Career-conscious students throng Patna Book Fair

PATNA: The 18th Patna Book Fair is drawing thousands of students aspiring to write various competitive examinations, like IIT-JEE, MBA, CAT and pre-medical tests.

"I want to know more about IIT-JEE examination. So I have come here for guidance, and also buy necessary books," a class X student of DPS, Anurag Vyas, told TOI.

A large number of students have visited the stall of Don Bosco Institute of Technology (Bangalore) here. "The students are inquiring about engineering courses offered by the institute. We are giving complete counselling to them," says DBIT's stall owner.

Students aspiring to be journalists are also flocking to stalls of different media academies at the fair premises. About 500 to 600 students visit our stall here daily and make inquiries about career in journalism," Sunita Rai, a senior counsellor at Advantage Media Academy's stall said.

Students aspiring to pursue MBA courses are also visiting the fair. A marketing executive at a preparatory coaching centre for MBA - IMS - told TOI: "More than 4000 students have so far visited our stall to make inquiries about different entrance examinations of MBA in just three days."

A second-year graduation student, Raushan Singh, had come from Nawada to visit the fair. "There is almost no coaching centre for CAT (Common Admission Test) in Nawada," he said.

Ashutosh Kumar of CareerGuru.com, an admission consultant, told TOI: "More than 3000 students have visited our stall in the past three days. We are providing information about different competitive examinations, institutes of engineering, management, medical and others."

A series of cultural events were organised on Monday. The day 4 started with a quiz competition `Dexter Quiz', which was based on general knowledge. Another quiz competition `Siesta-Fiesta' was suspended. Several other programmes, including a singing competition `Talent Hunt' and programme on literature `Unki kahani meri jubani', were also organised.

 

Alok K N Mishra is a Times of India journalist in Patna. He can be contacted at 9234629956.

Heavy turnout is always anti-incumbent: Paswan Jr

Chirag Paswan, son of Lok Janshakti Party supremo, Ram Vilas Paswan, is riding two boats. While a beautiful political career beckons him home, he is hell-bent upon making it big in Bollywood.

He is working extremely hard on a large scale film and desires to debut not with a bang but a whimper.

Nonetheless, he has recently made extensive canvassing for RJD-LJP alliance in the ongoing Bihar polls. He talks to Alok K N Mishra about the future of LJP, his dual role, his father, and obviously his romantic film among others. Excerpts:

1) You are one of the largest crowd pullers in LJP. It’s time you should be stumping for RJD-LJP alliance. Why have you returned to Mumbai so soon?

Actually I am more interested to awaken the electorate in Bihar but there were some urgent commitments in Bollywood. Shooting of my debut film is in its last phase.

2) Tell me about your debut film?  

It’s based upon an extraordinary romantic love story. The film is being produced by Maverick Productions. I am in the lead role as Chirag Mehra. The lead actress is Kangana Ranaut. It’s being directed by Tanveer Khan. The name of the film will be decided in December and it will be released in February 2011.

3) Do children of heavyweights enjoy some edge in Bollywood?

See, truth is truth. If you share a heavyweight’s name as your surname people become friendly and things trouble-free. You are listened in a place where nobody is ready to hear.

But at the end of the day it’s your quality that leads you up. Ravi Kishan had no legacy but on the basis of his talent he has made it big.

4) Biharis are a harried lot in Mumbai, slighted and abused wherever they go. Does the same discrimination accord people from Bihar in Bollywood? 

It is a good question. Though it does not happen in Bollywood, I see the pains of migrant Biharis across Mumbai. They are made fun of and laughed at. This situation not only kills their self-esteem but also robs them of ambition and enthusiasm to do something new and achieve new heights. This is why children of most of the Bihari migrants ultimately take up their parents’ jobs.

5) Where does the blame lay? Do you have a plan to make the wheel come full circle?

I want to ask you a supplementary question before I answer. Have you ever seen a Mumbaiwala or a Delhiwala wandering for manual work in Bihar? It is because they don’t have empty hands; thanks to their respective governments. The Nitish government has totally failed to provide jobs to empty hands.

If people repose faith in the RJD-LJP combine this time, I will make personal efforts to improve the situation. 

6) Opinion polls conducted by different agencies prophesy that RJD-LJP combine will face setbacks.

The government is not formed on figures but on foundations. An unprecedented number of people are coming out to vote this time. And if history is any guide, heavy turnout has always led to change of guard. The present equation is going to change and RJD-LJP alliance to form Bihar government.

7) You are interested in Bollywood because you love it. Why are you interested in politics?

