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The petition challenged the state government's move to appeal against the Railway Minister's acquittal in a disproportionate assets case filed subsequent to the fodder scam. Both have claimed that since the prosecuting agency was the CBI, the state has no locus standi to ap- peal against the acquittal order.

However, the bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrish- nan, did not stay the hearing of the Bihar government's appeal in the Patna High Court.

Before directing Nitish Ku- mar's government to respond, the bench expressed its dis- agreement with the move. "How has the state government come into the picture when the case was investigated and prosecuted by the CBI? The CBI, as a prosecuting agency, can file an appeal. The state has no role to play in the case," it said.

Bihar government counsel Harish Salve accused the CBI of not filing an appeal due to ulterior motives. Solicitor General G.E. Vahanvati defended the agency, saying the CBI was not a political animal. "We have appealed in the Supreme Court because there have been instances where state governments have opposed high court orders to direct CBI investigation in criminal cases. In this case, the Bihar government itself has appealed. The CBI wants to know what it should do in such cases," Vahanvati said.

Salve opposed the appeals saying that the state was entitled to file an appeal under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc). "Whichever agency probes a case, the state government continues to the prosecutor. Therefore, it can appeal against an acquittal even if the CBI is involved," he said.

Announced last year in the budget speech by union finance minister P. Chidambaram, the scheme seeks to arrest the high dropout rate at secondary-level by offering financial support to economically backward students.

About Rs 3,004.04 crore will be spent towards the objective during the 11th five year plan. One lakh scholarships worth Rs 6,000 each, per annum, will be awarded to meritorious class IX students from economically weak sections every year. Monetary support will continue till the students reach secondary stage and complete class XII. Each successful student will thus get Rs 6,000 per year to study in classes IX, X, XI and XII.

Any student with parental income of not more than Rs 1.5 lakh from all sources will be eligible to apply for the scheme, to enable him to study in government, local body and government-aided schools.

After the cabinet meeting today, the finance minister said the purpose of the scheme was to award scholarships to deserving students from financially weaker sections and arrest the dropout at class VIII, besides encouraging students to complete their education up to class XII.

Caught in a dilemma over replacing deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, against whom majority of party MLAs have raised banner revolt in the state, senior BJP leaders are working and holding high-level consultations on the new formula to come out and lend outside support to the government.

Earlier, even after two-hours' of brain storming session of the party's parliamentary board on Wednesday, BJP leaders failed to thrash out the Bihar imbroglio. It was, however, agreed upon that a decision on the issue would be taken after the Karnataka Assembly elections.

In the mean time, the party's central leadership is expected to weigh various options to diffuse the Bihar crisis, keeping in mind the interest of the party. Till now, though all the options are open, the leaders are busy evaluating gain and loss in either removing Modi or coming out of the government.

As per the indications, disgruntled party leaders of Bihar have so far been successful in convincing the central leadership that if Modi continued as the BJP legislature party leader, the party in the state would have to pay heavy price.

They complained that because of soft attitude of Modi, the chief minister has been ignoring the BJP while taking many of the government decisions, on which the party has strong ideological reservations. They argued that many decisions in favour of minority, which Kumar took, were against the principles of the party and exactly on these issue the party had been criticising the Central government. But they are unable to raise their voice, as they are part of the government.

Sources in the party circle revealed that a senior party minister from Bihar informed BJP president Rajnath Singh that if the current state of affairs were allowed to continue, the party would lose its base and would reach to a point of no return.

The minister suggested that the high command might think of taking a decision to come out of the government and lend issue-based support to the state government. This would enable the party to continue its own programme and raise its voice against the wrong decisions of the state government, he said adding that the move would also suit the party in view of the Lok Sabha elections next year.

Confirming that Singh appeared positive on the proposal, sources said, the party president needs senior leader LK Advani's consent before taking a final call.

According to the principal secretary, the urban development department, S Jalja the state government is considering replicating the Delhi Municipal Corporation model for collection of municipal taxes in Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Darbanga, Bhagalpur, Biharsharif and Ara municipal corporations.

