Peeking eyes: to end cricket mischief! New Delhi: Against the backdrop of allegations of spot-fixing during IPL matches, Union Minister Ajay Maken today said the BCCI – the national governing body for cricket in India – should come under the ambit of the RTI Act. “BCCI should agree to come under RTI. Any organisation entrusted with job of selecting a National Team can not call itself a Private Body!,” Maken, who till recently held the Sports portfolio, twitted. His Twitter account clarifies that the Union minister’s tweets are personal. Maken, who holds Housing... 

  As in Mumbai, so in Patna! Patna: Another male bastion is set to be stormed. The streets of Patna, considered till recently to be most vulnerable and quite unsafe for women, will soon have autorickshaws being run by girls/women. A select group of girls, for the first time in Patna’s chequered history, has volunteered to learn driving skills. After a one-month rigorous training, these girls would ferry passengers in autorickshaws. Neha Sharma is studying law, but is keen to learn autorickshaw driving. Clad in a track suit, she reaches the Bihar Veterinary College ground eve­ry Sunday to... 

  By Ratnakar Tripathy   Thinking Indian politics! Lazy is Sunday. Thus this! It remains a matter of debate whether Bihar will gain much from its impending special status. I will stay away from this debate as a sensible layman. But it does indicate two important things to me – a perception that all Bihar needs from the centre is a special package and Bihar will take care of itself rest of the time. This is no longer unique to Bihar. Several other states have turned inwards in the awareness that the centre is basically incapable of doing much for them. This is a sign of the changing... 

    Assam is handy for filing! Guwahati: it is normally a privilege to have a prime minister file for nomination from your city. But when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Guwahati on Wednesday to submit his nomination papers seeking re-election to the Rajya Sabha for the fourth consecutive time, it was amid protests by opposition political parties and the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU). While the AGP and BJP staged demonstrations opposing Singh’s re-nomination from Assam, the AASU demonstrated by parading 15 persons with Manmohan Singh masks, each holding a placard... 

by Ratnakar Tripathy Why agricultural productivity remains low in Bihar is by itself a clichéd question carrying an air of obviousness. The big landlord is either dormant or has better things to do than agriculture, a job in Patna for example. His sharecroppers are too uncertain about their land-holdings to invest seriously. When they are willing, they don’t have the knowhow or the resources. Those willing may also have too small a piece of land to take a risk or make a difference. In brief, it’s a vicious circle that no land reform based on redistribution may be able to solve. To put it... 

  Laloo: kerosene or Electricity? Patna: when it comes to social justice, Laloo Yadav will have a thing or two to say. But will Laloo have anything substantial to say or promise on Bihar’s development. Laloo as is well known never had a development agenda. Will he project one now so late in his career? These are the questions looming over his Raila on 15th May, when he may succeed in collecting massive crowds in Patna to listen to him. Will Laloo have much to say at all, except mouthing the usual the rhetoric for change?? As the date for the RJD’s ‘Parivartan’ rally is... 

  Call this distribution? Patna: The state government has decided to roll out Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to trim high transmission and distribution (T&D) losses. It is planning to privatise energy distribution network in more than a dozen towns of the state. “We are very serious about this,” said Sanjeev Paundrik, Principal Secretary of the Energy Department, “and therefore we are taking every possible step in this regard. In next two years, we would have more than adequate power. However, high T&D losses are still a matter of concern.” He said that... 

  Special cushions: Bihar cheered and favoured! Patna: In a move that is bound to appease Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said a high-level sub-committee will soon be constituted to finalise the new criteria for “backwardness.” He also added that under the new criteria Bihar would qualify for ‘special status’ as a backward state. “The criteria is to determine backwardness. Once we agree on this criteria, once we implement the criteria, states will qualify under that criteria and going by whatever information that I have, Bihar... 

    From Mandi to market! Ahmadabad: Seven IIM-A students are set to replicate the “Amul model” in the agri-belt of Bihar as part of their summer internship during which they will work for Bihar’s rural livelihood initiative Jeevika for eight weeks. “As in ‘Amul model’ where dairy farmers go and provide milk to collection centres, we have proposed common procurement centres at the village level where farmers can give their for agricultural produce. They can then be stocked at a district procurement centre, which will have a cold storage facility run by... 

  Law rules oftener: Bihar Patna: truly, custodial deaths must be an important measure of a society’s law and order record – for the simple reason that a citizen is most vulnerable when in police custody, often seen as equivalent to a sentence on its own. The Bihar cop seems to have turned somewhat economical with misdemeanour – a piece of good news for the state. Bihar has improved its position from eighth to thirteenth in the number of police custodial deaths recorded in the country between 2005 and 2010. According to the latest report compiled by the National Human Rights Commission...