Prof. Mohammad Warsi Patna/Darbhanga/St Louis, USA: a Bihari, a son of the soil, an NRI from Darbhanga has gone and done a job that we Biharis need to further continue. He has been able to define, discover and identify a separate dialect in Bihar’s Darbhanga. Those who come from small town Bihar may now begin to hypothesize the existence of several other dialects in different parts of the state. it is of course for an expert to decide if the find is a real one, and the alleged dialect to use legalese is actually one. Most often dialect speakers find a name for their dialect, but clearly at times,... 

 By Mohammad Sajjad   Maghfur Aijazi, [1900-1967)In 1997 the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi through its Research Officer obtained the Maghfur Aijazi Papers. It suddenly reminded many that Aijazi (1900-1967) was one of the crusaders for India’s freedom, besides fighting for educational uplift of the Urdu speaking minorities in post-Independence period. The Times of India (15 August 1992, Patna) had written, “History has been unkind to him. A man who shared the travails for freedom with veterans like the Ali Brothers, Maulana Azad, C. Rajagopalachari, hardly shared... 

Some of Tipu’s missiles Srirangapatna: Saluting the vision of the father of  modern missile technology, Tipu Sultan, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) plans to set up India’s first  archaeological rocket centre at his rocket court in Srirangapatna from where he fired the world’s first war rocket during the Anglo-Mysore battle. DRDO Chief Controller (R&D), Dr W. Selvamurthy, who visited the rocket court on Friday with other top defense scientists, was shocked  to see its condition. A portion of the front wall has collapsed and illegal constructions have cropped... 

By Dev N Pathak Life options: double-edged choices! The former Vice-President of India Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma was stunned to hear the speech of a class six boy named Mukund Mani Pandey, at Mawlankar Hall in New Delhi (India). The boy was taken to Dr. Sahrma after the ovation thinned. Dr. Sharma exclaimed, ‘well done my boy! Where are you from?’ The boy said, ‘ I am from Vatayan school’. A perplexed Dr. Sharma asked, ‘I have never heard of this school! Where is it?’ The boy answered with a swelling chest, ‘it is as small a school as me in a small town called Siwan in a big state... 

by Mohammad Sajjad by Shafi Daudi (1875-1949) Born on 27 October 1875, at a village, Daudnagar, near the historic village of Vaishali, Shafi Daudi, was the founding President of the district unit of the Congress in Muzaffarpur (Bihar), in June 1920; the Shafi Manzil, was the venue of the meetings. He, along with few more companions like Ramdayalu Singh (1881- 1944), Radha Mohan Singh (d. 1961; of village Kamalpura, Paroo), Bindeshwari Prasad Varma, etc., went to Calcutta to attend the special session of the Congress in September 1920. By that time, Muzaffarpur had already become an important centre... 

Part One Rajendra .N. Dash In conversation with Prashant Kumar R.N dash : The movie man of Bihar On growing up with cinema:   In 1942 my father was posted in a village in Orissa and I saw my first film in a tent show over there.It was a Bengali film, Jaydev. I was fascinated by moving images and the projector, I was amazed by how a projector which is throwing light on a screen is converting it into moving images and sound. I just used to look at projector and then screen, screen, then projector – it was kind of unparalleled magic for me. I was really fascinated by this magic. In 1938,... 

  Stupa at Lumbini:an early drawing! Ballia: Excavations by the department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) at Ballia district’s Pakka Kot village have established the region’s historical importance as a major trade centre connecting Pataliputra and Lumbini between 5000 BC and seventh century AD. The department had recently carried out excavation work at the four mounds of Pakka Kot ruins and their vicinity. The findings also indicate that the region was a permanent settlement of human habitation from the Neolithic period to early... 

Why did Indus Civilization collapse: new research answers many questions!   A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology. Once extending more than 1 million square kilometers across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now... 

The LP  [Laxmikant – Pyarelal] era and its magic!     At 71, Pyarelal Sharma has the enthusiasm of a musical newbie. He remembers his late partner without any false melodrama. “We were like one, closer than brothers, so no one can even begin to understand our bond,” he says. Not many are aware that till Laxmikant suggested that they team up as a duo in films, Pyarelal’s ambition was to become a famous musician from India in Western music abroad, like his close friend Zubin Mehta. After Laxmikant passed away in 1998, the maestro (described by Laxmikant as “the... 

Anti-Colonial Struggle at AMU [1900-1910] and Bihar’s own Syed Mahmud (1889-1971)   By Mohammad Sajjad Since the year 1900, the relationship between the students and the [European] staff of the MAO College (now, AMU, Aligarh) was in deep trouble. One of the issues was food. Amid these, in 1903, Maulana Mohd. Ali Jauhar, came back from Oxford, wanted a teaching position in Aligarh, but he was denied, on extraneous reasons. He opposed the European elements in the college, wrote essays in newspapers, was supported by a faction of the Old Boys’ Association (OBA), and Viqarul...