A tax collector will not go house-to-house, but is assigned a particular, for example, bank, post office and municipal corporation office, where residents will go and pay their taxes.

She said that the urban development department had asked the corporations to come up with a clear model. The idea is to make the municipal tax collection system more efficient, participative and voluntary.

Jalja said the department had also decided to outsource sanitation work to overcome the crisis of shortage of sanitary workers in urban areas.

But he's not alone. Lakhs of residents of central Bihar are living this way, as the entire region reels under acute water shortage.

The temperature is soaring; taps and wells have gone dry and the rivers have turned into narrow canals. In a waterless land, those surviving are living a nightmare.

"We haven't been able to take a bath for three months now. We have to use a wet washcloth to clean ourselves. Even the government doesn't give us any attention," Chandradev says.

The only respite are the isolated wells, many of which are also drying up fast. Fetching water from these wells could easily mean a six-kilometer long walk.

Now the Nitish Kumar Government has decided to actually arrange the bait (read bribe), and all you have to do is to make the prey accept the money while the vigilance sleuths would do the rest.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has cleared a proposal mooted to this effect by Additional Director General of Police (Vigilance) Neelmani.

"To begin with, we now have an allocation of Rs 20 lakh to reimburse the complainant of the money he pays to the bribe seekers," Neelmani told India Today. "This initiative has been mooted to mitigate the hardship of the genuine complainants who cannot afford to pay the bribe," he said.

"Now, an amount equal to the amount of bribe money would be withdrawn from the special fund and paid to the complainant after each successful trap.

When the trap money is returned by the court on conclusion of the judicial proceedings it would then be deposited in that special fund," he said, adding "Now new rules are in place, and a complainant will get back his money within a fortnight of the trap."  

Earlier, the practice was that the State Vigilance Investigation Bureau, on receiving a complaint about a bribe demand, would ask the complainant to go ahead and pay the graft seeker.

The vigilance sleuths then used to lay trap and arrest the official red-handed. But the trap money, the one that is used to pay bribe was to be arranged by the complainant.

This was sort of deterrent for the complainants because the trap money would become case property-something that cannot be refunded to the complainant until the conclusion of the judicial proceedings.

State Road Construction minister Dr Prem Kumar inspected the works carried out by the company and after holding a discussion with the officials of his department, including its principal secretary R K Singh, ordered rescinding the Rs 150 crore contract it had with TCCPL.

"The works have been sub-standard and of inferior quality and the project for which the company was assigned by the state government have been inordinately delayed," he said.

Despite the state government serving notices to the company 30 times and slapping fine of Rs 3.56 crore for tardy pace of work, the TCCPL failed to meet the deadline, the minister said.

Singh said the state government would soon float fresh tenders of completing the unfinished works. The department of road construction had earlier served a show-cause notice to the TCCPL seeking to know why it should not not be blacklisted for unsatisfactory works.

Main opposition RJD had alleged that the Nitish Kumar government failed to check corruption and sub-standard work being carried out by agencies in the state.

TCCPL was assigned jobs for construction and expansion of roads on Birchand Patel Path, Boring Road, Hardinge Road, Sahdeo Mahato Marg, Jagdeo Path, Old Bypass, West Boring Canal Road, East Boring Canal Road, Rajendra Path, Mithapur-Khagaul Road, Bailey Road, Exhibition Road and others.

This is a well known fact that next to UP, Bihar sends the highest number of students to AMU. Moreover, as Bihar has not been given any central university, by every justification, it has stronger claim.

I would propose to have at least four more centres for AMU Entrance tests. They should be: Patna, Lucknow, Delhi, and Hyderabad.

We have reasons to believe that compared to any other centre for entrance tests, Patna would have attracted largest number of candidates.

Those, who apprehend any unwelcome eventuality in the case of Bihar, with regard to tests, they must know that UPSC ,IIT and any other august bodies [conducting various tests/recruitment exams], don't have such complaints against Bihar.

May one hope, such a glaring regional injustice will be rectified?

regards,
Mohammad Sajjad
Lecturer, History, AMU

The committee said a hike was necessary for IITs to cope with the rising cost of education and running the Institutes, a view also shared by the ministry.

