 2005

Dear CM,

I am a senior citizen born in Bihar, a mechanical engineer of 1961
batch of IIT, Kharagpur, and presently living outside the state. I
have some dreams about Bihar. I was skeptical earlier about any
bright future for Bihar in Lalu Raj. However, the people of Bihar
have brought about this historical change and we are now having a
hope. Use this opportunity to meet the challenges before you. You
can do that.

1. As the first thing naturally the perception about law and order
of the state must get a boost. Through words of mouth and media, the
people in the state and outside must get an air of feeling that the
government has stared working with urgency on important issues.
Naturally it starts with mannerism. You have done well both in the
cases of Manjhi and Narendra Singh, Let the secretariat start
working extra hours and clear the files.

2. Please request the ministers concerned and secretaries to get the
work on all the ongoing projects* on war footing, may be around the
clock.

3. Please call the owners of all the mills and industrial units that
are lying closed and encourage the entrepreneurs to restart them, at
least those that are viable by providing them as much of assistance
as possible.

4. Please invite ITC for expanding its choupal initiatives, HLL for
its Shakti projects in rural Bihar, and other private entrepreneurs
to set up a minimum of one hatchery and one dairy unit as well as
some food processing units at all district head quarters or at other
suitable locations of their choice. I am sure Nokha can be a
location for rice based units, Bhakhtiarpur for potato based units,
and Darbhanga for lichhi and mango units.

5. Please call a meeting of the three main engineering colleges in
Patna, Muzaffarpur, and Bhagalpur and explore the possibilities of
improving their intake by at least 4 times in two years, starting
from this year itself. Please involve persons like Abhayanand who
had been training students from the rural Bihar with no means to
enter IITs. Explore the possibility of setting up mini knowledge
park one each first in all the engineering colleges, and then in all
the major towns of the province. Create a separate area for these
parks; provide infrastructure of telecom and other essential
services that are necessary, and also security with a police center.
I have seen boys at Sasaram with all its problems taking up
outsourcing assignment from Delhi. IT can take care of the
aspirations of the younger generation of Bihar. As the local
students will be ready to work at lesser salaries, even IT companies
will be interested to come to Bihar as the salaries in Metros have
gone very high.

6. Please invite some of the leading educational trusts to build at
least 5 engineering colleges and 5 medical colleges of good standard
and provide all incentives rather a little more than what other
states are offering.

7. Please involve every village head to ensure good teaching at the
already existing primary schools by motivating and supervising the
teachers there. Invite established entrepreneurs in education such
as DPS, Bal Bharati, and known business houses' education trusts to
open good schools in each district town that can be a sound business
proposal for them. These schools can extend franchises for private
schools at primary level in rural areas to qualified entrepreneurs.
Each village must have its own security group too and must not be
entirely dependent on the state.

8. Please invite able and interested people such as Bimal Jalan and
form a high powered and effective advisory council. Appeal and
obtain the services of the ministers from Bihar, senior secretaries
in central government, heads of the institutions of national
importance, and top executives in public and private sector of
Bihari origin in building of Bihar. Many will be eager to help you
out and thus serve the `janmabhumi'.

9. Lastly, can you bring in Mr. Pathak of Sulabh Shauchalaya to help
in building sufficient number of good toilets in the whole of Patna
so that people visiting Patna can see at least one differentiating
feature in comparison with capital cities of other states?

10. I have another request. Please have a website of yours and for
all the key ministers and keep the door open for feedback and
whistle-blowing. However, you must keep a very reliable and honest
officer to monitor that and use the good advises. Why can't you set
an example by cutting down the decision making time for doing a
business in Bihar? Why can't all clearances be given in 48 hours?
Let the administration become facilitator instead of controller or
regulators. Let the dreams for a Great India be realized through
making of a Great Bihar.

*Some Ongoing Projects
� Seven irrigation projects approved under the Accelerated
Irrigation benefits programme that will create irrigation potential
of about 6 lakh hectares.
� Rs 294-crore project for restoration of the eastern Gandak Canal
system
� Rs 4,000 crore 1000 MW Nabinagar power project, interestingly
finalized during your own tenure as railway minister.
� Restart Barauni and Kanti thermal plants with NTPC's assistance.
Implement 17 NABARD projects and the Rs 866-crore scheme to improve
the distribution network. (Bihar is a right case for gas and nuclear
power plants. Be an initiator.)
� Provide all necessary help to NHAI to complete the portions of
Golden Quadrilateral and East-West Corridor expressways running
through Bihar, and other NHAI road projects- one connecting Patna
with GQ and E-W corridor.
� Faster implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana
(PMGSY) under which 63,262 km (?) of village roads are to be laid.
� See about how Rs 50 crore that goes to each block can effectively
be used.

There are many things but let us start with some. Don't bother about
the large-scale migration. However, it would have been better if
they had got full education before leaving the state.

If Jodhpur can do $300 million worth of business in just
handicrafts, why can't Madhubani print textile products and
Bhagalpuri silk?

If West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee can
invite "massive foreign direct investment (FDI)" in food processing
and the agriculture sector. Why can't Bihar do that with much more
hard working and ambitious Bihari farmers?

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