Bihar

The income tax department raided 16 offices and residential premises connected to Mentors Eduserv - a coaching institute chain for engineering aspirants - on Tuesday and seized around Rs 70 lakh in cash, several bank passbooks, and voluminous documents related to diverse investments. Four bank lockers were also traced and frozen.

Patna University, on the direction of Raj Bhavan, late on Monday evening set aside its earlier notification demoting Shashi Sharma from the rank of professor to reader (associate professor).

Ward councillors will get Rs 50 lakh each to repair crumbling water pipelines and a committee, comprising the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) health officer and city managers, will decide the number of fogging machines that need to be bought after assessing the ward-wise requirement.

Divisional commissioner Anand Kishor on Tuesday prohibited the entry of vehicles into Gandhi Maidan from Wednesday after The Telegraph highlighted how cars and bikes were damaging the beautification work of the ground.

State disabilities commissioner Shivajee Kumar, on Monday wrote to principal secretary,art, culture and youth affairs department, Chaitanya Prasad, asking him not to discriminate between differently abled and normal sportspersons when giving them cash rewards after they earn national and international tournament glory.

The radiotherapy department of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) will get state-of-the-art cancer treatment machines worth around Rs 39 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) by 2019. The hospital would be able to provide targeted therapies for cancer treatment with the arrival of the machines.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar has directed state government officials to probe into allegations of a scam in the animal husbandry department's scheme to provide 50 per cent subsidy to farmers for buying cows.

The state government on Tuesday approved a proposal to hike solatium amount given to survivors of acid attacks, physical exploitation in case of minors, rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

The NDA in Bihar is game for an early understanding on seat-sharing for the coming general elections. A day after chief minister Nitish Kumar said the proposal was likely to come from the BJP in 4-5 weeks, BJP leaders on Tuesday hinted that the party agreed with the idea of having an early discussion on this contentious issue.

The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), under its "Lighting a Billion Lives" campaign is working in partnership with the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society's JEEViKA programme to make clean energy products affordable for local women-based self-help groups (SHGs) in select districts of Bihar.