Category: Bihar

Bihar: Notre Dame Academy turns 60, governor graces diamond jubilee celebrations.

Source – indiatoday.in

he prestigious Notre Dame Academy, Patna, celebrated its diamond jubilee on Wednesday which was marked by a colourful event by the students of the school.

Bihar Governor Fagu Chauhan, who was the chief guest on the occasion, called for all the school to provide quality education and maintain highest level of transparency in admission of students.

“The purpose of education should not be just to prepare a youth to get a job. The purpose should be to prepare committed citizen to serve the nation,” said Fagu Chauhan, Governor of Bihar.

The guest of honour on this occasion was Patna Archbishop William D’Souza SJ. Patna Commissioner Sanjay Agarwal and District Magistrate Kumar Ravi also graced the occasion. Principal Sr. Mary Jessy, SND and Headmistress Sr. Tresa were present too.

Governor Fagu Chauhan, speaking during the event themed “Education for Transformation,” appreciated the effort made by the Notre Dame Academy to provide education to students from economically weaker section of the society by running Julie School for underprivileged children.

Principal Sr. Mary Jessy, on this occasion, presented a memorabilia to the Governor. Many teachers, sisters and former students were also felicitated by the principal during the event.

It may be mentioned that Notre Dame Academy has been ranked as the No.1 girls day school in Bihar for the fourth time by the Education World School rankings 2019-20.

5 lakh including MBA, Engineers, post graduates apply to become gardener and watchman in Bihar.

Source – indiatoday.in

all it unemployment or the craze to get a “sarkari naukri”, more than 5 lakh candidates have applied for Group D jobs in the Bihar Vidhan Sabha.

Interviews for the same are currently underway to fill vacancies for 166 posts which include watchman, gardener, peon and cleaners. What is shocking, however, is the fact that most of the applicants for the job are B-Tech, MBA, post graduates and graduates degree holders.

Technocrats and professional degree holders applying for the Group-D jobs in the Bihar Vidhan Sabha raises questions whether this is because of unemployment or fad to get a government job. Interestingly, the minimum qualification required for the 166 posts are 10th class pass but most of the applicants are over qualified for the job.

“I am working for a private company but my salary is not enough for a family of four. I want to get a government job to take care of my family,” says Ajay Kumar, who is a graduate and recently appeared for the interviews along with his wife Monika Kumari who too has applied for the same job.

“We can do anything to get a government job,” said Monika Kumari.

More than 4.5 lakh applicants have appeared for the interviews till now which started in September 2019. On an average, 1500-1600 applicants are appearing for interview everyday at the Vidhan Sabha. This has also triggered a controversy with opposition hitting out at Nitish Kumar government for rising unemployment in the state.

“Engineers and MBA degree holders are applying for post of gardener and peon. This is a big issue. Does Nitish Kumar want qualified people to become peons in his government?,”questioned RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav.
Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra has demanded an inquiry on how 1500-1600 interviews are being conducted everyday meaning 10 seconds to interview each candidate.

“This is a matter for investigations on how so many applicants are appearing for interviews on daily basis. There is job crisis and unemployment in the state and therefore engineers and professional degree holders are applying for Group-D jobs,” said Prem Chand Mishra.

BJP, on the other hand, has termed large numbers of professionals and technocrats applying for Group-D jobs as a craze to get a sarkari naukri.

Highest number of acute respiratory infections among under-5 children in Bihar.

Source – financialexpress.com

Bihar recorded the highest prevalence of acute respiratory infections among under-five children among the five high-burden states between September 2018 and June 2019. The prevalence of acute respiratory infections among under-five children was 18.2 per cent in Bihar, followed by Uttar Pradesh (15.9 per cent), Jharkhand (12.8 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (11.6 per cent) and Rajasthan (8.4 per cent), according to report — “Situation Analysis of Pneumonia in India” — released on Tuesday.

Household air pollution emerged as the important risk factor for childhood pneumonia.

