Manoj Tiwari keen to fight LS polls from Bihar

Bhojpuri actor-singer Manoj Tiwari has said he was ready to contest the next parliamentary elections from any constituency of Bihar, if Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wished.

"If Nitishji wishes I am ready to fight the 2014 elections," Tiwari told PTI here claiming he had provided a positive image to the state.

"I am a big fan of Nitishji because of his dynamic leadership qualities," said the Bhojpuri artiste, who had contested the last parliamentary elections from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

Tiwari, a resident of Atarwalia village in Kaimur district, had also actively participated in JD(U) Adhikar rally at Patna on November 4 last year and will take part in the party's rally in Delhi tomorrow.

Asked about constituency, he said this would be decided by the chief minister.

A popular face in Bihar, the Bhojpuri actor has been actively associated with Chhath functions at Mumbai.

Airtel launches free roaming scheme

Bharti Airtel on Tuesday launched a new roaming scheme for its prepaid customers in Delhi which will enable them to receive free incoming calls in five states.

"With this pack, Airtel prepaid mobile customers can now get up to 30 days of free incoming calls while travelling to Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand and West Bengal (except Kolkata) on a recharge of Rs 21," Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Airtel's Delhi customer at present are charged Re 1 for incoming calls, Re 1 for local outgoing calls and Rs 1.5 paise for STD calls on roaming, the company said.

Police lathicharge contractual teachers protesting outside Bihar Assembly

Agitating contractual teachers were cane-charged for the second consecutive day even as the police action against them on Monday triggered strong protests in the Bihar Assembly and Legislative Council on Tuesday.

The protesting teachers, who have been demanding regularisation of their services, were lathicharged by the police after the protest turned violent outside the assembly premises. The police also resorted to tear gas shelling to control the crowd.

Earlier, question hour could not be taken up in legislative council due to strong protests by RJD, Congress and CPI members. As soon as the question hour started, opposition members shouted slogans against the alliance government over reports of lathi-charge on agitating teachers. The Opposition demanded statement from the government on the incident.

When repeated persuasions failed to calm the Opposition, legislative council chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh adjourned the House for one hour. Similar protests were witnessed in the legislative assembly too. Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui raised the issue and demanded a statement from Education Minister P.K. Shahi.

When Shahi refused to entertain the Opposition demand, Siddiqui alleged that the government was "blind" towards problem of contractual teachers who have been demanding regularisation of job and pay parity with regular teachers.

Road Construction Department Minister Nand Kishore Yadav then told the House that the government was sensitive towards problem of teachers and was looking into the matter.

Festivities know no religion

India is blessed with amazing diversity, but this does not prevent promotion of good relations between people of different communities, examples of which can be found in every nook and corner of the country. One such example comes from the Loco Colony in Gaya district in the eastern state of Bihar. Here, people from different communities celebrate all festivals together with enthusiasm. And, communal amity is not restricted just to festivals. The Durga Temple located nearby exemplifies strong bonds of friendship between both Hindus and Muslims. When a culture has so many differing elements, like India, it is important for the people to respect the differences.

Postal era begins for Bihar Gangsters and other criminals

Gangsters and other criminals in Bihar are shunning mobile phones and emails and turning to postal letters and couriers to run their rackets, threaten people and extort money, say police. The reason: letters help them avoid the police radar while phones are easy to track.

"They are reluctant to use mobile phones and emails to establish contact with their associates or issue threat to demand extortion, fearing that police will catch them, using its technology network," a police officer said, not wishing to be identified.

"Now they have adopted old methods to give us a slip," said the officer posted in police headquarters here. He did not want to be named.

According to police, gangsters and criminals are using ordinary post and courier services to protect their identity and keep their location secret.

"After we arrested some hard-core criminals by tracking their movement through mobile surveillance, they have become shy of using cellphones," said the officer.

Another officer said in the last few months, they came across several instances where criminals in many districts sent letters or couriers to issue threats.

"It was revealed during investigations in few cases that criminals or gangsters lodged in jails across the state are using letters to run their network," said the official, who too did not want to be identified.

The inmates, he said, send letters outside the jail through visitors or after bribing the guards.

However, Maoist guerrillas in rural Bihar have been using letters to threaten contractors and traders.

It was common in Bihar for criminals to use mobiles to issue threats or demand money from businessmen, traders, doctors, contractors and even legislators and members of parliament.

"Using mobile surveillance, police cracked many cases and arrested many criminals," said another officer.

Bihar's tech savvy police chief Abhyanand is known to employ innovative ways of policing and ordering officials to use mobile surveillance to check and control crime.

Police are probing several cases, including the murder case of Ranvir Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh from June last year, where the main accused has been found using letters to communicate with his men.

"After we arrested half a dozen suspects through mobile surveillance, the main accused stopped using mobiles," a police official said. Police are yet to arrest the accused Abhay Pandey and Nand Gopal Pandey.

Use of letters to issue threats was spreading among inmates in Patna, Gaya and Munger jails, said police.

They opted for the alternative after police, using voice spectrograph tests, found five inmates of Munger jail demanding extortion on phone.

Pakistani team learning success of polio drive in Bihar

Impressed with success of anti-polio campaign in Bihar, a four-member team from Pakistan is here on the invitation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to take tips about the programme particularly in minority Muslim dominated areas.

On the start of five-day polio eradication drive in the state beginning today, the Pakistani team visited Samanpura in Raza Bazar area here to see for themselves the success of the programme among Muslim community.

Pro-Pak cyber vandals hack, deface Bihar tourism site

Unidentified cyber vandals hacked the official website of Bihar tourism, heaped abuse on Indians and posted the slogan, ‘Pakistan zindabad’. The hacking of website www.bihartourism.gov.in was discovered on Saturday. Official sources said it was
significant the hacking came so soon after the Hyderabad twin blasts on Thursday.

“A message posted by the hackers read: Indians beware, stop abusing us or else we will retaliate…,” said a senior police officer. “The server was located within seven minutes of detection of the defacement, around 1 pm”, he claimed.

Sources claimed the hackers had also posted images of Hyderabad blasts. But this could not be confirmed.

The state administration rushed into damage control mode by removing the abusive messages from the site. An official said the data logs indicated the postings originated from a private company based in Jaipur.

“The site was immediately blocked and postings were removed,” said a shocked Bihar tourism minister Sunil Kumar Pintu.

The national informatics center (NIC) and a Mumbai-based firm, which had designed the website, had been alerted and asked to take remedial action to avoid a recurrence of the incident, Pintu told.

News of the hacking went viral on the internet, with users venting their outrage over the attack by poating messages on Facebook and Twitter.

Bihar director general of police (DGP) Abhayanand confirmed the incident. “I have asked IG (economic offence unit) Praveen Vashista to conduct an inquiry into the episode”, he told HT.

Contacted Sunday afternoon, Vashista said he would initiate action as soon as the matter was referred to him.