Small town: big dreams! Patna: there are some changes in Bihar that are outrightly visible. The network of roads wherever you travel, the girls on bicycles you see along the levees and footpaths from a distance, regular movement of people and traffic at night indicating safety. But there are other less visible changes that now need to be taken note of. These relate to both the growing status and the boldness of the village girls, and of course the rise of small town Bihar, indicated in the facts below. According to recent reports, in this year’s Intermediate of Arts (IA) examination... 

    Dayamani Barla bihardays Ranchi: according to reports, Cultural Survival, an international NGO, recently recognized the work of the leader of several of such people’s movements in Jharkhand – tribal activist and journalist Dayamani Barla – awarding her the 2013 Ellen L. Lutz Indigenous Rights Award for protecting the rights of tribals. For this award, Ms. Barla was chosen from among 60 international nominees. Dayamani Barla, 48, a Munda adivasi has led people’s movements against displacement for over decade gained prominence when she travelled across villages in four... 

  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... 

  A Kondareddy woman Hyderabad: Is development skewing the girl child sex ratio in the state? Well, the final census data to be officially released on Friday reveals that in a few mandals untouched by development , the girl child is safe, thanks to the egalitarian tribal societies that accord equal status to men and women. Kunavaram mandal in Khammam where 85% of the population comprises tribals recorded the highest girl child sex ratio in the state with 1,126 girls per 1,000 boys, which activists hailed as a rare victory in the battle against rising female foeticide and infanticide, that has... 

    Man, woman: crucial ratio! New Delhi: Haryana has turned out to have the worst male-female ratio among all states while Kerala fares the best. According to the 2011 Census, the number of females per 1000 males in Haryana in 2011 stands at 879 followed by Jammu and Kashmir (889 female) and Punjab (895 females). The other two worst-performing states in terms of skewed sex ration are Uttar Pradesh (912 females) and Bihar (918 females). Five top performing states in terms of sex ratio were Kerala (1,084 females), Tamil Nadu (996), Andhra Pradesh (993), Chhattisgarh (991), Odisha (979). The... 

    Women police for women! Patna: Each of 823 regular police stations in Bihar and 100-odd government railway police (GRP) stations will soon have an exclusive desk to register complaints related to women. IG (CID-weaker sections) Arvind Pandey has directed all SPs, including those of the GRP, to set up the women’s desk within a fortnight. The direction has been issued to facilitate the implementation of recent changes in the criminal laws at the centre, following the hue and cry over the recent Delhi gang rape case. Pursuant to the amendment, all SPs (superintendents of police) in Bihar... 

Stop violence: or else! Parsa Bazar, Bihar: how traumatic a rape can be for a woman may be gauged by this incident – a hurt so strong she stopped caring for her life, property and future. Others may be less daring or vindictive but the levels of pain and humiliation remain the same. According to reports, a middle-aged widow, who was allegedly raped by a fellow villager, locked him up and set her house on fire and thereby killed him. The police said the incident took place at Switha village under Parsa Bazar police station on the outskirts of Patna at around 1 am on Tuesday when a drunk Bhola... 

  By Abhishek Choudhary Dulari Devi: and her wall painting “I can’t make much sense of this book, except that it has one of my paintings!” Dulari Devi told me in her understated but an occasionally proud voice, passing me her copy of Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History, as we sat in her small, colourful verandah in Ranti village in Bihar’s Madhubani district. A few days before I met her in mid-February, Devi had returned home from a trip to Delhi after attending an exhibition on the Mithila art, that showcased some of her paintings. She explained to me her... 

Ask, ask, ??: way of a child! Mothers are bombarded with around 300 questions from their children on a daily basis, with girls the most inquisitive lot, a new UK study has found. Researchers found that mothers are the most quizzed people in the UK, and on subjects far and wide, they are asked more questions every hour than a primary school teacher as well as doctors and nurses. The study of 1,000 mothers discovered girls aged four are the most curious, asking an incredible 390 questions per day – averaging a question every 1 minute 56 seconds of their waking day, a media report said. From... 

  Holi colours: and women in white! Vridavan: Breaking the shackles of tradition, hundreds of widows played Holi with gulal and flowers in the land of Lord Krishna. Around 800 widows participated in the festivities in ashrams of Vrindavan in four-day Holi celebrations that began on Sunday. As part of Holi celebrations, traditional ‘Raas-Leela’ dance and other programmes have also been organised. Widows celebrate Holi festival with flower petals at a ashram in Vrindavan near Mathura. “Vrindavan Holi is an effort to free widows from the shackles of age-old tradition. Not only will the...