The report by a non-profit charity organisation, ‘Save the Children’, highlighted that children from households using improved fuel for cooking LPG had a preventive effect. It revealed 2 per cent lower probability of reporting acute respiratory infections (ARIs) in households using clean fuels for cooking.

“ARI prevalence was 4 per cent higher among chidren, wherein breastfeeding was initiated later than one hour after childbirth and 2.4 per cent higher in cases where they were exclusively breast fed for less than 6 months,” the report stated.

According to the report, awareness on signs of pneumonia and importance of early care seeking was poor. This is a critical gap that requires focussed attention.

Almost 81 per cent caregivers preferred private sector for availing medical treatment for pneumonia in children. Under-reporting of pneumonia cases both in public and private healthcare domain, the report stated.

The report encapsulates results from an in-depth assessment of five high-burden states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, mapping the challenges and calling for action.

Dr Ajay Khera, Commissioner, Maternal and Child Health, Ministry of Health, explained how it focuses on improving the quality of care at birth, which involves equipping ASHA workers and mobilizing mothers to healthcare centres.

“Health and Wellness centre is a new entrant in the health system, which will help reaching out to grassroots level. The government has set really ambitious targets to tackle childhood maternity and is totally committed for this cause,” Khera said.

Anindit Roy Chowdhury, Director, Programmes, Save the Children, said, “Pneumonia is still the leading cause of death in children and accounts for 14.3 per cent of under 5 deaths in India, which translates to 1 child death every 4 minutes. India contributes to 17 per cent of global under 5 pneumonia deaths.”

“Addressing childhood Pneumonia is one of the three centenary commitments of Save the Children and we are committed to end preventable pneumonia deaths.This current report, entitled, ‘Fighting for breath in India’, that we are launching, is a step towards that commitment,” Chowdhury said.

Save the Children and UNICEF have entered into a partnership at global level in the fight against childhood pneumonia and is committed to support the health ministry in the roll out of the recently launched SAANS campaign on Pneumonia.

The organisation has also recently collaborated with Philips India to develop and prove low-cost innovative approaches for prevention, diagnosis and management of Childhood Pneumonia.

Maharashtra political drama may impact BJP-JDU alliance in Bihar.

Source – indiatoday.in

he breaking of pre-poll alliance between the BJP and the Shiv Sena after the declaration of the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election results on October 24 has led to some serious mulling over the fate of the BJP and its alliance partners in others states. The concern looks more serious in Bihar where the BJP-JDU combine is in power at present than other states.

Bihar goes to polls in just about 10 months and the breaking up of 30-year-old BJP-Shiv Sena alliance has become the biggest talking point in the state with many speculating what will happen to the BJP-JDU alliance. Barring four years between 2013 and 2017, the JDU and the BJP are alliance partners for 22 years.

JDU president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had severed ties with the BJP after it became clear that then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi would be elevated as the prime ministerial candidate of the NDA for 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Nitish Kumar’s JDU has always donned the cap of the big brother in Bihar since he came to power in 2005 with BJP choosing to remain second fiddle. Though the BJP and the JDU contested equal number of seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections (17-17), it should not be perceived that both parties were at par.

The BJP with 22 MPs in 2014 had to sacrifice five sitting seats to accommodate the JDU, which turned out to be the biggest gainer. It had just two MPs in 2014 and managed to win 16 of the 17 seats in Bihar in 2019.

However, only a few months back, the BJP and the JDU had engaged in massive war of words over who would lead the NDA in the next assembly polls in Bihar. BJP’s Dalit face Sanjay Paswan suggested Nitish Kumar should make way for a BJP chief minister in 2020 and graduate to national politics.

The remarks by Sanjay Paswan left the JDU fuming and the normalcy returned only after Union Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah said the BJP-JDU alliance in Bihar is “atal” (immovable) and that the Bihar Assembly election will be contested under the leadership of Nitish Kumar.

