Tag: Bihar

Bihar: Oppn alliance fights for seats ahead of polls.

source – outlookindia.com

Though Bihar assembly elections are still far away, the swords have been drawn in grand alliance of the opposition parties on who will fight on how many seats in the state.

Similar is the case in the ruling alliance where Lok Janshakti Party is eyeing more seats for the party in the assembly elections. The LJP has said that it will fight at least on 43 seats given the fact that it won 100 per cent seats in the general elections in 2019.

In the opposition alliance, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has said the party will contest on 150 seats out of a total of 243 in state assembly.

Vijay Prakash, RJD legislator said, “Though our party is planning to contest all seats in the state, but if like minded parties come together, we will not compromise on anything below 150 seats.”

Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) chief and former Chief Minister Jeetan Ram Manjhi, an ally of the opposition, has upped the ante by demanding 85 seats for his party.

“We cannot win elections on all 243 seats alone, but with an alliance can certainly win 85 seats,” Manjhi said.

In 2015, the Congress, which was a part of the grand alliance with the RJD and the JDU then, had fielded 40 candidates and won 27 seats. Now it is putting pressure on the alliance partners to shell out more in the next assembly elections. “Our vote share in Bihar has increased and people are more inclined to the ideology of the party,” claimed a senior Congress leader Ravindranath Mishra.

“We want to fight on at least 100 seats in the state this time, and the way the party has progressed in the state, it will not be very difficult for other alliance partners to allocate that many seats to us,” Mishra added.

The opposition grand alliance in Bihar includes RJD, Congress, HAM, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and others.

On the other hand, the ruling JD(U) on the question of allocation of seats said that when the time will come the party will make its stand clear on how many seats it is going to contest.

Prashant Kishor thanks Congress for anti-CAA stand, repeats no NRC in Bihar.

Source – indiatoday.in

JD(U) vice-president and poll strategist Prashant Kishor took to Twitter on Sunday to declare that the Citizenship Amendment Act ( CAA ) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be implemented in Bihar.

“I join my voice with all to thank #Congress leadership for their formal and unequivocal rejection of #CAA_NRC. Both @rahulgandhi & @priyankagandhi deserves special thanks for their efforts on this count. Also would like to reassure to all – Bihar me CAA-NRC implement nahi hoga [CAA-NRC will not be implemented in Bihar],” Prashant Kishor tweeted.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s party JD(U) had supported the Centre in passing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 in both houses of Parliament last month.

After Prashant Kishor’s declaration on Sunday, questions are being raised whether the CAA will be implemented in Bihar or not even as the Centre, two days ago, had issued a gazette notification announcing that the new law has come into effect from January 10, 2020.

However, there are several states ruled by Opposition, like Kerala and West Bengal, which has clearly stated that they will not implement the new citizenship law in their states.

Addressing a press conference in Lucknow on Saturday, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had reiterated that no states can oppose the implementation of the Act as it has already been passed by both the Houses of Parliament.

Party can wrest Bihar on its own: BJP’s Paswan.

Source – asianage.com

Patna: Amid the political turmoil over leadership in the NDA, Dalit leader and BJP MLC Sanjay Paswan Wednesday said that “the party has the capability to contest and win elections in Bihar on its own”.

Sources said that his statement is likely to create tension in the NDA as the BJP top brass has already announced that the party will contest the Assembly elections in alliance with the JD(U) and chief minister Nitish Kumar will be the face of the NDA.

In September 2019, Mr Paswan had raised the political pitch by stating that the CM should hand over the reins of the state government to the BJP and move to the Centre.

On Wednesday, Mr Paswan told reporters in Patna, “It’s the people of Bihar who want to see a BJP leader becoming the chief minister.” However, he also clarified that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi will take a final decision regarding the issue but the BJP is a strong party and has the capability to contest and win elections on its own in Bihar.”

Sources said that a section of the BJP led by senior leaders including Mr Paswan has been in favour of promoting firebrand leader Giriraj Singh as the chief ministerial candidate of the NDA in the state.

Mr Paswan’s statement is also crucial because the BJP is part of the state government in Bihar which is being led by the JD(U). Political analysts are of the opinion that in the current scenario where Lalu Yadav is serving a jail term in the fodder scam case, Nitish Kumar has emerged as a stronger leader in Bihar. Nitish Kumar has been the NDA’s face in Bihar since 2005.

