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 Sachidanand Singh Final act: pouring! I was still at the university, biding my time. Purely for form I had myself enrolled for some easy course. With little work pressure I had time to put my chemistry knowledge to practical use. Fine powder of charcoal, called “activated charcoal”, is known to absorb colour and odour from liquids. I decided to use activated charcoal to refine the country liquor which was then available for ten rupees a bottle. It came with a hideous colour and a powerful odour.  A quick trip to the labs, some skillful negotiation with the assistant there and I came... 

  Diamond polishing: shopfloor! Patna: according to reports, the state’s first diamond processing unit was inaugurated at the Patliputra Industrial Area here on Thursday by chief minister Nitish Kumar. The unit has been set up by a leading diamond and jewellery firm of the country, Shrenuj and Company. It is widely known that 30% of skilled workers in the diamond hub of Surat are said to belong to Bihar. This could well be a case of reverse migration – instead of Bihari labour heading for Surat, skilled Bihari labour heading back to Bihar to find employment!  The new unit currently... 

    The prize-winning master plan! Patna: In a major step towards realising the ambitious Nalanda International University, coming up in Rajgir in Bihar, an international jury has selected the architectural design of an Ahmedabad-based firm for the varsity. The design of Ahmedabad-based company Vastu Shilpa Consultants  was selected by a jury that comprised top architects from Singapore, China, Japan and India. Vice Chancellor Gopa Sabharwal, addressing the media here Thursday, said 79 proposals had been received and eight final entries were shortlisted. B.V Doshi, principal architect... 

    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... 

  Lychee: More than meets the eye! Patna: often with diseases and other phenomena, when a strong statistical correlation is found, it’s time to look deeper into the matter. Earlier, Muzaffarpur reminded everyone of Lychees, but these days, it has become associated with the killer disease of encephalitis. So the question is – is there a correlation between the heavenly fruit and the diabolical disease? Thus a team of experts from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, has flown down to Bihar amidst reports that three children, suspected to have been afflicted with acute... 

  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...