Rice Husk ash filter can useful in villages

TCS developed Rice Husk ash filter which can be useful for Bihar as we have many villages where water is not pure.

Brief Technical details are here.

Filter is priced at 200 and cartridge costs 25 rupees & lasts for 6-8 months.

Playing politics with floods

Do read this article by Dinesh Mishra ji.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/sep/gov-floods.htm

Other articles worth reading are
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/blog/index.php/2007/12/03/bihar-floods-relief-wo\
rk-contd/

Excerpts from 1st article are
----------------------------
State and Centre funding football

The responsibility of providing relief in the wake of natural
calamities including floods primarily rests with the concerned state
governments. The government of India supplements the efforts of the
state governments where necessary by providing logistic and financial
support. For this purpose, the state governments are allocated
Calamity Relief Fund (CRF), which is contributed by government of
India and the state government in the ratio of 3:1. Additional
assistance is also provided to the state government in the event of a
calamity of severe nature from the National Calamity Contingency Fund
(NCCF) after following the laid down procedure.

In August 2003, a corpus fund of Rs.108.97 crores was available with
the Bihar government in the CRF, as per the government's own reports.
Out of this money, only Rs.19 crores were released from the fund for
carrying out relief operations in the state till August that year.
Yet, the Rabri Devi Government in Bihar repeatedly flayed the central
government for not helping the state with the requisite money.

Anirban Roy wrote in The Hindustan Times (13 September 2003), "The
state government is yet to get the central assistance of Rs.112 crores
allotted in 2002-03 under special package for relief distribution in
the flood affected districts. The central government has not released
the money as it has taken the stand that the state government should
first spend the CRF money before it seeks the release of more central
funds." Obviously, the state government was not in a position to
provide the utilisation certificates for the funds sanctioned to it
earlier and wanted the flood victims to believe that the central
government was responsible for it. That was the time when the RJD was
in power in Bihar and the NDA was ruling in Delhi.

It is now 2007, and the scenario has reversed. The two governments
have exchanged positions. Lalu Prasad Yadav at the Centre suggests
that the state government has not made any demands to the Centre, and
that the Centre on its own initiative sent relief money to Bihar
although the state had not submitted the expenditure accounts for the
previous year. The NDA Government of Bihar says that whatever
assistance comes from the Centre is provided for under the regulations
of the 12th Finance Commission and is not at the behest of any one
minister at the Centre. Even so, according to a press report, Sushil
Kumar Modi, the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar said in early August
that the state had not received any money from the Centre.

A beautiful politician

This tribune article by AJ Philip is worth sharing with others.

He writes about TARKESHWARI SINHA who was elected as MP at the age of 26 years. She was named “Baby of the House” and “Glamour Girl of Indian Politics” by media.

She was from Nalanda and quite active in politics till 1969. She had been a Union Miinister twice.

It is sad that no one in media wrote about her death.

Mr Philip is right when he writes this:
It is a pity that when this stormy petrel of Indian politics died after a prolonged illness in New Delhi last week, few newspapers cared even to report her death.

Since, tribune does not link to story directly, I am copying whole article here....

A beautiful politician
by A.J. Philip

Tarkeshwari Sinha

TARKESHWARI SINHA stepped out of college to step into the portals of Parliament House where for 19 years she spread radiance of a kind the august institution had seldom been accustomed to. Hardly 26 when she was sworn in as a member of the first Lok Sabha in 1952, the two sobriquets she earned instantaneously and which stuck to her indelibly were “Baby of the House” and “Glamour Girl of Indian Politics”.

Her face might not have “launched a thousand ships” like Helen of Troy but it certainly turned fellow members’ heads every time she strode into the House or stood up to make an intervention. When girls of her age were reading Mills and Boons by the dozen, she plunged into the 1942 movement as a student of Bankipore Girls College, renamed Magadh Mahila College in Patna.

Her family thought her honeymoon with politics was over when she tied the nuptial knot with the scion of an aristocratic zamindar family of Chapra, whose tenant was once the first President, Dr Rajendra Prasad. Married life in Kolkata did not keep her off from politics for long.

The INA trial in Delhi rekindled her passion for politics and soon she found herself elected President of the Bihar Students Congress, which broke away from the All India Students Federation. She was among those who received Mahatma Gandhi when he arrived at Nagar Nausa in Nalanda district to quell the anti-Muslim riots in the aftermath of Partition. The Mahatma also had a taste of the people’s fury when he was “manhandled” there.

Within a few months, Tarkeshwari was at the London School of Economics doing her M.Sc in economics. “Harold Laski had just left LSE when I joined there”, she had told me in an interview. However, she had to cut short her research on Indian taxation and return to India when her father died.

