Bill Gates to visit Bihar soon

COME AND DO SOMETHING WITHOUT FUSS

Bill Gates is likely to visit Bihar soon, this was disclosed when yesterday, Bihar CM and Bill Gates, former head of Microsoft and founder of Bill Gates-Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), held a discussion through videoconferencing and discussed many other issues including health related programs. Bill Gates, who is now in New Delhi, accepted the invitation of CM Nitish Kumar and wished to come to Bihar during his next visit in India.

Bill Gates, IT giant and founder of Microsoft turned philanthropist, has set up BMGF and help eradicate disease like Polio, Kala-zar( visceral leishmaniasis) and AIDS. The foundation is organized into three main program areas namely Global Development, Global Health and United Sates Program.

Nitish Kumar said that he spoke to a Philanthropist and not an IT giant. Gates reportedly appreciated Nitish’s initiatives vis-à-vis healthcare programs. He particularly appreciated government’s effort of increasing the percentage of immunization in children. Gates has assured help to Bihar in its efforts to eradicate disease like Polio- Kala-zar, AIDS etc.

Bihar is lagging behind in many health indicators. Cases of number of polio are on rise despite repeated pulse polio drives. The situation in Kala-zar is particularly very bad. The districts like Muzaffarpur, Madhepura, Hazipur, Sitamarhi etc are prone to this disease. Maximum number of cases of Kala-zar is reported in Musahars, scheduled caste communities who are very poor and live in damp and unhygienic conditions which are suitable for growth of carrier of this disease. Dr C.P. Thakur an eminent doctor of Patna, expert in this field and M.P. was made head of State’s Kala-Zar Task force team, but he too resigned.

At present there are about 1, 00,000 patients of Kala-zar in Bihar, mostly poor people. Thousands of them have already died and many are on the verge of death. Many such deaths are not counted as deaths due to kala-zar go unnoticed. It is perhaps due to this nature, death due to Kala-zar is also said as Slow and Silent death.

The Amphotericine-B is the only effective drug for treatment of this disease but it is in short supply and it is very costly also. It is perhaps due to this fact the poor patients are unable to buy it from market. If Gates could help mitigate this problem, by supplying this medicine in adequate numbers, it would be a great help to this state which is desperately trying to come out of this stigma.

UNIQUE ID cards; will it be the last one?

REAL TEST OF SKILL

The government of India came out with a very innovative and bold decision of establishing an authority namely National Authority for Unique identity (ID) headed by Nandan Nilkeni, one of the best ITbrains in the country, to issue unique ID cards to Indian citizens.

Nikeni, the Infosys boss did a right and commendable job of quitting the corporate world and under take this huge challenge of utmost national interest.

120 crore has been allocated in the budget for this job also and stage is all set for this work to formally begin. Nilkeni himself has said that first batch of such cards will be made available for distribution sometimes in the last month of this year. Secretarial infrastructure for this enormous task is being set up and personnel necessary for secretarial back up is being provided. One R.S.Sharma IAS of jharkahnd cadre has been made second man in this authority. In nutshell we can hope that things are likely to move with great pace.

Nilkeni has hinted that each citizen will be allotted a unique number on the card and shall be tampered proof. Preparation of such cards for Indian Nationals has been on cards for many years and in fact on many forums, by many organizations and by many experts demand and suggestions has been being made for preparation of such ID cards. Thus it is a belated step in right direction because existence of such citizen cards has become very necessary in view of growing problem of illegal immigration especially from courtiers like Bangladesh and Nepal and terrorism.

Task of such huge magnitude and sensitive nature cannot go without ruckus especially when vote banks politics is the harsh reality in this nation. Nilkeni will have to encounter this problem hitherto not experienced in corporate world.

