Dr. Binoy Shanker Prasad

If an honest debate is initiated in the public domain and we wish to be a sincere learner of history and political developments, we should refrain from hastily jumping to a conclusion and let the facts, their interpretation and arguments flow on all sides. References to sources and quotes are fine.

As Bihar was recovering from the news cycle of mob lynching, triple talaq and JD(U)’s ambivalence on Article 370 and 35A, disturbing new reports on Lalu’s family feud surfaced.

Happy to be back to my guest column with the PatnaDaily. My last write up had appeared on 6 December 2018, wherein I had paid tribute to Dr Rajendra Prasad.

The nation pays homage to the memory of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, on December the 3rd. Today, in the spirit of honoring that great son of Bihar on his birthday, I turned to a few news outlets to know what was happening in Rajen Babu’s as well as my home-state.

The social and political opponents of the Lalu Yadav’s family must be chuckling at the agonies of Rabri Devi who decided not to have Chhath Puja celebration this time around.

On 26-27 August 2018, my wife Reeta, and I had the rare opportunity to host at our residence an eminent follower of Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. S.N.Subbarao. One of his best-known achievements was when in early 1970’s, under the guidance and leadership of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan, he founded the Mahatma Gandhi Seva Ashram in the Chambal valley of Madhya Pradesh and brought hundreds of dacoits (professional bandits) into the mainstream.

Observers of Nitish Kumar’s tenure agree three terms as Chief Minister should be sufficient to show substantial improvement in the health of a province. Many critics, not necessarily hostile, say on many fundamental benchmarks against which his administration must be tested Nitish fell far short. For instance, health care system or law and order in general continued to be sick despite his claim of a clean and efficient administration, Sushasan, in Bihar.

In the 90’s scholars had identified a few states in India as ungovernable. Popular with the acronym, BIMARU, Bihar was first among them. It was the decade of Lalu Yadav, but the degeneration had continued in a big way during the Jagannath Mishra regime.

A recently published report based on the studies of Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) and Development Management Institute (DMI) suggested growing improvement in the living standards of Biharis after complete prohibition was imposed in April of 2016.

As the holy month of Ramazan for Muslims concluded this year (2018), there was by and large a feeling of goodwill and festivity among the Muslims and others in Bihar (and India). The Ramazan message of peace, charity and brotherhood was meant to spread everywhere. The month, however, wasn’t free from violence in certain parts of the world where the Muslims were in majority.