Bihari Village Girls not Less than Men- गांव जहां लड़कियों का होता है जनेऊ

Here a little story of women's defiance of tradition and "changing the mindset of men" from a Bihar village ahead of International Women's Day.

Mania, about 150 km from here in Buxar district, has been following a novel tradition for the last three decades - of Hindu girls wearing the 'janeu' (जनेऊ)or sacred thread, which is otherwise the preserve of Brahmin men, to overcome gender and religious bias. Not only that, the 'janeu sanskar' (जनेऊ संस्कार) ceremony at which the sacred thread is worn is being regularly held for these girls.

"This three-decade old tradition has an interesting story. Vishwanath Singh, had set up a girls school in Mania village in 1972, at a time when women were discouraged from joining school. Undaunted, he started sending his four daughters to school, which encouraged and inspired others to follow suit. After that, Vishwanath Singh held the thread ceremony for his elder daughter. Later this practice was adopted by others and became a tradidition in the vilage." Sidheshwar Sharma, a social activist, told IANS.

Meera Kumari, the girl who began the practice, said that she and her three sisters still wear the sacred thread. "Wearing the janeu (जनेऊ)  is a symbol that we are no less important than men," Meera Kumari, a school teacher, said.

According to Sharma, the tradition has made the village famous for promoting education of girls and spreading awareness against female foeticide.

"Even this year, the 'janeu sanskar' ceremony was held for class 10 students Nisha Kumari and Prinka Kumari in the village," he added. More than two dozen girls in the village wear the saccred thread and attend school.

"This tradition among girls has changed the mindset of men in the village, who never dare to discriminate against women." Sharma pointed out.

This sacred thread signifies the transition from boyhood to manhood.

(Imran Khan can be contacted at imran.k@ians.in)
--IANS

Biharis cook preparing Delicious variety of north Indian dishes for people in chennai.

(The cooks live in settlements across IT hubs and in localities near educational institutions.)

CHENNAI: Kargil, Circuit and Mahi are among a bunch of more than 250 Bihari men who have endeared themselves to people in Chennai with their culinary skills.Network of these home-service cooks prepare chapattis and a variety of north Indian dishes mostly for students and IT professionals from other states who long for a taste of home. But many Chennaiites too are taking a fancy to the fare they're dishing out.The cooks live in settlements across IT hubs and in localities near educational institutions, including Tambaram, Velachery, Kelambakkam, Kottivakkam, along ECR and near Camp Road junction, and even in Mamallapuram. Most of these Biharis, armed with a matriculation or senior secondary certificate, came to the city in search of employment.

Manish alias Kargil, 21 from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, came to Chennai in search of a job during the Kargil War. While working as a delivery boy in a courier company, he affixed a small tricolour on his bicycle as a mark of respect to India's soldiers. The bicycle still has a prominent sticker that says 'ARMY'.

Vinod, 23 from Vaishali in the same state, was nicknamed Circuit as he can mimic the mannerisms and lines of Arshad Warsi's character in 'Munnabhai'. Chanchal aka Mahi, 24, from Lakhisarai, lights an incense stick every morning before a picture of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. "We cook chapattis and chokha (finely chopped onions, coriander leaves, lemon juice and smoked red chill mixed with mashed potatoes)," says Kargil. "My specialty is Dehati Chicken, which is popular in villages across Bihar. Rather than powdered spices, I use a mixture of black cumin, aniseed, fenugreek and mustard with pounded raw garlic and ginger."

Most of them have been working for over five years and even and brought their relatives to Chennai to expand their business. Their typical working hours are between 10am and 2pm and from 4pm to 10pm.

As powdered baked gram (sattu) is not easily available in Chennai they procure it from Bihar. The cooks can easily prepare special bihari delicacies like makuni (parathas stuffed with baked gram powder) and litti (sattu with other condiments stuffed into wheat ball and either barbecued or deep fried). Dheeraj, an IT professional and regular customer, vouches for the food that these Bihari cooks whip up. "Unlike them, the eateries that sell north Indian food are either expensive or the dishes are not authentic," he says. 

source:TNN

Two new medical college in the state to become functional in 2014

Projects  MJK Hospital & Medical College
Location	:	Bettiah, Distt. West Champaran (Bihar)

PATNA: Health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey on Thursday said infrastructural facilities for two new medical colleges in the state at Madhepura and Bettiah were in the last stage of completion. Accordingly, the new medical college at Madhepura would become functional from next year.