By then India had become a Republic and the first general elections had been ordered. She won from Barh defeating veteran freedom fighter Sheel Bhadra Yajee. The “Beauty Queen” took such an active part in the debates in the Lok Sabha that Jawaharlal Nehru immediately noticed her debating skills.

However, it was only in 1958 that Nehru chose her for a ministerial assignment. She became deputy to Finance Minister Morarji Desai. They became so close that tongues began to wag. And, when the Congress split in 1969, she sided with Morarji Desai and it marked the end of her political career.

Indira Gandhi disliked her so much that when greenhorn Dharambir Sinha defeated her in 1971, she rewarded him with information and broadcasting portfolio. Tarkeshwari returned to the Congress and contested on its ticket in 1977 when every Congress candidate in Bihar was routed.

Eventually, she quit politics and took up social work. It was in that capacity that she once came to invite me to Tulsigarh, her native village in Nalanda district.

Tarkeshwari wanted to show me a hospital she had set up in memory of her brother Capt Girish Nandan Singh, an Air India pilot who died in an air crash in New Delhi. During the journey to Tulsigarh, she told me how she had raised nearly Rs 25 lakh, a big sum those days, to construct the two-storeyed hospital where treatment was almost free.

She also prided herself in taking the initiative to construct a road to link the village with Chandi and Harnaut in Nalanda. During the return journey, I summoned up courage to ask her about her insinuated closeness to Morarji Desai.

“We became Central ministers on the same day. He trusted me and I trusted him. When Lal Bahadur Shastri died, I felt that he should have been elected Prime Minister. There was nothing more to our relationship”, she replied in a matter of fact manner.

Caste also cemented their relationship. Bhumihars of Bihar, of whom she was one, trace their ancestry to Lord Parasuram. They believe that Morarji Desai, too, was a Bhumihar.

It is a pity that when this stormy petrel of Indian politics died after a prolonged illness in New Delhi last week, few newspapers cared even to report her death.

My India - Paramhansa Yogananda

My India

Not where the musk of happiness blows, Not where darkness and fears never tread;
Not in the homes of perpetual smiles, Nor in the heaven of a land of prosperity
Would I be born If I must put on mortal garb once more.
Dread famine may prowl and tear my flesh, Yet would I love to be again
In my Hindustan.
A million thieves of disease
May try to steal the body's fleeting health;
And clouds of fate
May shower scalding drops of searing sorrow -
Yet would I there, in India,
Love to reappear!
Is this love of mine blind sentiment That sees not the pathways of reason?
Ah, no! I love India, For there I learned first to love God
and all things beautiful.
Some teach to seize the fickle dewdrop, life, Sliding down the lotus leaf of time;
Stubborn hopes are built
Around the gilded, brittle body-bubble.
But India taught me to love
The soul of deathless beauty in the dewdrop
and the bubble -
Not their fragile frames.
Her sages taught me to find my Self,
Buried beneath the ash heaps
Of incarnations of ignorance.
Though many a land of power, plenty, and science
My soul, garbed sometimes as an Oriental,
Sometimes as an Occidental,

Travelled far and wide,
Seeking Itself; At last, in India, to find Itself.
Though mortal fires raze all her homes
and golden paddy fields, Yet to sleep on her ashes and dream immortality,
O India, I will be there!
The guns of science and matter
Have boomed on her shores
Yet she is unconquered.
Her soul is free evermore!
Her soldier saints are away,
To rout with realization's ray
The bandits of hate, prejudice, and patriotic
selfishness;
And to burn the walls of separation dark Between children of the One, One Father. The Western brothers by matter's might have conquered my land;
Blow, blow aloud, her conch shells all!
India now invades with love,
To conquer their souls.
Better than Heaven or Arcadia
I love Thee, O my India!
And thy love I shall give
To every brother nation that lives.
God made the earth;
Man made confining countries
And their fancy-frozen boundaries.
But with newfound boundless love
I behold the borderland of my India
Expanding into the world.
Hail, mother of religions, lotus, scenic beauty,
And sages!

Thy wide doors are open,
Welcoming God's true sons through all ages.
Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men
dream God -I am hallowed; my body touched that sod.

- P.Yogananda - From Songs of The Soul

Another Jewel from Bihar - Late Bismillah Khan

Recently I came across an article from Hindustan times which details the life of Late Shehanai Maestro, Bismillah Khan. He was awarded Bharat Ratna also.

Here is the info.

Bismillah Khan was born on March 21, 1916 in a family of professional shehnai players of a princely state Dumraon in Bihar.

He came to his maternal uncle Ustad Ustad Ali Bux, an eminent shehna player in Varanasi and at the tender age of six, started his practice in solitude on the banks of the Ganga and in the holy temples of Balaji, Jaru Mandir and Mangala Maiya etc.

