Nitish waits for report on status

Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday said he is eagerly awaiting the report of the committee looking into the criteria of backwardness of states. He said Bihar had been demanding the special category for long and has also submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Nitish’s comment came a day after planning minister Rajeev Shukla told the Rajya Sabha that Bihar’s request for special status was under consideration.

Nitish said now was the time for the Centre to take a decision and the state wants the special status category to be granted and not assurances.

Tractor kills 9-year-old

Buxar: Nine-year-old Jaya Srivastava was crushed to death by a speeding tractor near the Buxar block office when she was on her way to school on Friday. The tractor driver has been arrested. The residents blocked the road for about two hours in protest.

Flood survey

Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday said aerial survey to inspect the flood-affected districts has been completed. Relief materials have also been distributed among the people. Nitish said the district magistrates concerned have been asked to shift the affected people to safety.

Modi jab

Patna: Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday attacked the Nitish Kumar government on failure to provide electricity in rural areas. Modi said power is not being provided in rural areas for more than one to two hours. Alleging that all claims of the state government has fallen flat, he said farmers and labourers are also being denied consumption loan of Rs 10,000 (due to them under the government scheme) from commercial banks.

Lawyer protest

Patna: Advocates of District and Patna City Bar Association abstained from work for the second consecutive day. The lawyers have stopped working in protest against Khajekalan police’s failure to take action against criminals who attacked the family members of Madhusudan Lal Jamuar, the convener of Sangharsh Samiti of Bihar Yuva Adhivakta Kalyan Samiti, on August 21.

Railway project

Patna: East Central Railway on Friday said the Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge will be completed by March 2015. Chief public relations officer, East Central Railway, Amitabh Prabhakar said of 36 spans, 21 have been completed and works on 22nd and 23rd spans was in progress. Prabhakar said the East Central Railway was working hard to complete the work in the stipulated time frame.

Exposé portal

Patna: Members of the civil society, including journalists, professors, poets, social workers, theatre artistes and historians, on Friday launched a web portal, www.pheku.in, to allegedly expose the development model of Gujarat. The portal was launched at the conference hall of Gandhi Sangrahalaya in Patna. Poet Alok Dhanwa, Patna University economics faculty member N.K. Choudhary, sociologist M.N. Karn and Patna University history faculty member Bharti S. Kumar were present at the launch.