Amit Shah’s effort to put an end to all sorts of speculation over Nitish Kumar’s role in the NDA for 2020 Bihar Assembly election was seen as the BJP’s inability to gain foothold in the state where it faced a massive defeat in 2015 state polls following split with the JDU.

Though in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP made a clean sweep winning all the 17 seats it contested, the party still believes assembly election is a totally different ball game. The party does not want to risk going alone in the election and prefers to bank of the image of “Sushasan Babu” Nitish Kumar. The combination has worked well for the alliance in 2005 and 2010 when it registered emphatic victories.

However, following the Maharashtra episode, the BJP in Bihar has started targeting the JDU signaling that any move mirroring the Shiv Sena could spell disaster for the regional party.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi congratulated Devendra Fadnavis after his Saturday swearing in with a twisted tweet taking a veiled aim at Nitish Kumar too. He said, “Sharad Pawar like Nitish Kumar knew that BJP is more reliable than Congress. Shiv Sena was like RJD. Very difficult to work with party like Shiv Sena or RJD, full of lumpens.”

Sources say, Sushil Modi, considered close to Nitish Kumar, through this tweet obliquely hinted at Bihar chief minister advising him to keep distance from the Congress, which has never appeared averse to Nitish Kumar for his secular credentials. Sushil Kumar Modi also warned Nitish Kumar against allying again with the RJD the way he did in 2015.

Speculation is rife that BJP firebrand leader and Union minister Giriraj Singh’s comments after Fadnavis took oath as Maharshtra chief minister was also aimed at Nitish Kumar. Singh said, “Greed and arrogance invite disaster.”

Lok Janshakti Party leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s statement is too being seen as a veiled message to the JDU national president. “Animal which is indecisive whether to go left or right gets killed on the road,” Paswan wrote on Twitter.

The JDU too obliquely criticized BJP for allying with NCP (Ajit Pawar) and relinquishing its ideology for power.

In such circumstances, the bone of contention could be the seat-sharing agreement between the BJP and the JDU. Both parties would be keen to grab a larger piece of the cake. Remember, some seats also have to be given to the LJP, another alliance partner of the NDA in Bihar.

The BJP would be keen to settle for the seat-sharing formula based on the Lok Sabha elections where both parties fought equal number of seats. However, the JDU would want to keep the 2010 formula as the reference point when both parties fought elections together. The JDU contested on 141 seats and BJP on 102.

However, the BJP, in any case, would not want the JDU to fight on more number of seats that itself. This would not only send a message of the JDU being a big brother in the alliance but might also give the JDU an opportunity to dump the BJP post-poll if it wins more than 100 seats in a house of 243. The half way mark in Bihar Assembly is 122.

Interestingly, results of the assembly elections in neighboring Jharkhand may also have a bearing on the BJP-JDU alliance in Bihar. The BJP is fighting the Jharkhand election alone, snapping ties with All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU). If it wins Jharkhand election, it will not only strengthen its position in NDA but will also shield from pressure politics of the alliance partners.

Bihar: Protesting Minor’s Rape in Kaimur District, Mob Pelts Stones, Burns Shops.

Source – thewire.in

New Delhi: A mob in the Kaimur district of Bihar turned violent on Monday after a video of a 17-year-old girl gang-raped by four men in Bihar was released by one of the accused on Saturday. The girl was waiting to return home from her coaching classes when the accused persuaded her to drop by a nearby parked car. Later, four men took turns to rape her in the moving vehicle.

The offence went unreported for a week as the survivor had been threatened by the accused that they would upload the video on social networking sites if she reported anything to the police. During this time, the accused again tried to sexually exploit her. Eventually, on Saturday, the accused made the video viral.

As per the SP, two of the four accused – Arbaaz Daroga alias Kallu and Sonu Shahwaz – have been arrested and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) is formed to nab the remaining two.

Protesting the incident, a mob pelted stones at the house of the accused in the Mohania area and torched makeshift shops and motorbikes of a particular community. Some four-wheelers were also heavily damaged.

