Kirti Azad to contest from Darbhanga in Bihar

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has nominated cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Darbhanga in Bihar. The party Thursday released its list of candidates for 15 constituencies in four states.

BJP president Rajnath Singh finalised the list at a meeting here. The party announced seven candidates for Delhi, three for Gujarat, two for Jammu and Kashmir, and three for Bihar.

BJP general secretary Vijay Goel has been given a ticket from the New Delhi constituency. Goel was initially considered for the Chandni Chowk seat but he wanted to contest from the New Delhi seat.

The general elections will be held April 16-May 13 in five phases. The counting of votes across the country will take place May 16.

60 expelled on first day of +2 exams in Bihar

At least 60 examinees were on Monday expelled for using unfair means on the first day of plus two examinations, being conducted by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB).

According to the BSEB control room, eight examinees were expelled at Munger, five at Bhagalpur, four at Ara, three at Patna, 11 at Muzaffarpur, eight at Siwan, one at Samastipur, 17 at Saharsa, two at Nawada and one examinee was expelled at Sheohar.

Altogether 5,82,309 examinees are appearing at the Intermediate examinations at 459 examination centres across the state. Compared to last year, 72,000 more examinees are appearing at the examination this year.

Discovery Channel to telecast film on Bihar's Super 30

The success story of a Bihar-based coaching institute will be telecast by Discovery Channel this weekend, showing how its underprivileged and marginalised students make their way to India's premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT).

"The Discovery Channel would telecast the inspiring story of Super 30 Sunday afternoon and March 21 and 29. This is the first time Discovery has chosen something positive from Bihar for telecast," said Anand Kumar, who runs the institute, called Super 30.

Super 30 selects a group of 30 IIT aspirants from poor and marginalised families and provides free coaching, food and accommodation. Last year all the students of Super 30 passed the highly competitive IIT entrance exam.

"It was the first time that Super 30 achieved 100 percent success. The success of Super 30 lies in hard work and proper guidance for achieving excellent result," Kumar said.

An hour-long documentary, produced by Veronica Hall and directed by Christopher Mitchell, captured all aspects of the mission started by mathematician Anand Kumar seven years ago. The film, shot over a year, shows how the students develop confidence in themselves despite their impoverished backgrounds.

"It is a very inspiring story which the people would certainly like to see and know. This is the reason Discovery decided to show a one-hour documentary on the successful experiment of Anand, which has shaped many lives," said Rajiv Bakshi of the Discovery Channel.

Director of the film Christopher Mitchell said the film had evoked tremendous response.

"Super 30 is an amazing initiative and it needs to be taken to maximum people around the globe," said Mitchell, whose film also bagged the Audience Choice Award at the sixth Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.link

Three killed, 24 injured during Holi in Bihar

Holi celebrations in Bihar turned bloody today as three persons were killed and 24 others injured in separate incidents.

Govind Yadav (40) and Narayan Yadav (45), two brothers, were shot dead and six others injured when people from two castes clashed over mud-throwing at Asahni village in Chhapra district, police said.

In another incident, a child received gunshot injuries and 18 others were injured in a clash following a quarrel over Holi celebrations at Rivilganj bazaar.

A youth was shot dead by three gunmen after he resisted uprooting of plants from his land for 'holika dahan' (a ritual symbolic of destruction of evil) at a village in Nawada district last night.

While Holi was celebrated in the rest of Bihar peacefully, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his bete noire RJD supremo Lalu Prasad refrained from celebrating the festival to empathise with the victims of Kosi floods and Mumbai terror strike.link

Bihars folk music industry booms ahead of Holi

With festival of colors just round the corner, markets in Bihar are selling a variety of folk music in celebration of Holi. India's most vibrant festival of colors indicates the end of winter and onset of spring. The festival is also called Phaag Utsav as it falls in the phagun month of the Hindu calendar. The zeal and enthusiasm of Holi celebrations is translated into a lot of singing and dancing. Cashing in on the mood, music companies have flooded markets with both audio and video CD’’s of popular Holi songs. We sell both kinds of music CD’’s and cassettes, one of songs which are clean and another ones, bordering on vulgarity. But nowadays, people prefer to buy music laced with crudity and bordering on vulgarity and the sale of such cassettes and CD’’s is much more as compared to those of clean songs, said Iqbal Ahmed, a shopkeeper. Songs add tempo to the celebrations as people shed inhibitions and dance and revel. Mostly, fast with loud beats find favor with the locals and set the right mood for the festivities. Holi is a festival of enjoyment and fun and frolic. People like listening to vulgar songs as those songs have loud beats which are good to listen to. So we purchase these cassettes to enjoy, said Deepak Kumar, a customer. Holi, which is celebrated to mark the triumph of good over evil, would be celebrated across the country on March 11.link

Class 10 student gives birth in examination hall

An 18-year-old appearing for class 10 exams in Bihar's Madhepura district gave birth to a child in the examination hall, official sources said on Friday.