WILL IT BE MASTER CARD OF ALL CARDS- Coming to the technicalities of this card, he said that issuance of this Unique ID will not replace existing ID cards or numbers which Indians have been issued in documents like Passport, Ration cards, PAN cards etc. This means that these cards shall remain in existence and in vogue in addition to the proposed Unique ID. Nilkeni clarified that the Unique ID numbers may be used in other numbers or cards issued by various authorities for specific purposes. Nilkeni’s clarification has cleared doubts from minds of billions of common people who thought that this proposed Unique ID shall relieve them of carrying and preserving dozens of other cards in their shelves or lockers.

CARDS, CARDS AND CARDS- In our countries it is difficult to even count that how many documents one citizen is required to keep for getting their day to day problems solved or keeping problems away. For people living below poverty line (BPL) poor are issued ‘job cards’ for getting employment under NREGS. Government is committed to provide them with essential commodities like rice, wheat, K.Oil etc either at subsidized rate or free of cost, therefore BPL families are issue cards like WHITE CARDS, RED CARDS, YELLOW CARDS, etc. the color of these cards go on changing with changing in government or sometimes change of collectors also. People living above poverty line (APL) are also entitled to food grains from Public distribution system (PDS) shops, therefore they have also been provided with some colorful cards.

Apart from these social security cards, almost every department issue cards or number to the citizens for specific purpose. For instance IT department issue PAN cards, Sales tax department of provincial governments issue various numbers to the businessman to carry out their business. Apart from this a common citizen has to furnish host of other ID proofs when one has to open a Bank account or prepare driving license. In nutshell a law abiding citizen has been asked to keep innumerable documents with him.

WILL IT BE THE LAST CARD- When T.N. Seshan became Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of election commission of India (ECI), he came out with an idea of providing Voting ID cards to check bogus voting and cleanse electoral system. That point of time, it was conceived that this ID cards will be of multiple purpose and will replace all other cards which are being used for identification and establishing citizenship claims. Initially this idea was widely appreciated and people thought that perhaps preparation of these cards would put to an end all the hardships that they face in this regard. The campaign began with huge fanfare and enthusiasm. Some states did magnificently well with regards to percentage of ID cards preparation. Unfortunately, even after elapse of two decades, the process in not complete and it is going in and unending direction. Needless to say that large scale irregularities regarding enrollment of illegal and bogus voters, mistakes in entries like names, date of birth, father’s or husbands name etc have been a common place in these cards.

We however need not be pessimist about this programme and hope that all would go well but Nilkeni also will have to depend on those data which are not perfect. Now only time will tell what modus operandi Nilkeni would resort and adopt in order to make this Unique ID free of all errors, so that it puts end to all future problems in this regard. Everyone’s mind is boggling with the question that will it be the last such exercise? Hopefully yes.

GIRL STRIPPED; SOCIETY LAUGHED; SHAME ON US

WHO CARES FOR THIS HELPLESS GIRL?

In a bizarre incident on exhibition road, Patna’s one of the busiest road, one girl was stripped in full public view on Thursday evening. This shameful incidence was witnessed by large number of people including some traffic policemen on the duty. One drunken youth allegedly boy friend of that girl in name of searching the girl for his mobile phone, which he reportedly said the girl had stolen, striped the girl and the crowd watched laughing at this dastardly act. Some went up to taking snaps with mobile phones. Everyone except the humanity was laughing.

When one local electronic media aired this news along with some footage, the government swung into action, but by this time some people in the crowd mustered courage when the drunken boy wanted to outrage her modesty in full public view after almost striping her, beat the boy and took him to the local police station, which was hardly 200 yards away from the place of occurrence.

Taking strong view of the incident, CM has ordered DGP of probing into the entire incident and doing the needful. The police after initial inquiry however said that the girl is a call girl and a scuffle took place between her and the boy who is her pimp, who later did all above mentioned shameful acts.

The state women commission’s chairperson has also condemned the incident and asked a report from the police. This incident has tarnished the image of the government which claims that law and order has improved and police has now more free hands to work. Surprisingly only one ASI has been put under suspension, whereas; the residences of SSP, RSP and host of senior police officers are hardly few yards away from the place of occurrence. The crime graph in state capital has risen sharply and police has been reportedly helpless in many of such crimes. Quite recently one employee of formerly CM Rabri devi was severely beaten up by some criminals but nothing could be done and no arrest was made.