Choubey, who was giving the government's reply to the debate in the state assembly on his department's over Rs 3,356 crore budgetary demand for 2013-14, added that a new medical college had become functional on the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) campus. He also said the Union health ministry had sanctioned opening of a regional para medical institute at Bhagalpur.

The House passed the department's budgetary demand by voice vote after Independent member Jyoti Rashmi moved a cut motion. Earlier, opposition members led by leader of opposition Abdul Bari Siddiqui walked out of the House when Choubey proposed his department's budgetary demand for the House debate.

Choubey said even though the state was acutely short of doctors, the government had taken steps to improve the healthcare system in the state, which had led to substantial increase in the treatment of patients at each of 530 primary health centres (PHCs) - to an average of 9,000 patients per month.

"The government still needs 4,000 doctors. Doctors recruited on contract will be regularized over the next five years. Besides, the services of nursing staff will also be regularized on the basis of assessment of their services," Choubey added.

Earlier, science and technology minister Shahid Ali Khan said e-governance would be extended to all the districts by 2016. As of date, four districts - Nalanda, Gaya, Aurangabad and Madhubani - have been put on information technology (IT) network. An IT park is coming up at Bihta under PPP mode, he added.

source:TNN

Amritanshu Anand From PATNA wins Tata First Dot Award 2013

Amritanshu (2nd from Right)  and Anshul winning the Tata First Dot Award 2013 at IIT Madras

Crowdbeans, a Mobile App Development Company started by Amritanshu Anand of Patna has been declared as Top 5 Student start-ups in India by TATA and National Entrepreneurship Forum in TATA First Dot 2013.  Amritanshu Anand is presently Final Year B. Tech Student at IIT Kharagpur.

CrowdBeans is a crowd powered mobile app testing platform. It is a community of 200 testers and 50 developers, all from IIT Kharagpur who put mobile applications through their paces by testing on real devices under real-world conditions. Along with his Friend Anshul Singhle, Amritanshu created Crowdbeans as a platform to link app developers to volunteer testers. The model is effective, with testers being paid according to the bugs they help identify.

Crowdbeans was selected in Jury’s Choice Award and secured 5th place among Top 6 Student Startups of India in the two-day national conference held at IIT-Madras, Chennai from January 20-21, 2013.

The six national winners were selected by a panel of eminent jury members comprising of successful entrepreneurs, angel investors and senior Tata leaders. The entries were evaluated on criterias like milestones achieved (investment obtained, track record), business model, innovativeness and distinctive competence, passion and growth potential.

The Six Winners were chosen from 400 Entries made by about 600 Student Entrepreneurs. His start-up will now receive professional mentoring from various entrepreneurs, angel investors, mentors, experts and other student start-ups via the NEN Mentoring Platform.

Other winning entries included ventures like Anaerobic workstation for research, experiential learning tools for educational institutions, search engine for e-commerce, automated food equipment, online courses, etc.

CrowdBeans provides in-the-wild testing services that span the entire software development lifecycle – including functional, security, load, localization and Usability testing. The CrowBeans community provides developers a chance to test their apps on various platform and across a wide range of handsets.

If you develop a Mobile Application and its needs to get tested Crowdbeans would help you to connect your app with a strong community of Testers.

Written by BP Staff on 4 Feb, 2013 

Bihar's high growth rate-World Bank

A senior officer of World Bank today praised the high growth rate achieved by Bihar which indicates that an "encouraging" environment of progress has been created for faster economic development of the hitherto laggard state.

Bihar clocked highest growth rate of 16.71 per cent during 2011-12, as per Economic Survey presented in Parliament today. Bihar's growth rate was followed by Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra during the period, according to the report.

Omno Ruhl, Country Director of World Bank, who met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar here today talked about programmes run by the World Bank in the state and expressed satisfaction over there progress, an official statement said.

Kumar told the World Bank official that the state had earlier planned to link villages with a population of 500 and more with metallic road but now under Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojna, village and localities with a population of 250 have been provided all weather metallic roads.

The CM said there are 8,400 panchayats in Bihar out of which in 250 places Panchayat building has been done with assistance from the World Bank.

He requested the Country Director of the World Bank that the apex financial institution show the same interest in constructing building of other panchayats too.

The Kosi project was also reviewed during the meeting and the state government said it intended to complete all roads and bridges construction under the project by September 2014.

source:PTI