The party’s state unit reacted strongly after Mr Paswan gave the statement. Talking to this newspaper, BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said, “Every decision related to the 2020 Bihar election will be taken collectively by the top leadership of NDA partners after proper consultation in due course. Party president Amit Shah has already said that Nitish Kumar will be the face of the NDA in Bihar. The statement being given by some leaders in their individual capacity is not the party’s stand.”

Bihar: Labourers, Women Scheme Workers Hit the Streets on Bharat Bandh.

Source –

Patna: The countrywide strike, called by 10 central trade unions and independent forums, was seen in nearly all districts of Bihar.

Unions that participated in the strike included All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Trade Union Coordination Centre (TUCC), and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS).

Workers and activists gathered at Patna’s Dak Bungla Chowk and raised slogans against the government’s anti-people policies.

The protesters included midday meal workers, ASHA workers, non-gazetted employees, contractual workers, MGNREGA workers and transport unionists.

Bihar State Auto Union general secretary Raj Kumar Jha, told The Wire that the strike went well thanks to the presence of lorry and bus drivers, auto rickshaw drivers and also petrol pump workers. “Our focus was to put up resistance against the anti-worker polices of both state and central government which includes ban of diesel auto from March 31, 2020,” he added.

Saroj Chaubey, state secretary of the Bihar Mid Day Meal Workers organisation, said districts of Patna, Samastipur, Ara, Munger, Saharsa, East Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Nawada and Jehanabad saw good mass mobilisation. “People raised slogans such as pandrah sau main dum nahin, ikkis hazaar se kam nahi which means that there is no strength in Rs 1,500 and we demand no less than Rs 21,000,” he said.

Accredited Social Health Workers (ASHA) workers and Anganwadi workers demanded ‘worker’ status to all scheme workers who by virtue of not being officially categorised as ‘workers’, do not come under most of the labour laws in the country.

CITU state leader Arun Kumar Mishra said, “The Bihar chapter of all India strike went extremely well with coordination of all the trade unions and the support from the common man. The outburst against policies such as CAA-NRC of the government was visible. Issues of massive unemployment, price rise, distortion of labour laws and unprecedented sale of public sector and mergers of banks have led to mass eruption.”

All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) Bihar leader Ashok Singh said the rural workforce showed full participation with no supply or restricted supply of vegetables to the mandis of local areas and nearby towns. Construction workers were also seen in huge numbers statewide.

MGNREGA workers claimed to not have been given their wages since months. Nor are there enough jobs for them, they said.

Premchand Kumar Sinha, a leader of Bihar Non-Gazetted Employees Federation (Gope Group), said government employees joined the workers’ strike in large numbers to express their anger in districts of Darbhanga, Buxar, Gaya, East-West Champaran, Ara, Samastipur, Saharsa, and Muzaffarpur,

Rannvijay, general secretary of the AICCTU, claimed that Patna town alone had participation of more than 10,000 people and statewide more than 2 crore workers participated. “Patliputra Industrial area, Nalanda Biscuit factory and Sudha Dairy factory located at Phulwarisharif saw large protests,” he added. 

The strikes were notable for the participation of women scheme workers and their entirely non-violent nature in the state.

Centre Keeps Bihar Waiting For Flood Funds Again, Opposition Slams Amit Shah.

Source – ndtv.com

Patna: With less than a year to go for the assembly polls, the centre has yet again kept Bihar’s Nitish Kumar government waiting for the Rs 4,000 crore it has demanded in flood damages.

Flood claims made by Bihar and Kerala were not given much credence in the Rs 5,908-crore relief fund released by the central government to seven states recently. According to a press release, Karnataka got Rs 1,869.85 crore (totalling over Rs 3,000 crore when taken together with the first instalment of Rs 1,200 crore) while Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra received Rs 1,749.73 crore and Rs 1,500 crore respectively. Bihar, however, had to make do with just Rs 400 crore.

When upset Bihar officials questioned the reason for more funds not being allotted despite the state getting hit by floods two times in a row last year, resulting in the death of over 200 people, they were told that one more visit by a central team would be required. The opposition, however, was far from convinced.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Shivanand Tiwari termed it as a “clear-cut case of partisanism” by the central government, recalling how it had granted just Rs 1,700 crore as compared to the state’s demand for Rs 7,000 crore even the previous year. He also claimed that the BJP knows Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won’t make a big issue of it, given that he is “more interested in striking a favourable seat-sharing deal than the people”.