IS IT THE DUTY OF POLICE ONLY? - We have developed a habit of passing bugs on others and do not like to share the responsibility of what is going on in the society. When it come to demanding something from the society, we raise voices of concerns and make protests, sometime violent also in order to claim rights and privileges in the name of being a member of civil society, but when it comes to rescue the society from such lumpen elements, we prefer to be a silent spectator. This has what exactly happened in Patna. We cannot be absolved of the responsibility of being a culprit of this condemnable incident. How can hundreds of people watch one helpless girl being stripped? Some may take plea that the girl in question was a call girl and therefore deserved that treatment. But even when the girl was a call girl, does it mean that she is not entitled to basic Human Rights? Such pricking questions will continue to hit minds and hearts of a sensible citizen so long such incidents go un-protested.

Tarengana; from Aryabhata to left Extremism and NASA

witness to passage of history

A dusty sub-divisional village called Tarengana, some 30 Km south east of state capital Patna today witnessed its tryst with 21^st Century’s most spectacular and this century’s last celestial event from 5:29 hrs to 7:30 hrs today. Astrophysicists say that similar event would occur in 2132 AD, the time when none of us of today’s generation would be alive to watch.

This century’s longest total solar eclipse (TSE) was witnessed by tens of thousands of people including the CM of Bihar Nitish Kumar and hundreds of astronomers, some of them from NASA itself. I was fortunately one among the crowd who could capture this spectacular event in their minds and hearts. The overcast sky also could not deter and dampen enthusiasm and curiosity of overenthusiastic ‘eclipsomaniacs’ who had swamped in this hamlet to see this event across the globe. This place lacks adequate infrastructure and the scientists and government officials virtually kept sleep away whole night to watch the memorable event inside a govt referral hospital here in Tarengana. Such was the enthusiasm and such was the zeal.

TARENGANA AND ARYABHATA- Tarengana which means ‘counting of stars’ is believed to the birth place of Aryabhata, the most renowned Indian astronomer who some 1400 years ago discovered that earth is not static and it revolves and moves. Aryabhata, it is said, used to count stars and study celestial bodies from his laboratory, the remains of which still exists here in ruins. This is why this place is named as Taregana, counting of stars.

The history of Tarengana can be summarised in one sentence. It is like this ‘from Aryabhata to left extremism (Maoism) and from Maoism to conglomeration of Astro-Tourists and Astro-Scientists. What a contrast indeed!

TARENGNA AND LEFT EXTREMISM- Tarengana is locally known as Masaurhi and is said to the birth place of left extremism in Bihar. The place gained notoriety when one People’s war group (PWG) was formed and caused many massacres in Masaurhi and adjoining districts of Gaya, Aurangabad and Jehanabad like Belchi, Kaila, Kargha, Pipra, parashbigha, Maini Bigha etc in which thousands of people were killed in dastardly act of violence. Later with the merger of PWG and Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), the left extremism in Bihar entered into one of the most notorious and deadly phase in the history of left extremism. Hundreds of massacres have occurred over two decades and the state is trying hard to shed its stereotype image under the new government under Nitish Kumar. Maoists had given a call of ‘Tarengana Bandh’ today also in order to draw attention of national and international media which had conglomerated here to capture this event. Fortunately they could not create any problems largely due to huge enthusiasm of common people and partly due to unprecedented ‘Police Bandobast’.

Thus the history in Bihar entered into a new phase, a phase of hope, resilience and resurgence. Hopefully this celestial event many harbinger prosperity and development in this poor state. It may be a coincidence that just before this TSE, monsoon rained heavily in many parts of the state, which people were desperately waiting for. The cloud may have despaired some to watch this spectacular event, but it has certainly filled joys in the eyes of millions of farmers who were looking at sky for rains.