Suchita Kumar gave birth to a boy in the exam hall on Thursday at Keshav Kanya Balika Uccha Vidhyalaya in Madhepura town.

Nageshwari Devi, Suchita's mother, said: "She was expected to give birth anytime after Wednesday. But she was determined to appear for the exams."link

Madhvan, Neetu connect to their Bihari roots

Madhavan, originally from Bihar, became a Tamil superstar before he migrated to Bollywood. So when he got to work with another Bihari Neetu Chandra, there was an instant bond between the two.

“And Bihar isn’t the only common factor between me and Neetu. We’re both athletic and sporty. We both play basketball,” says Madhavan who spent his childhood, growing years and early years Bihar.

Madhavan is enjoying every moment that he is spending on the promotion of 13B. His supernatural movie with Neetu is all set to arrive this Friday (March 6).

13B is a supernatural movie starring Madhavan, Neetu Chandra, Poonam Dhillon, Murali Sharma, Sachin Khedekar, and Deepak Dobriyal.

13B has music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and lyrics by Neelesh Mishra. The film is written and directed by Vikram K Kumar.

13B tells the story of a middle-class family which moves into a new apartment 13B where things start to get eerie when all the incidents that happen on a TV show start happening in their life as well.

Madhavan says he took up the project, directed by Vikram K Kumar, because it had an intriguing theme that’s scary as well.

“Vikram and I wanted to work together for last seven years but we did not have a script. We finally got a perfect script and worked on it for two years. This sort of movie has never been made in India before,” Madhavan is quoted as saying by a news agency.

Apart from 13B, Madhavan is presently doing three films in Bollywood – 3 Idiots with Aamir Khan , Teen Patti with Amitabh Bachchan and another film titled ‘Sikander’.

The film 13B is bilingual in Hindi and Tamil. While all the other actors in the two versions are different, Madhvan and Neetu are common actors to both the versions.

Apart from India, the film will see a limited release in the US, Canada, UAE, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia.

Says Big Pictures (the motion pictures brand of Reliance Big Entertainment) chief marketing officer Saurabh Varma said, “We truly believe in the potential of this project and are strategising ways to engage with the audience.”link

Police bust 10 mini-gun factories in Bihar

The police have busted 10 illegal mini-gun factories and seized eight sacks of equipment used for making fire arms from Hazratganj bara locality of the town in Bihar's Munger district during night-long raids.

Superintendent of Police M. Sunil Nayak said that on a specific information the police conducted raids at the houses of 10 persons late Thursday which continued till this morning and seized huge cache of fire arms, including equipment used for making the fire arms worth several crores of rupees.

The SP said that the process of counting the seized firearms was still on and added that such a huge quantity of firearms and equipment were seized in the district for the first time.

On specific information, the police raided the houses of Kailash Mandal, Arvind Mandal, Tuntun, Kuddus, Nathia, Sanovar, Feroz, Umar Khayyam, Mushtaq and Dilli Wala, all residents of Hazratganj bara locality under the Kasim bazar police station area of the district, Mr. Nayak said.

While the police had to use two tractors to carry the illegal weapons and equipment to the police station, none of the owners of the illegal gun-factories was arrested, hesaid.link

Villagers beat exorcist to death in Bihar

An exorcist was beaten to death by villagers of Damdamapur in Katihar district. Jai Singh (40), who was an exorcist, was beaten to death at Gorakhnath temple premises in the village, police inspector Ashok Singh said.

"Today, after a villager made allegation that the exorcist had killed 101 persons, Jai Singh was taken to Gorakhnath temple and was asked to swear by touching the idol that he had not committed the crime. However, the exorcist refused to do so," Singh said.

The villagers then got infuriated and beat the exorcist to death. His wife was also injured in the attack, the police officer said.

Three women have been arrested in this connection.link

Hundreds of prisoners in Bihar jail pledge to donate eyes

Hundreds of prisoners in a Bihar jail, including Maoists, gangsters and even a jailed politician, have pledged to donate their eyes after death, an official said on Monday.

"More than 400 of nearly 3,000 prisoners in the Beur Central Jail in Patna have voluntarily pledged to donate their eyes," said Kanti Mohan, the medical officer of the jail.

Official sources said Maoists like Ajay Kanu, the brain behind the infamous Jehanabad jail break in November 2005, along with dozen other cadres, gangsters Bindu Singh, Shiv Gope, Sultan Miyan and former legislator Rajan Tiwari have given their written consent to donate eyes.

"Prisoners are also human-beings, with heart and emotions. They were motivated to make a difference to others by donating their eyes," Mohan told.

It took Mohan many days to convince and encourage prisoners to make the pledge.

"It was not an easy task. I worked hard for it and now the prisoners have responded," he said.
Jail Superintendent Omprakash Gupta said the prisoners would set a positive example and it would change their bad image in the society.

"It will inspire inmates of other jails in the state to donate their eyes or other organs," Gupta said.link