Boat and fish in one pool

The connoisseurs of boating and fishing have a good time ahead. The animal husbandry and fisheries department has planned to develop the pond behind the Old Secretariat here into a recreation pool. One can go on boating and also fishing once the recreation pool is ready. ources in the department said the recreation pool, a brainchild of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, would be ready by next year. Patna and other Bihar cities lack such ponds. Several people go to Chilika Lake or other places during the vacations to enjoy boating or fishing. Samastipur in north Bihar is the next on the radar for a recreation pool. Once the Patna project is completed, the animal husbandry and fisheries department will embark on developing the Samastipur-based recreation pool.

Nitish richer

The quantum of property in the possession of chief minister Nitish Kumar has hardly gone up after 2005. But its prices have gone up sharply, making the chief minister relatively richer. Nitish Kumar had Rs 12,200 in cash and his teacher wife, alive then, had gold worth Rs 3,02,410 when Nitish was an MP from Nalanda in 2004. But the prices of the gold have gone up to s 9.20 lakh. And after her death, Nitish Kumar has transferred all his assets, including that of his wife, to his son, Nishant. The only addition to Nitish’s possession is a silver ring and a calf that was born to his cow recently.

Negative image

The negative image of the party is haunting the RJD leaders though they have issues like back-to-back kidnapping and killing of children and the murder of BJP legislator Rajkishore Keshari to corner the NDA government. After raising the issues at a news conference yesterday, a senior RJD leader admitted in private that the chief minister, Nitish Kumar, had succeeded in creating a positive image of his party while the image of the RJD continued to be negative. Crime is nothing new in Bihar. But what added to the bad image of the RJD was the involvement of many of its leaders in the criminal incidents and the state’s alleged patronage to them. Thus, when the RJD leaders are raising the issue of law and order, people are apparently not taking them seriously./B>

Drunken brawl in hospital

The sale and consumption of rum and brandy have shot up with the temperature going down. Its effect was palpable on Tuesday night at the Patna Medical College Hospital. Its employee, Shankar Mandal, and his friends gulped liquor to ward off the chill and then indulged in vandalism. They fought with a doctor in the emergency ward and damaged the windowpanes of ambulances and other vehicles. Mandal and others were arrested. A cop said: “It was a drunken brawl. Mandal and his friends were dead drunk.”