Congress legislator Shakeel Ahmed Khan termed it as proof that the plight of the poor in Bihar does not move Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. “What else can you expect from a Finance Ministry under the BJP?” he exclaimed.

Janata Dal United spokesperson C Tyagi admitted to being shocked by the low figure, but hoped that the central government would “walk the talk” soon. Last year, the Bihar government had disbursed Rs 2,000 crore among flood victims.

‘No proof of girls being killed inside Bihar home’.

Source – indiatoday.in

More than a year after two skeletons were recovered from a shelter home for girls in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, amidst allegations of several of the inmates being sexually assaulted, drugged and some disposed of, the CBI has on Wednesday said that the remains were not of the inmates.

Girls recovered from the shelter home had given statements to counsellors from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences that they believed that some girls had been killed and buried in the shelter home campus.

The CBI in an earlier status report to the court had said that the names of the allegedly missing girls were being verified, as about 35 girls had similar names. On Wednesday, Attorney-General KK Venugopal informed the bench headed by CJI SA Bobde that the CBI had traced all the inmates who had been sent to the shelter home and none of them were dead.

The A-G also informed the bench that the skeletons could not have been those of the girls sent to the shelter home, as one was found to be of an adult male, while the other was of an adult female.

The probe is underway, said the A-G. The apex court had transferred the trial of the sexual assault and drugging case to Delhi, where the special court is scheduled to pronounce its verdict against Bihar strongman Brajesh Thakur and 20 others, including the government officials of the social welfare department and the Child Welfare Committee’s members.

The A-G said the testimony given by the girls was due to the traumatised condition of the victims, who had been repeatedly drugged, sexually assaulted and physically beaten by the shelter home staff and others. There is no evidence of any murder of any of the inmates. The children were under tremendous trauma. The NIMHANS teams have counselled and spoken to the children and found that there was no murder, said the A-G. The apex court has taken note of the submissions made by the CBI and will hear the matter after two weeks.

70 Officers May Face Action For Lapses In Running Bihar Shelter Homes.

Source – ndtv.com

Patna: Twenty-five Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers are among over 70 officials in Bihar who could face action for lapses in managing shelter homes in the state that was shook by sexual exploitation of over 40 girls at such facilities in 2018.

The lapses tumbled out one after another during a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as it dug deep into the case for one-and-a-half years, officials said. The CBI has asked the Bihar government to act against the officials and has also informed the Supreme Court, officials said.

The CBI in an affidavit to the Supreme Court said it has completed investigation into all the 17 cases liked to the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape cases.

Young girls were forced to dance to vulgar songs, sedated and raped at a government-run shelter in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur in a massive sex scandal with links to influential politicians and bureaucrats. A human skeleton – believed to be the remains of one of the victims – was found in October 2018 at a cremation ground in the district’s Sikandarpur area.

More grisly details are found in the chargesheet filed by the CBI against the main accused, the politically well-connected Brajesh Thakur, who operated the shelter for several years.

“We have got the report. We will take action under the law. The Nitish Kumar government does not falsely implicate or free anyone,” Bihar Social Welfare Minister Krishnanandan Verma told NDTV.

Nivedita Jha, the petitioner in the case, said the findings of the CBI so far are “prima facie”. “It is said the criminal act part of the case is yet to be proved. I feel they need to investigate this care more thoroughly,” Ms Jha told NDTV.

The state government, however, is yet to decide on what kind of action it should take against the 25 IAS and 45 state civil service officers. Sources said in most of the cases, the officers could be let off with a warning or one or two increments in their salaries could be blocked.

Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath To Launch Pro-Citizenship Law Drive In Bihar.

Source – ndtv.com

Patna: The BJP is set to raise the pitch in Bihar in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, with two of its top leaders flying down to the state to address public meetings and raise awareness about the contentious legislation, a senior party official said on Monday.

Union Home Minister and party chief Amit Shah is scheduled to address people in Vaishali district on January 16, two days after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath holds a public meeting in Gaya, state BJP vice-president Devesh Kumar told PTI.