In order to control the situation, Kaimur district magistrate and superintendent of police Dilnawaz Ahmed organised a peace committee meeting and appealed to the communities to maintain communal harmony in the town.

“The police swung into action and tried to ascertain the place of occurrence and the identity of the accused. On Sunday night, two of the accused were arrested,” Mohania SDPO Rajendra Singh told the Times of India.

The accused have been booked under various sections of the IPC, including wrongful confinement, gang rape and Section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The SDJM court at Bhabhua recorded the survivor’s statement under Section 164 of the CrPC and sent her to the Sadar hospital for medical examination.

Three of the four accused have been identified in the video, which has been sent to the forensic science laboratory in Patna, while the fourth accused has been identified by the survivor.

“My repeated requests to spare me went on deaf ears as the accused kept on repeating the crime. At one point of time, I fell unconscious. That also didn’t deter them,” the survivor told the investigating officers.

Tejashwi Yadav’s Bihar Reminder To Sushil Modi After Tweet On Maharashtra.

Source – ndtv.com

PATNA: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav took a jibe at Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Monday, reminding of the “khela” (play) enacted in Bihar a couple of years ago in the that helped the BJP achieve power despite having lost the mandate.

Mr Yadav added that had his party joined hands with the BJP, Sushil Modi would have still been the deputy but serving under “a Chief Minister of our party.”

The RJD leader rose from his seat in the state assembly, speaking in support of other opposition MLAs were raising slogans against police clamp down on a Congress procession by

As Mr Yadav began speaking about alleged attempts by the Nitish Kumar government to “muzzle the oppositions voice”, he turned towards Sushil Modi and said, “Modi-ji says many fine things happen in the night. Bihar too has seen such a khela, when a government was formed in the thick of the night”.

Mr Yadav was referring to a tweet by Mr Modi in which he had defended his party against criticism from the opposition over the developments in Maharashtra.

“Many big things have happened in the thick of night. Independence was achieved and the Union Jack was lowered at midnight,” Mr Modi had tweeted in Hindi.

Mr Yadav’s insinuation was about the developments that took place in Bihar in July, 2017 when Nitish Kumar resigned, disapproving of the RJDs refusal to heed demands for his resignation in the backdrop of a money laundering case.

Mr Kumar sprung a surprise less than 24 hours later when he was sworn in as Chief Minister again as he staked claim to form a new government with the support of BJP, paving way for Mr Modi’s return as deputy, four years after he was stripped of the post as Mr Kumar snapped ties with the BJP.

Mr Yadav’s tongue-in-cheek remark was, however, drowned out in the shouting of slogans by agitated members which prompted Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary to adjourn the proceedings till

Mr Yadav said his party too had the option of tying up with the BJP and retaining power but decided otherwise on account of ideological commitments.

“It seems to have become the BJPs style of functioning. We saw similar things happening in Goa. As the matter is sub judice, I would not like to say much about Maharashtra but wait for the Supreme Courts verdict,” he said.

Incidentally, Mr Modi had claimed during the Lok Sabha polls this year that Mr Kumar’s exit from the grand alliance had come months after a meeting Lalu Yadav had with the late Union minister Arun Jaitley.

India: Growing AIDS cases among prisoners alarm Bihar government.

Source – gulfnews.com

Patna: The increasing cases of Aida among prisoners lodged in Bihar jails have alarmed the state administration. So far, 89 prisoners out of 4,000 inmates who underwent medical examination have been found suffering from Aids whereas the medical examination of remaining 34,000 prisoners lodged in jails are still under process.

Jail authorities are apprehensive of the fact that the number of such prisoners could go up alarmingly if the entire lot of 38,000 prisoners lodged in 59 jails were completed given the prevailing rate. The number of prisoners currently detected by AIDS is about 2 per cent of 4,000 inmates who were medically examined so far, officials said.