Sources said the new fees structure would be effective from the new academic session. The new fee structure would be applicable to all IITs, including the three new one being set up in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

The last fee hike in IITs was effected in 1998 and since the cost of education on account of infrastructure and faculties has gone up, the ministry accepted the fee hike proposal, they said.

Even as the Congress was patting itself on the back for getting the controversial bill tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, its two partners from Bihar forced a reality-check, making it clear that their backing on the bill was limited to its introduction. The two parties, while making common cause with JD(U) and the Samajwadi Party on the subject, look set to derail the government's plans to get the bill passed during the monsoon session of Parliament.

``We've two important suggestions, and we'll try to persuade the standing committee to incorporate them in its final report on the bill,'' LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan told newspersons here on Wednesday afternoon. ``The country's population has gone up three-fold since Independence, the strength of the Lok Sabha's should be increased by a third, which would mean increasing the total number of seats by an additional 181. The new seats should be reserved for women, and even within this category, there should be a quota for minorities, Backwards and SCs/STs,'' the LJP chief said.

Officials of the Meteorological Department say that the rains could arrive in Kerala any time between May 20 and 25. The monsoon was expected to hit the state by June 1.

The Met Department also predicted last month that the monsoons are likely to be near normal this year.

NASA, meanwhile, has predicted a bumper crop this year in Bihar and nearby areas. That may spell a bit of good news in the light of the food crisis.

Economic Advisory Council's Chairman C Rangarajan also suggested on Wednesday that inflation might come down to six per cent within three months, due to sufficient procurement of food grains particularly wheat amid cheerful prognostics for an early and healthy monsoon.

The move is aimed at evolving a smooth tax payment procedure so as to bring it to the doorstep of the holder.

"We are considering replicating the Delhi Municipal Corporation model for collection of municipal taxes,"

Principal secretary of the state urban development department S Jalja said.

As per the Delhi model, a tax collector does not go house to house, but is assigned a particular place where residents go and pay their municipal taxes. Besides the ward offices, the tax collection centre could even be a post office or a bank.

"We have asked the corporations to come back to us with a clear model. The idea is to make the municipal tax collection system more efficient, participative and voluntary," Jalja added.

She said the department had also decided to outsource on public-private-partnership basis sanitation work to tide over the crisis of shortage of sanitary workers in urban bodies.

The institute, which has recently shifted from the A N Sinha Institute campus to Hindi Bhawan at Chajjubagh, is busy screening the applications received from the aspirants from different parts of the country. Call letters for group discussion (GD) and interview of the short-listed candidates are likely to be dispatched soon. Candidates securing a minimum score of CAT/GMAT examination would be short-listed for GD and Interview.

Institute director V Mukundadas said 50 per cent of the total 60 seats are reserved for students belonging to Bihar. Besides, 50 per cent seats are reserved for SC, ST and OBC category students. The institute has also plans to provide special training to SC/ST category students and secure easy study loan to poor students.

The recruitment of full-time faculty members is in progress. Two faculty members, namely, Maitreyi Kollegal and Amitabh Desmukh, have been appointed by a recruitment committee consisting of three senior faculty members from IIM . While Kollegal, a doctorate from IIM, Ahmedabad has served Swashakti Project, Drinking Water Mission in Gujarat and Indian Institute of Plantation Management, Bangalore, Desmukh, an MBA from Stockholm University, has served as the chief manager of State Bank.

Both the new faculty members said they have accepted the present assignment as a challenge and would utilise their experiences in building the institute as a centre of excellence. They would not make any compromise with the quality of education and would work for the development of the state.

Reacting to the developments which took place after the cancellation of the contract to the Tantia Constructions Ltd the chief minister said that the state government would not allow loot of public money by any agency even if it means facing inconvenience for some more time.

He said the decision was taken by the road construction department after all the options have been exhausted and added that he had full faith in the road construction department.

Nitish not only came down on Tantia but flayed National Building Construction Corporation, which had been assigned the task of constructing drainage in Kankarbagh. Last month he even inspected some of the drainage works and ordered for the lodging of case against the firm.

