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As
reported, before polling in the last Bihar
elections, Jagdeep Chhokar and Trilochan Sastry
(an IIT, IIM and MIT-educated operations
research expert who also taught at IIM-A) met
Nitish Kumar. He said since some with criminal
records were already in the fray, he could not
help. But “he promised that in the event of his
becoming CM, none of them would be made
ministers,’’ says Sastry. He adds, ‘‘Nitish
Kumar kept his word. Today we have in Bihar,
ministers who don’t have criminal records, at
least on paper.’’ This is what the most Bihar
watchers think. Nitish and his team are bringing
some change. It may be slow but is coming
steadily.
Bihar that used to be in news earlier for all
wrong reasons, is taking some steps that are
coming as ‘first’ time in any state. Bihar was
the first to allocate 50% reservation to women
in village and district councils. As reported,
it wished to employ 50% women teachers in its
drive to fill up the vacancies of teachers,
about 1.5 lakh in number.
From January 2, 2007, Bihar has switched over to
the five day working in the government offices.
Mission is to improve for better efficiency.
Working hours are more on regular days to
compensate the loss of Saturday and the casual
holidays have also come down from 16 to 12 days.
Even the CM reaches his office well ahead of the
time (and with his lunchbox) and so do all top
bureaucrats.
Interestingly, is Nitish Kumar trying to run the
government as CEO, and to introduce corporate
culture in government functioning. He is
credited with some more first-timers. He
appointed retired army men on contract in the
state police force and formed Special Auxiliary
Police. He has also appointed retired CBI
officials on contract to form a special
anti-corruption cell. Let these innovative out
of the box solution bring efficiency and change
the image of Bihar.
And very soon, RTI will just be a phone call
away in Bihar for all the people. “The
government has planned to set up a call centre
where a person can ring in to seek the
information required by him. The call centre
will then write a formal application which would
be forwarded to the concerned department through
fax or internet and, on getting the information
sought, would pass it on to the person. It will
cost the person just Rs 10 as call charge.”
I wish he took up some more tasks on priority.
Can Nitish Kumar arrange a monitoring of some of
the central projects of immense importance to
the state- East-West Corridor and Golden
Quadrilateral Express passing through the state,
seven new road projects of NHDPIII that are
included for Bihar, taking the length of roads
in the state from 113 km to 890 km, and rural
electrification and road work under Bharat
Nirman?
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Comments: |
After a long break, this article is
interesting and encouraging to a
'layman' like me. In this era of
darkness, we need the ray of light
to guide us. Hope and encouragement
is the only vehicle that will lead
us to pass this gloomy channel.
Believe it or not, most of the
emigrated Biharis, I have
encountered so far, still remember
their old days quite vividly and
looking to change the condition of
their native place in their
capacity. We can be assured that
things in Bihar are changing and
changing for good. I would encourage
our avid writer Indra to write in
columns of other leading newspapers
too to highlight the 'New Image of
Bihar'. This makes more sense when
we are seeing a multitude of
'anti-Bihar news article appearing
recently in media which were either
false or fabricated with a wrong
intention. I am in the medical
profession, so would definitely like
to write something related to my
expertise, however, demand for the
current era is to improve the
socioeconomic aspect of our state. -
Niraj, MD, Detroit, MI, USA -
Jan. 5, 2007
Adding to the wrtieup, I am
delighted with this news
IIT Comes to Bihar
As reported, finally IIT comes to
Bihar. Looking back in history we
find Bihar has waited for nearly six
decades for an IIT. It happens in
Nitish's reign that couldn't happen
in 50s. Shri Babu lost against the
personality of Dr. BC Roy. Dr. BC
Roy influenced Nehru and got the
first IIT established at Kharagpur,
West Bengal instead of Sindri
(earlier in united Bihar, but now in
Jharkhand).
However, only the time will tell
what Bihar gains by having an IIT.
The location of IITs till date has
not changed the region as Stanford
and Berkley have done it for the
Silicon Valley, USA. IIT of Bihar
must concentrate on encouraging
research and entrepreneurship.
Though Bihar was not having an IIT,
but it didn't affect any way the
students of Bihar who right from the
first batch started entering IITs in
good number because of their merit.
Individual zeal and assistance of
institutes such as Super 30
Institute of Patna has helped the
ambitious students in their pursuits
to enter into IITs.
Let the location of this IIT not be
decided by politicians.
Interestingly, as reported, Fatmi,
MOS, HRD already wishes to have it
at Darbhanga, his home constituency.
I have some different views.
Let IIT of Bihar be the first seed
institute of world-class higher
learning in the premises of Nalanda
International University as gifted
by the government of India. Let IIT
be located somewhere near the
International Airport of Buddha Gaya
with a 6-lane expressway between the
two. Connectivity of the location
will be the deciding factor. The
concept of Nalanda International
University must be pursued with a
missionary zeal. That one project
can bring a revolutionary
transformation in the economy of the
region.
As wished by many faculties of IITs
let there be 50% reservations for
the foreign students, particularly
from the South East Asian countries
including China, Taiwan, Korea and
Japan. It must try to have good
teachers also in large number from
the South East Asian countries. And
one can dream of the day, when many
specialized institutes of higher
learning sponsored by different
countries and the reputed
universities of the world get setup
in the premise of Nalanda
International University.
I wish the local politicians didn't
spoil this 'crown jewel' institute
by their foolish demands and moves.
Let this IIT become unique in some
way and serve the whole of the
region. - Indra - Jan. 6, 2006
And then Economist this week covers
Bihar in this manner:
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8498853
- Indra - Jan. 6, 2006
It's good to see positive news
coming from Bihar. But there are
people in Media who don’t want to
project the Bihar as a rising state.
Since negative image of Bihar gives
more pleasure to these people. -
Rajat Roy - Jan. 6, 2006 |
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