It has been my way of enjoying life at this age when I hardly do anything.

A telephone call from my home town of Sasaram excited me. Golu was the creator of the news of excitement. Golu is son of Ramesh, my cousin from maternal side and the eldest son of my most respected maternal uncle. Golu got qualified to go into IIT and he got placed at rank 209. Unfortunately, Ramesh though a master in science, is just marginally employed.

But then a well-done story giving the background of some of the star candidates of Anand appears in the national news magazine. Most of them are from the very low earning families, but interested in making a mark. Anand the mathematician, magician, humanist, or all in one facilitated them to get into coveted IITs. And he is doing that year after year. I don’t know why he didn’t aspire to become as rich as many running the coaching enterprises in every small and big towns of India, Kota being the most famous. Anand today has become global known celebrity? Is Anand not a good candidate for Padma award? Should Bihar not be proud of Anand and Avayanand, the IPS who parted last year? Avayanand has been now doing the similar coaching for the student of the minority in Bihar through Ahamadia foundation.

Bihar has been known only for the wrong things, be it for Lulu’s funny acts, the kidnapping industry, or corrupt and inefficient officers. But here was an officer who has created history of a sort. Pratyaya Amrit heads a state enterprise, the Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam Limited (BRPNNL) that is creating record as PSU. BRPNNL completed 336 bridges in the last three years alone. It was a great performance as the Nigam had constructed 314 bridges during 30 years. Pratyaya is running the Nigam as one of the best CEOs runs with all the management practices employed these days to motivate the employees to perform the best. Why can’t the other IAS take some lessons from Pratyaya? Why do most of them make accumulating money as the only mission of the life? Pratyaya can make anyone proud with his performance.

But how can I forget to mention about the Haryana-cadre IAS officer Ajit Joshi, coming from the state of Maharashtra of Raj Thackray. Joshi inspired the people of Sonepat, a district know for their miserly ways and raised Rs 1.4 crore as donations to rebuild a Koshi-ravaged village populated by the extreme backward community of Musahars (rat-eaters). Why can Raj and others who spread divisive hatred among the Indians get some lessons from Ajit?

And then I also come across the news of Nitish taking lead over rivals to perpetuate his rule through one of the master strokes for which he has become famous. How can his decision for the reservation in the state judiciary be push the state above other state? How long Nitish can keep on blaming Lalu’s misrule for the ranking of Bihar among the miserable states? Nitish is certainly relatively better. But couldn’t he do much more on development? Should I celebrate Nitish’s reservation in state judiciary? Will it help any way to alleviate the miserable conditions of the deprived lots of Bihar?

And instead of asking Mama to probe into the performance of railways when Lalu was at the helm, Nitish would have requested Mamta to proceed fast with the two mega projects of railways in Chhapra and Madhepura that as per media report Mamta wishes to shift to West Bengal.

Nitish could have done much more on education front- by asking the principals of the colleges of engineering, medicine and science to scale up and to improve brand image and ranking to attract students, by making school teachers more accountable, by trying to set up engineering colleges in every district headquarters and ITIs or polytechnics in every block for skill building, and by switching over to CBSE and dropping the state boards and deploying its employees as teachers.

It is unfortunate that Nitish has neither been able to attract any major business house, nor done anything significant in the area of food processing sector or even tourism, textile related sector such as ones in Madhubani and Bhagalpur.

I don’t know what has happened to Nalanda International University Project.

I again say Nitish is doing good work but something remarkable that can change Bihar pretty soon. I will have to keep on celebrating the successes of the individuals, courtesy reporter such as Amitava Srivastava.

Comment

comments...

First of all thanks to I R Sharma for recognising the work of Anand sir and Abhayanand Sir, It is really a work must be appreciated by all the Indians. But i am also supporting the work of Nitish kumar who has done alot for improving the education status of Bihar.
First of all making primary education better and appointing teacher in a large scale for that purpose. There are pros and cons of every work but becouse of some negative outcome like inefficiency of some teacher, we cannot criticise Nitish for that. We, the people of Bihar should take our responsibility and make the place for better education and place to leave. After long run of Jungle Raaj, you cannot expect magical change in one day. It will take time to move the wheel, becouse it has not moved for a decade and half or u can say more than that. In compare to other state who are growing becouse of their education and infrastructure are taking care by their leader in a very well manner.

So, I think criticise people is healthy but make it positive criticism.

Amit Prakash