“The figures of inmates suffering from this deadly disease are indeed alarming. We have already chalked out a plan to create massive awareness drive about this disease among the prisoners,” Bihar’s inspector general of prisons Mithilesh Mishra told the media on Monday.

Mishra said the authorities would organise awareness camps among all the jails on December 1 to make them aware how they could protect themselves from this disease.

He added that the jail administration would intensify the medical tests from the very next month and would also initiate quite few more steps for better health care of the inmates.

According to officials, one of the major reasons behind the spread of the disease is the inmates’ addiction for drugs. “A good number of inmates lodged in jails are drug addicts. They may have taken drugs through infected syringes unaware of their serious consequences, before being sent to jail,” a senior jail official said preferring anonymity.

According to an official report, the number of HIV cases have grown alarmingly in the state in the past few years. The latest report of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) says of the total number of estimated 2.14 million HIV cases in India, Bihar has roughly 115,000 people living with this disease.

Over 4500 people die of snakebites every year in Bihar.

Source – newindianexpress.com

PATNA: Bihar witnesses deaths of around 4,500 people every year due to snake bites, majority of them are from extremely poor backgrounds. Bihar stands as the third in the country with the largest number of deaths caused by snakebites in India.

Sharing this figure at a public awareness event organised at Asia’s longest-running sonepur fair on Sunday, Aditya Vaibhav, the  representative of ‘The Tricky Rescuer’, said : “ With a view to promoting awareness amongst Bihari masses on snakebites and post-bite response, a mass social campaign has been launched all over the state”.

Spelling out the objective of ‘The Tricky-Rescuer’, he said that it aims at saving snakes, as-well-as humans in case of conflicts by reducing the number of such occurrences.

Quoting figures of various research studies on the cases of snakebites, he said: “Five million snakebites occur globally each year, causing between 81,000 and 1.38 lakh deaths and nearly 4 lakh amputations and other permanent disabilities.

South Asia has the highest incidence of venomous snakebites in the world. Within the region, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka together constitute nearly 70% of global snakebite mortality”.

In Bihar, it is a sheer lack of prevention or a slew of post-snakebite steps; most of the victims die in state’s interiors than in urban landscapes. “Cobras, Kraits, Russell ’s viper and Saw Scale vipers are the commonly found venomous species of snakes, which bite the human-beings”.

He said: “Snakebites are exacerbated by ignorance. Let alone the illiterates, even most of those educated are unaware of crucial trivia. In a recent email survey that was conducted on 1,000 graduates, with equal participation of both males and females, in ten developing and developed countries it was found
that close of 870 individuals did not know what an antivenin is”.

Antivenin is the antiserum containing antibodies against specific chemicals, especially those in the venom of snakes, spiders, and scorpions.

JD(U) frets about BJP repeating Maharashtra drama after 2020 Bihar polls.

Source – theprint.in

Patna: The Janata Dal (United) is not warming up to its partner BJP’s alliance with Ajit Pawar in Maharashtra. Though Nitish Kumar’s party doesn’t have any stake in the western state, it is concerned about the post-poll scenario developing there because Bihar goes to the polls next year.

The JD(U), now the BJP’s biggest ally in Parliament, is concerned about the developments, spokesperson Pavan Varma told ThePrint. “Whether you see Ajit Pawar with the BJP or the Shiv Sena with the Congress, where is their ideology? Combinations are being made in Maharashtra in pursuit of power,” he said.

Varma said combinations which have been invited to form the government must prove their majority on the floor of the house as soon as possible, to “Prevent the unethical practice of horse trading”. He maintained that JD(U)-BJP alliance in Bihar is strong, but added that “it is confined to Bihar”.

JD(U)’s reaction stands in sharp contrast to the BJP’s other Bihar ally, the Lok Janshakti Party. Ram Vilas Paswan, the party founder and Union cabinet minister, was among the first to congratulate the swearing in of the BJP-Ajit Pawar government Saturday morning.