I haven’t experienced poverty but I have seen my young brethrens braving blows for bread and butter in Mumbai. It is only because of it that I am interested in politics. I want to revive political awareness among the youths of Bihar so that they demand their rights from their government and also choose the right person to lead them.

8) Nitishji claims that he has brought in development and ‘sushashan’ (good governance). What’s your take?

Nitishji is cheating people. Calling the present state of affairs in Bihar, be it in terms of infrastructure or law and order, development and sushashan is like cheating innocent people.

When I speak to people in villages they say they get electricity for only one or two hours. It is what he (Nitish) calls development? Once I wanted to do some shopping in the evening but after I went out I found all shops closed just by 7:30 pm. When I talked to people they told me shopkeepers shutter down early out of fear of goons. It is what he calls law and order improvement?

9) Two things you would like to do when RJD-LJP forms government in Bihar.

First, I will like to provide employment to maximum possible number of unemployed people. And second, I will like to improve education right from primary to higher education.

10) You are riding two boats. What’s your aim?

People are bound to say I am riding two boats if I pursue two careers simultaneously. They would be saying I am riding a running boat if I had entered politics and contested elections straight out of college.

To avoid the latter I took up acting first. I want to earn my own name. I will be doing both things as far as I am able to balance. However I am ready to contest polls whenever the party wants me to.

10) What is your academic profile? Have you done some acting course?

I am a computer engineer. I did my B-tech in computer science from Amity University, Delhi. I had planned to do my masters too but due to some projects in Bollywood I couldn’t. I have taken no formal training on acting. I am a born actor and not a trained one. 

8) Do you have a girl friend?

 (Gives a loud laugh) No. Not yet.

9) You are 27. What about your marriage?

I am not thinking about. It’s my parents’ baby.

14) One thing people don’t know about your father.

He is a master ludo (board game) player. He manages to steal time to spend with family members and play ludo. He defeats me most of the times in ludo.    

Turkish Airlines flyers get back 'emptied' luggage

PATNA: From frying pan to fire. In probably a worse instance, septuagenarian Onkar Sharma has been delivered the five pieces of luggage he had booked in the cargo while boarding a Turkish Airlines (TA) flight from Berlin to New Delhi via Istanbul, but all of them are virtually empty.

"The locks are broken and the valuables, including ornaments, are missing," Sharma told TOI on Thursday and added he has lodged a police complaint in this regard.

Sharma lodged the complaint with the Patna airport authorities who, in turn, forwarded it to the Station House Officer of Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport (domestic) police station.

TOI on Thursday reported the ordeal of Sharma and his sexagenarian wife Sadhna Sharma. The couple landed in Delhi on December 3, only to find their luggage had been misplaced by the TA's cargo handlers. The ailing couple's life-saving drugs were also there in their bags. As they skipped medication, their health complications compounded.

When contacted, TA authorities on Thursday acknowledged receipt of Sharma's complaint. "We are looking into the matter. The couple will be given reasonable compensation if they have really suffered," said an employee in the office of TA's IGI station manager Erbil Akgun. Akgun could not be contacted.

The five huge suitcases were sent to Patna by an Air India flight on Wednesday evening. While taking the delivery, the Sharmas insisted for a status report of the suitcases from AI officials at the Patna airport. The status report says, "Received in lock broken condition. Delivered (to claimant Sharmas) in same condition."

The Berlin-based non-resident Biharis are 80% disabled. "Thankfully, our medicines have not been stolen," Sadhna said and added five gold ornaments (tops), three watches, 15 expensive pieces of gift items, among other things, are missing.

Turkish Airlines leaves old couple in lurch

PATNA: An ageing, ailing couple has been left grounded -- groaning and moaning, courtesy the Turkish Airlines (TA).

Septuagenarian Onkar Sharma and his sexagenarian wife Sadhna Sharma have been on life-saving drugs for several years. For the last few days, the Berlin-based non-resident Biharis could not take the medicines as the TA, which flew them to India, misplaced their luggage.

"I am 80% disabled; I possess a disability certificate issued from the government of Turkey. You can pretty well imagine my condition sans the drugs," Onkar Sharma told TOI at his cousin's home at Patna.

The couple boarded a TA flight at the Berlin airport on December 2 for Istanbul from where they boarded another TA flight for Delhi the same day. "On reaching Delhi's IGI (Indira Gandhi International) airport on December 3 morning, I was stunned to learn that all my five bags were missing," the retired manager of a starred Berlin hotel said.