Since his ancestors were all shehnai players including his great great grandfather late Ustad Salar Hussain Khan, great grand father late Ustad Husain Bux Khan, grand father late Rasool Bux Khan and father late Paighamber Bux Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan carried forward his legacy of shehnai.

He gave his first public performance at the age of 14 in 1930 at an all India music conference in Allahabad.

He also played shehnai for the free nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August, 1947. Khan has also rendered shehnai in a famous movie Goonj Uthi Shehnai.

Gauravshaali Bihar - An Unique Book about history of Bihar - is available in USA and India

It gives me an immense pleasure to announce the availability of an unique book about proud history of Bihar, in USA and in India.

Book is called "Gauravshali Bihar " and it is first of its kind to cover the period of more than 2000 years of Bihar's history. This book is written by 22 authors who have penned 55 chapters. Whole book is printed at Patna and it is truly Made in Bihar.

Book was released by Dy CM of Bihar, Shri Sushil Modi in Patna on 20th Jan 2007, during 1st ever NRB meet at Patna.

OneBihar - a group of like minded Bihari professionals from around the globe - have published this book. It was conceptualized by Naveen Sharma and art work was done by Chandan Singh & Mayank Krishna.

We have launched a T-Shirt also which is a good way to express our support for our culture, land and the people we are - Bihar and Biharis.

Prices are

Book -
$19.90 + Shipping Charges (Bay Area - Local FREE delvery will be made)
390 Rs + Shipping Charges (India)

T-Shirt
$9.90 + Shipping Charges (Bay Area - Local FREE delvery will be made)
190 Rs + Shipping Charges (India)


Book is available in USA at following address:

Saroj Kumar, sarojk@gmail.com, 1-510-712-9087

Book is available in India at following address:
order.gauravshalibihar@gmail.com

or call / SMS us at 91 612 6450916
Gaoravshali Bihar 1CR

One.Bihar,249.Above Rimzim, Main Boring Road
Patna-1, +91 612 645 0916

Please checkout following links to find more details.

Gauravshali Bihar Book
http://proudbihari.com/index.html
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/352048579/

Gauravshali Bihar Book Release
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/373731218/

Book- Table of Content
http://proudbihari.com/_wsn/page2.html

T-Shirt
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/373731232/
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/373689778/

Others
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/389472765/
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/373731221/
http://flickr.com/photos/scorius/373704434/

Nalanda University's ruins on YouTube

Naveen Sharma ji has uploaded quite a few nalanda videos...

Some of them are

1) Part-1

2) Part-2

Entrance to ancient Nalanda university found

Rediff.com says...

A team of archaeologists of the Archaelogical Survey of India have discovered the main entrance of the ancient Nalanda university in Bihar.

Read more here..

This can be a model for Computerized Education in Bihar

This post can serve as a model for providing Quality education in schools of Bihar.

We can try to get some schools to start working in this direction.

Linux is almost free and older computers should be available in Patna or Delhi.

India's field of greens

Recent Article from Fortune, India's field of greens is worth reading.

Bihar with its rich agro base should aim to cash in this boom.

Seven Deadly Sins of Delhi

Recently I used very harsh words to describe my perception of Delhi Crowd.

Surprisingly, This Outlook Article is also voicing similar opinion.

Delhi's Seven Deadly Sins

1 Aggressive, lawless driving; India's road accident capital

2 Touting, hustling culture, grab-what-you-can-get mentality: law-breaking acceptable across classes, everything 'negotiable'

3 Callousness towards the vulnerable: disabled, visitors, elderly, poor

4 Most unsafe city in India for women; India's rape capital

5 Obsession with hierarchy & status

6 Officious, self-important political and bureaucratic class

7 Appalling cultural and professional manners

Some things about Delhi have got better, whether it’s thanks to initiatives by the courts, greater prosperity or the drive to create a showpiece city for the Commonwealth Games 2010

• Improved air quality, lower pollution levels
• Abundant greenery and increasingly well-maintained parks
• Some hope for its crippled public transport system with new Metro, new buses
• Growing corporate, cultural, educational hub
• Vibrant, throbbing city with explosion of choices for food, shopping, clubbing
• Improved housing options, with satellite towns Gurgaon, Noida slated to get well connected

---

"Delhi’s grown from sleepy town to metropolis, incorporating a rural population of independent and aggressive small landholders over whom the urban influence is still very shallow.... Delhi is also the seat of power; everything here is a power play...negotiable and up for grabs. Even among the educated, who’ve been to the right schools, the first instinct is to break the law."

Dipankar Gupta
Sociologist