Echoes of 2005, eye on 2020

The developments in Maharashtra echo what happened in Bihar after the 2005 elections, which produced a hung assembly. The LJP was part of the Congress-led UPA at the time, and 15 of its MLAs “disappeared” and later surfaced in Jharkhand, in a bid to install an NDA government led by JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar. The move was torpedoed by then-governor Buta Singh, who recommended the dissolution of the newly-elected assembly on the grounds of “horse trading”.

BJP chief Amit Shah had announced that Nitish will be the leader of the NDA in the 2020 assembly polls, but after the Maharashtra developments, this has begun to look less assuring to the JD(U).

“Suppose the BJP gets more seats than JD(U) and, with the support of LJP, breaks away some RJD MLAs and stakes claim to form the government. This is the level the BJP is willing to go for power,” a senior JD(U) leader said on the condition of anonymity. “There is a clear possibility of the Maharashtra episode being repeated in Bihar.”

The seat-sharing formula between the BJP and its allies for the 2020 assembly polls is yet to be decided. But the BJP has made it clear that it expects Nitish Kumar to be generous and reciprocate its generosity from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls — the party dropped five sitting MPs to accommodate Nitish’s demand for an equal number of seats (17 each, with the LJP getting six).

There is talk of the BJP and the JD(U) contesting 100 to 110 seats each, leaving the rest to the LJP in the 243-member house.

The alleged BJP-RJD nexus

Bihar’s Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi made a statement comparing the Shiv Sena to the RJD, and calling it a party of goons. The RJD reacted by declaring that Modi faces an identity crisis and cannot make any statement without dragging in the RJD.

When RJD founder Lalu Prasad first came to power in 1990, it was with the support of the BJP. However, after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, the parties have been the two poles of “secular” and “communal” politics in the state. Their vote bank compulsions will not allow them to come together — the RJD has to protect its Muslim votes while the BJP wouldn’t want to antagonise its upper caste votes.

However, recently, there have been charges that Lalu’s son Tejashwi Yadav has been helping BJP indirectly by ruling out the possibility of the JD(U) and Nitish Kumar returning to the fold of the Mahagathbandhan. The perception, fuelled by former allies Jitan Ram Manjhi and Mukesh Sahani, is that Tejashwi is toeing the line due to the CBI and Enforcement Directorate cases against him and his family. This has weakened Nitish Kumar’s bargaining power against the BJP.

The senior JD(U) leader quoted above pointed out that though the BJP has been attacking the RJD over corruption since Lalu Prasad was convicted and jailed in the Rs 900 crore fodder scam, it pales in comparison to the magnitude of the scam allegedly committed by Ajit Pawar and other NCP leaders in Maharashtra.

“Corruption is not an issue which the BJP holds dear when it is after allies,” the leader said, stressing that Maharashtra episode has thrown the gates open to possibilities in Bihar.

Liquor ban: Over 200,000 cases pile-up, irked Patna HC raps Bihar govt.

Source – business-standard.com

Bihar government’s alcohol ban in the state may or may not have delivered desired results yet, but the move has put a huge burden on the judiciary.

The judiciary, already burdened with a large number of pending cases, has to now settle over 200,000 prohibition-related cases, including nearly 40,000 bail petitions pending with the Patna High Court.

The HC has asked Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government to explain the details of the infrastructure and mechanism it plans to develop to deal with mounting prohibition-related cases, according to a news report in The Times of India.

“In how many such cases has the state government appealed the high court’s order in the Supreme Court?,” a bench asked advocate general Lalit Kishore.

In reply, the advocate general said the state government had moved the SC on several occasions but he didn’t mention the number of cases.

The bench also sought to know what action the Bihar government has taken to pursue the cases filed in the SC challenging the enforcement of prohibition in the state.

Till date, 167,000 people have been arrested on charges of violating the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 and more than 5 lakh litres of alcohol have been seized, the report said.