Onkar Sharma has several health complications, including blood pressure and cardiac problems, and, as such, has been under constant medical supervision. Before his trip to home, his doctor prescribed certain medicines and advised him not to skip them while in India.

An asthma patient who too holds a disability certificate, Sadhna is also on drugs. "Sharmaji is alive because he has been popping pills with astronomic regularity. Without medicines, he now complains of uneasiness and I fear he may fall ill," she said and added the medicines are not available in India and their substitutes do not suit them.

Onkar Sharma said TA's IGI station manager Erbil Akgun had assured him that their bags would be delivered at the Patna airport on December 4. "We were given a few papers which we had to produce to claim the bags," he recalled.

The Sharmas have been continuously on the phone line since December 3 evening. "Now neither Akgun nor other TA employees are responding properly to my calls," Sharma said, desperately fighting back the tears.

On December 6, he said, the airlines informed the couple that the luggage had been sent to Patna by an Air India flight. "We went to the Patna airport and returned empty-handed as the luggage had not arrived," he said.

The Sharmas had planned to visit relatives in Lucknow and Delhi. "We were bringing several gift items for them. Today, we don't have even clothes for ourselves," Sadhna Sharma told TOI.

Efforts of this reporter to contact Akgun proved futile as none of the contact numbers of TA's Delhi office, available with the Sharmas, was working.

 

 

Alok K N Mishra, a journalist with Times of India Patna can be contacted at 9234629956.

Puffing in public places on in state

PATNA: Ban on smoking in public places has not been as successful in Bihar as anywhere else in the country! At least authorities concerned would like us to believe that. "No person has been caught smoking in any public place since the ban was effected on the Gandhi Jayanti on October 2 in 2008," a senior police officer told TOI.

There won't be many takers for this boast though. For, smokers puffing on beedis and cigarettes in public places are a common sight. What's then the mystery behind the official claim?

TOI investigated, and found out that the ban has remained only on paper and the implementing agency is virtually unaware of it. "Kya dhoomrapaan sab jagah nishedh hai (Is smoking banned everywhere)?" an officer-in-charge of a city police station asked this reporter.

His counterpart in another police station was a little enlightened. "I once heard about it," he said but added that he did not have instructions from his bosses to catch and fine smokers puffing in public places. "We do not have even `challan' (penalty slips) for the purpose in our police station," he said.

State health officials refused to go on record when they admitted their ignorance about the nitty-gritty of the implementation aspect of the ban. "The health department can only frame guidelines. The implementation is the police's responsibility," a health official said.

While moving the ban proposal in 2008, the Union health ministry had sent out the prototype of the `challan' to state health secretaries. The state officials had, in turn, had asked police to issue the same `challans' to the smokers being fined as the ones issued to violators of traffic rules.

According to the law, those caught smoking in places like hospitals, amusement parks, restaurants, courts, educational institutions, libraries, public conveyance, railway stations, workplaces, shopping malls, cinema halls, discotheques, coffee houses, pubs and restaurants would be fined Rs 200.

Studies have established that passive smoking (inhalation of environmental tobacco smoke emanating from tobacco products used by others) causes at least five lakh deaths globally every year. Scientific evidence shows that exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes lung cancer, breast cancer, brain tumour, asthma, cognitive impairment, dementia, tuberculosis and several other diseases.

Reports say that if the amount of fine collected from defiant smokers is anything to go by, the ban has largely been successful in Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Punjab, Kerala and Rajasthan.

Bihar is yet to make its first move on the ground to implement the ban.

 

 

Alok K N Mishra is a journalist with the Times of India. he can be contacted at alokmishra.co@gmail.com.

Congress a dubious party: Rabri

Rabri Devi was catapulted from her kitchen straight to the corridors of power when she took her oath as Bihar chief minister in 1997. Years on, the timid housewife has become an astute politician as far as talking politics is concerned, feels Alok KN Mishra after a tête-à-tête with RJD boss Lalu Prasad's missus. Excerpts:

You have been electioneering a lot and meeting people. What's the poll outcome going to be like?
There is widespread anger among the electorate against the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government. Benefits of welfare programmes — haven't be it of the state government or the Centre — haven't reached those who need them the most. Corruption is rampant at all levels of the administration. People desperately want to get rid of this government and vote RJD to power. RJD is all set to emerge as the single largest party. There's a wave in our favour.

Lalu Prasad has projected himself as the chief minister and a minority community leader as his deputy, if RJD-LJP alliance is voted to power. What will be your role then?
Without a government post, I will have more time to work for the people who have been neglected, marginalized and cheated by the Nitish-Modi dispensation.