A massive door-to-door campaign is currently underway in the state, after its launch on Sunday with rallies addressed in Patna by Union minister of state for Home Nityanand Rai and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

Notably, Bihar witnessed massive anti-CAA protests in the recent past, including statewide bandhs called on different days by Left parties and the RJD and its allies.

A demonstration staged by a motley group of student outfits in December had caught the police off guard as the agitators went on the rampage, setting on fire a police outpost and many vehicles at Kargil Chowk, a stone’s throw from the district police chief’s office and the collectorate.

Meanwhile, the state BJP mocked Pavan K Varma, the disgruntled national general secretary of the JD(U), for his open letter in protest against “unilateral announcement” on National Population Register (NPR) exercise by the Deputy Chief Minister.

PM Modi had made the disclosure at a press conference on Saturday and issued a stern warning that “administrative and punitive action” will be taken against officials, found guilty of dereliction of duty.

Bihar’s Sumant Parimal wins Forbes online competition, becomes first Indian to win.

Source – indiatoday.in

Recently, Sumant Parimal of Bihar’s capital Patna has topped the online competition of IT professionals and Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts by the Forbes magazine. As per reports, Sumant is the only Indian to win in this competition.

According to reports, Sumant Parimal has left behind the famous IT and AI experts from America, Europe, Asia and Australia in the online competition which lasted for almost two months. Sumant’s rating was the highest, forcing him to top the panel of global experts.

About Sumant Parimal:

Sumant hails from Patna’s Raja Bazar and holds an MTech from the University of Mysore and an MBA from Xavier Labor Research Institute School of Management (XLRI), Jamshedpur. He was an officer in Bokaro Steel Plant for many years. After this, he did research in America for five years.

‘5 Jewels Research’

Sumant Parimal has formed his own IT company named as ‘5 Jewels Research’, which is working on the development of artificial intelligence and robotics technology in India.

Recently, Sumant Parimal has tied up with the Uttar Pradesh government for setting up a robotic technology park in Greater Noida.

Artificial intelligence:

Artificial intelligence is becoming an integral part of smart ICT based apps targeted for digital learning. The quality of teaching learning depends on the academic and non academic support provided to the student by the institute and faculties. By using the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, today’s teaching apps can actually predict in advance the academic and non academic support a student would need.

For example, some of the smart learning analysis apps can analyse the past performance of the student, performance of similar students in similar categories, and the ongoing continuous monitoring of performance of the student and would predict the support the student would require in the next semesters.

Bihar Police SI 2020 Application Process closing Today on bpssc.bih.nic.in

Source – pagalguy.com

Bihar Police Subordinate Services Commission (BPSSC) has already issued recruitment notification for the post of Enforcement Sub Inspector (ESI) on 03rd December 2019. There are around 212 posts released for the Sub Inspector. Candidates who will be selected will be eligible to receive the salary of Rs 35,400 to Rs 1,12,400.

Important Dates

Candidates who are interested in Police vacancies should note that the online application for the Bihar Police SI 2020 is closing today. The application process began from 03rd December 2019 and the last date to submit the application form is 06th January 2020.

The official notification has already been released earlier on the official website which is www.bpssc.bih.nic.in.

Application Fee:

The application fees would also be needed to be submitted along with the application form. The application fees for the General, EWS, EBC/BC category candidates is Rs 700 and the application fee for the SC/ST candidates is Rs 400.

Eligibility Criteria

Bihar Police Subordinate Services Commission (BPSSC) has mentioned some eligibility criteria to select the candidates for the Sub Inspector. Candidates can check below the eligibility criteria mentioned by BPSSC:

Education Qualification:

Candidates must be graduate from any recognized university or equivalent degree.

Age Limit:

The age limit for the candidates are as follows for Male and female Candidates:

  • General Category candidates should be between 21 to 42 years of age
  • EWS category Candidates should be between 21 to 42 years of age
  • BC/EBC category candidates should be between 21 to 45 years of age but for female candidates in this category is 21 to 42 years of age
  • SC/ST category candidates should be between 21 to 47 years of age

Candidates would be selected on the basis of written test which will be preliminary exam and main examination. Candidates who will clear the written test will have to appear for the Physical Endurance Test and Interview.