Taking a cue from railway minister Lalu Prasad's promise to upgrade them to grade IV staff, several among the 90-odd porters of Ranchi and Hatia stations have begun learning the alphabets  from kã, khã, gã, ghã in Hindi to A, B, C, D.

"I have arranged primary school books to take lessons from a schoolboy in my neighbourhood every evening," said Naglal Mahto (35), a porter working at Ranchi railway station for the last 15 years.

Mahto, from Bihar's Chapra district neighbouring Lalu Prasad's Gopalgunj, however, never thought it necessary to learn the alphabets and numbers.

Now, he is already able to sign his name.

"I could only sign my name, but did not know anything beyond," said Brij Mohan Ram, another porter who has bought himself books and pens. "Now, I am determined to study a little more. I should at least be able to read newspapers in the next couple of months."

The translation service (http://www.- google.com/translate_t) throws up meanings or sentences that sound right for simple sentences like "I love you" or "How are you?" but fumbles away with literal dictionary words when one tries complex sentences, idiomatic usage or slang words - and it also errs on syntax. But the software operates on the principle of "More you use, the better it can get" because users can offer alternatives and press a button that could make the computer system "learn" and perfect usage over time.

"There is a need to reach people who may be English-fa- miliar, but Indic language proficient," Rahul Roy Chowdhury, Product Manager, Google India, told HT. "We'll work to make Google Translate in Hindi even better," said Chowdhury. Google already offers a transliteration service to convert Roman (English) scripts to Devnagari (Hindi) and some other Indian languages and free space on its Blogger.com site for Hindi and regional language blogs.

Thirty-six members have written to association chief general secretary against Singh alleging "misappropriation of association funds for acquiring assets".

The man in question, while talking to The Telegraph said: "All allegations are bogus. I will present my side to the media very soon." Bihar SBI Staff Association has over 10,000 members.

Talking to The Telegraph, the association's deputy-general secretary (headquarters) Devendra Singh confirmed: "I have heard that 36 members wrote to chief general secretary Ashok Dutta at his Calcutta office on March 25, 2008, about Singh defalcating lakhs of association funds in contravention of trade union rules." Singh added, though he "unofficially" discussed the allegations with Dutta, he did not sign the complaint by staffers because of his "constraints" as the holder of the same office. Singh said the complaint was also addressed to CVC to take immediate action against Singh. CVC, however, has not yet taken up the matter.

The role of these contractors in executing the project assumes significance because the RCD recently rescinded its agreement with Tantia Construction Private Limited for the execution of the project.

The move has thrown up a big question before Patna residents as most of the roads, to be constructed under the project, are yet to be completed despite commencement of work on these roads in 2007. With the rains just a month away, it can be anybody's guess how tough it would be to commute on these roads once it starts pouring.

RCD, however, has allayed the fears of residents claiming the work on eight major roads would be completed well before the rainy season and the rest of the roads would also be made motorable well in time.

"With two hot-mix plants already in place and one to come up soon, RCD will encourage the new contractors to use these plants for meeting the standard of the quality of the work," said Shivendra Pasi, RCD's central circle superintending engineer. He said the tender for the leftover work would be floated soon.

ITI Begusarai would receive Rs 250 million Central assistance which would be used to make the institute a centre of excellence in electrical branch, in addition to increasing the annual intake of 114 extra students in the ITI.

The institute admits 138 students in various trades at present.  

Shares of the company closed up Rs 3.95, or 2.01%, at Rs 200.7. The total volume of shares traded at the BSE was 2,990,913. (Friday)

The over-bridges in Bahadurpur, Agam Kuan, Chiraiyantand, and the Secretariat are in the last phase of their construction and would be open for traffic sometime next month,” said Kumar who took over the department from Nand Kishore Yadav following reshuffle in the government a few weeks ago.

“I am a little disappointed by the slow speed of work but efforts are being made to ensure these projects are completed within the expected timeframe,” the minister said adding illegal encroachment in most areas were largely responsible for the slow pace of work.