Why shouldn't people vote for NDA?
There are many reasons. NDA government is not trustworthy. It has cheated its own people, including Prabhunath Singh. It is not for nothing that Sama Praveen, wife of JD-U's Begusarai MP Monazir Hassan, is contesting on RJD ticket from Munger.

More importantly, the NDA government failed to bring in industrial investments. The tentacles of Maoism are spreading fast and almost the entire Bihar is now affected by Naxal violence. So poor has been the law and order situation that women, including foreigners, are being molested in the state in broad daylight. Most of the women I speak to, express a strange sense of fear.

Why should people vote for RJD-LJP alliance?
This alliance is the voice of the poor. Laluji has a vision with which he transformed the loss-making railways. The same vision will be applied to transform Bihar. As railway minister, Laluji brought investments worth Rs 55,000 crore to the state. Further investments will provide jobs to hundreds of hands and the state will grow.

Do you think it would have been better had the Congress been RJD's ally?
Congress wants to remove the poor, not poverty. It is a dubious party. It is responsible for skyrocketing prices of essential commodities. We do not want alliance of any kind with such a party.

You have parted ways with Sadhu Yadav and Subash Yadav with whom you share blood relations. Will you allow your brothers back in the RJD if the party is voted to power?
I have already made my stand clear about Sadhu and Subhash. (Good riddance, Rabri had said when they left RJD.) No further comments. I do not even think about them now.

Your younger son, Tejaswi, has made his political debut. Do you want him to be a politician like his father or a cricketer like Sachin Tendulkar?
All of 21 years, he is a child. Like every child (worker) of RJD, he is just trying to become the voice of the poor. As of now, he has not made a political debut. He likes playing cricket and will be doing that. He will certainly join politics when the time is appropriate.

You are a woman and also not quite literate. How big a handicap is this?
Sahar sikhaye kotwal (experience teaches). I was given the responsibility of chief ministership at a critical time. I successfully carried out the responsibility.

You claim to be popular. Why are you contesting from two places?
I'm not contesting from two constituencies because I feel insecure. Nor do I claim to be popular. Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi claim they are popular. I decided to contest from two constituencies to
challenge the duo. I had dared them to test their popularity against me if they had the guts. But they didn't accept the challenge. In fact, they are not contesting the elections.

 

 

 

Alok K N Mishra is a journalist with the Times of India. he can be contacted at alokmishra.co@gmail.com.

(K)not of love & self-interest

PATNA: Love's in the air. Or, so it seems if one goes by the number of love marriages in the city which has been constantly rising.

As against 344 lovebirds tying the knot in the city's marriage registrar office in 2007, 429 couples signed papers, vowing to grow up under one roof as man and wife in 2008. The number went northwards at 463 the next year. Till October this year, as many as 433 couples had registered their marriages while another 100 have applied for the same and would be exchanging wedding vows by the time the curtains draw on the year 2010.

Earlier this week, TOI visited the registrar's office and spotted a couple busy completing the formalities for the D-Day. "We have known each other for long. We have explored good and bad things about each other. There exists a greater degree of comfort level between us and only after being sure about this did we decide to spend life together," said the 20-plus girl in love with her neighbour, three years older.

Marriage officer A K Jha said the trend is fast catching up in Patna. "Today's youths look towards the west for their outlook on life. Till five years ago, love marriages were not the trend, but exceptions here," he said as he rummaged through previous records to substantiate his remark.

Registrar office sources told TOI it is rarely that couples visiting the marriage office are accompanied by parents. Most of them bring friends or distant relatives to depose as witnesses to their wedding.

Love, they say, has no religion. Needless to say, the love marriages being registered at the Patna marriage registrar's office include not only inter-caste but also inter-faith marriages. In November, Mohd Sanaullah Khan wedded Shweta Prasad. "They became man and wife under Bihar Special Marriage (amendment) Rules 2008," an official said and recalled family members, including parents, from neither side appeared in the registrar's office to become witnesses to their wedding.

Rajendra Singh (Sikh) and Alankrita, Vishwakarma Prasad and Roseline Anthony (Christian) and Inshad Alam and Madhu Kumari also got their marriage registered at the Patna registrar's office.

Noted sociologist Hetukar Jha describes the generation opting for love marriages as "Me-First generation". "They are pleasure-driven people who take decisions on the basis of current circumstances, howsoever fickle these circumstances may be," he said and reiterated when interests of self become more important than those of others, love marriages happen.

Alok K N Mishra is a journalist with Times of India. he can be contacted at alokknmishra.blogspot.com.