Monday, 16 May 2011

Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News

Bihar News, Latest News from Bihar, News of Bihar, Biharprabha News

Now Fight Power Cuts using Twitter

Posted: 16 May 2011 06:29 AM PDT

NEW DELHI: A bunch of Twitter users have come together to gather information about power cuts in India and make an infographic that will map the geographical spread of power cuts across the country.

It all started when Shefaly Yogendra, a London-based investment consultant, saw a discussion on power cuts on her Twitter timeline and suggested to her friends, “May be you guys SHOULD tweet #powercut with location. The infographic will highlight the need for investment. To many people.”

The idea caught on. Users had begun writing about the time and location of the power cuts in their respective areas with the hashtag (a word preceded by a hash sign that helps categorise tweets) #powercutindia. About 28 minutes after the initial discussion, Ajay Kumar (username @ajuonline) put up a web page that had started mapping power cuts in the country on the basis of the tagged tweets. Now the page can be accessed at http://powercuts.in. A Twitter account by the name of @PowerCutsIn has also been employed to collect data.

The page is built on an Ushahidi platform, which provides free software for information collection. The same platform has been used earlier to collect information on incidents of violence in Kenya. While the updates from Twitter are being incorporated on to the map by a team of 11 moderators information received via the smartphone app updates the map automatically. “I’m trying to get some people to code a page that will show the availability of power real-time,” says Ajay Kumar, a software engineer working with a Lucknow-based NGO.

First city to be mapped, according to Ajay on Twitter, was Gurgaon. In the first couple of days, 46 reports had been mapped, at a rate of 9.2 reports a day. These reports have further been sorted into categories of “planned”, “unplanned”, “good news” (indicating no power cuts) and “voltage”.

An open Google document, which anyone can read, edit and shared, was also floated online, where people volunteered to do the data crunching, and provide tech support. Those involved are trying to take this beyond an empty data-visualisation exercise and trying to figure out what to do with it. Pitting this data against that of diesel prices and farm output are just some of the suggestions that have come in from users on the same Google document. Others suggested tweeting with pin-codes for better accuracy while representing the data on a map.

“We’ve got thousands of tweets coming in with this hashtag. We could use all this data to see the number of power cuts that weren’t a part of planned load shedding by power companies,” says Kumar.

There were discussions about roping in non-Twitter users as well for better reach. “Two companies have already contacted me regarding this, saying they can offer their services for gathering data on the same through mobiles. Nothing has been finalized, though,” says Kumar.

Crowdsourcing, or getting a large group of people to provide data on a particular subject, has been a rage ever since the web went social. A similar mapping exercise, which maps mobile network problems in India, already exists online by the name of Mobile Telco #Fail.

In the UK, an online service has started mapping specific medical symptoms that people tweet about to study the spread of diseases. So if the map shows a substantial number of people in your area getting a sore throat and a running nose with fever, you know you shouldn’t be taking your sniffles lightly.

The pace at which things are proceeding with this, it’s hard to say where this would go. “I have seen many online activism attempts fail. But I just jumped onto this one. People are coming up with some really sensible suggestions. Let’s see where this goes,” says Kumar.

76 year old preparing girls for shooting in Bihar

Posted: 16 May 2011 03:35 AM PDT

Nalanda (Bihar), May 14(ANI): With an aim to increase women’s participation in shooting, Chandro Tomar, a 76-year-old lady, is imparting training in shooting to girls from rural areas at Kalyan Bigha village in Bihar’s Nalanda district.

Tomar, hailing from Baghpat region of Uttar Pradesh, was a national level shooter and had won numerous medals in international competitions.

She is currently organizing a 15-day training camp at Kalyan Bigha and scores of girls have enrolled in this.

“My aim is to motivate girls so that they would do something in their lives. We would also get happiness out of it,” said Tomar.

On their part, the young trainee girls are an elated lot.

“I feel very happy. I am planning that after learning shooting and becoming a good shooter, I want to go for he Olympics and win medals,” said Shweta Kumari, a participant in the training camp.

Tomar had learnt shooting at a training camp, while accompanying her granddaughter, at the age of 65.

After that she participated in various events and over the past one decade, she has trained hundreds of budding shooters.

She is also credited for giving training to about 27 international-level shooters, who are from her village.

Tomar has already organized training camps at various places across India with the aim of motivating more women into the sport.

Record Litchi output expected this time

Posted: 16 May 2011 12:27 AM PDT

PATNA: Bihar is expecting a bumper litchi crop this year — 20 to 25% higher compared to last year, according to agriculture department sources.

While this has cheered farmers, they are sure that there are no processing facilities for litchis in the state, which would have enabled them to reap better profits from the crop.

Government estimates put the likely litchi production this year between 2.75 and 3 lakh tonne against last year’s 2.25 lakh tonne. An agriculture department official said that Bihar produces about 60% of the country’s litchi output.

Favourable climate during the past few months helped in higher litchi production. According to reports reaching the state capital from Muzaffarpur, which is famous for litchis, the flowering in litchi trees was good this year. Besides, good rain in March-end and April helped in proper growth of litchis and their ripening.

However, farmers say it remains to be seen if higher production would be a bonanza or bane for them. They point out that litchis are a perishable item and cannot be stocked in cold storages. With a shelf life of barely two-three days, they need to be sent to markets at the earliest after plucking. Transport bottlenecks could mar their chances of deriving good profits from the crop. Besides, a glut in the market due to bumper production could lead to a sharp fall in prices, making the nature’s bounty a curse for them.

Farmers are sore that despite repeated announcements over the years, litchi-processing units have not come up in the state. This has robbed the farmers of a chance to get higher prices for their produce.

Officials said Shahi litchis, the best quality of this luscious fruit, are also exported to other parts of the country and abroad, but the quantity is very low compared to the production.
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