Monday, 16 April 2012

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

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

Mumbai Indians crushed by Delhi Daredevils by 7 Wickets

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 02:38 PM PDT

Delhi Daredevils churned out a dominating performance to crush Mumbai Indians by seven wickets and jump to the top of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Wankhede Stadium here Monday.

Opting to field first, Daredevils riding on a disciplined performance by its bowlers packed up the famed Mumbai Indians batting for 92 runs in 19.2 overs.

Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeen (2-16), Morne Morkel (2-22), Ajit Agarkar (2-27) and Umesh Yadav (2-11) bagged two wickets each while left-arm pacer Irfan Pathan (1-12) got one. Nadeem was also adjudged as Man of the Match.

Daredevils easily chased down the target of 93 runs with 31 balls to spare after skipper Virender Sehwag top scored with 32.

For Mumbai Indians, who were without Sachin Tendulkar and their pace spearhead Lasith Malinga, it was their worst performance this season, as they were bowled out for their lowest total of the season. Tendulkar is yet to recover from his finger injury while Malinga missed the match with a back injury.

Barring Rohit Sharma (29) and skipper Harbhajan Singh (33) none of their batsmen could get to double figures before being all out in 19.2 overs. Harbhajan’s 22-ball knock had five fours and a six.

While chasing, Daredevils never looked in a hurry. Sehwag and Naman Ojha (13) gave Daredevils a stable start with their 34-run stand. Sehwag hit two fours and a six in his 36-ball innings.

Mahela Jayawardene (17 not out) and Ross Taylor (11 not out) took the team home safely without much damage. For Mumbai Indians, Rudra Pratap Singh bagged two for 24 while left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha got one for 19.

Mumbai Indians slipped from the third position to fourth with four points from five matches while Daredevils jumped to the top with six points from four matches.

Facebook, Apple are biggest threat to Internet Freedom, says Google Founder

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 01:19 PM PDT

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has accused social networking website Facebook and computer giant Apple of being the biggest threat to online freedom, even as he said that increased efforts by governments to control access and communication by their citizens also affect the internet.

Brin said the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web.

He pointed out that the bid to suppress net access, along with the rise of the increasingly ‘restrictive’ Facebook and Apple, are threatening freedom of information online.

Brin said increasing efforts by governments to control access and communication by their citizens also affect Internet freedom. “There are very powerful forces that have lined up against the open Internet on all sides and around the world. It’s scary,” he added.

Attempts by the entertainment industry to crack down on piracy, and the rise of ‘restrictive’ walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms, were creating greater restrictions, said Brin.

He said he was concerned by efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the Internet, the Daily Mail reports.

The 38-year-old said that he and Google co-founder Larry Page could not have created their search engine if the internet was dominated by Facebook. The increasingly closed nature of the web risked stifling future innovation, he said, with data stored on Facebook apps not searchable and inaccessible to entrepreneurs.

“Governments are realising the power of this medium to organise people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we’re seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world,” said Ricken Patel, co-founder of Aavaz, the 14-million strong activist network which has help train and equip Syrian activists.

Bihar’s organic farming shining in other states

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 12:52 PM PDT

The SRI (System of Rice Intensification) organic method of paddy cultivation that has been successfully employed in Bihar has aroused interest in other states as well, officials here said Monday.

The SRI method saves water, uses lesser seeds and gives higher yield.

Locally known as Srividhi, the SRI method was introduced in the state three years ago. Initially, the farmers were reluctant to adopt this new technique despite the state government providing free seeds, fertilisers and experts to guide them. But now more farmers are taking to this method of paddy cultivation.

Impressed with its success in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh is replicating the method.

“The central minister of state for rural development, Agatha Sangma informed that Andhra Pradesh is replicating SRI method for increasing the crop yield,” an official of the state agriculture department said.

Last week, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar launched a SRI campaign 2012 to create more awareness about this scientific method and to encourage farmers to adopt it.

Sumant Kumar, a farmer in Darveshpura village in Nalanda district, had created a “world record” last December by producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare using the SRI method, officials said.

Bihar Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh told IANS that farmers last year achieved up to 40 percent more paddy yields by adopting SRI method of cultivation. “We hope that farmers would reap paddy harvests of 300 quintal per hectare in coming days,” he said.

Earlier this month, Surendra Prasad of Sarilchak village in Nalanda, about 100 km from Patna, produced 135.75 quintals of wheat per hectare using the SRI method.

Agriculture Production Commissioner A.K. Sinha said the government was planning to set aside seven lakh hectares for SRI method, six lakh hectares for hybrid paddy and more than eight lakh hectares for pulses, particularly moong.

Sangma during her visit to the state early this month lauded SRI method and asked officials concerned to spread it on a larger scale to increase the crop yield.

She visited a village in Gaya district where wheat cultivation was being carried out by the Sri method, an official said.

BSNL opens door to Cloud Services on Internet

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 07:49 AM PDT

BSNL today formally landed into the domain of Cloud Computing. It has  internet data centres (IDCs) in six Indian cities to offer managed hosting and cloud services in collaboration with IT services provider Dimension Data.

The centres are located in Mumbai, Faridabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Ghaziabad.

“BSNL will offer managed co-location, managed hosting and cloud services through these IDCs built, operated and managed by Dimension Data for BSNL,” the firm said in a statement.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).

“The IDCs will enhance BSNL’s comprehensive service portfolio to meet the communications and IT needs of large medium as well as small business enterprises in India,” Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said, inaugurating the IDC services.

This type of data centre environment allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with easier manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly adjust IT resources (such as servers, storage, and networking) to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand
“It will facilitate various organizations to quickly induct IT enabled services within their organizations without the hassles of setting up and maintaining their own data centres,” he added.

Cloud computing is expected to be the future of information technology and its adoption will be driven by the increasing commitment of the government towards healthcare, education, rural development and other e-governance initiatives.

Star News to be renamed as ABP News

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 06:55 AM PDT

The 24-hour news channel STAR News will soon be renamed ABP (Ananda Bazar Patrika) News, Media Content and Communications Services (MCCS) announced Monday.

MCCS is a joint venture (JV) between Kolkata-based ABP group and STAR India. The company owns two more 24-hour news channels — Bengali STAR Ananda and Marathi STAR Majha. The two regional news channels will be renamed as ABP Ananda and ABP Majha.

The development comes as entertainment giant Star India and ABP agreed to discontinue the Star’s brand affiliation with MCCS’s channels.

“The core business of the ABP is news and it wishes to promote and establish its own brands in the broadcast news space through its subsidiary company – MCCS,” the company said in a statement.

“Going forward, Star wishes to focus on building their brand on their core business that is general entertainment.”

MPs join security guards while fighting militants in Afghanistan

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 05:43 AM PDT

Kabul, Afghanistan: Unfazed by the brazen attempt by heavily-armed Taliban gunmen to storm Parliament today, MPs were not found wanting and they joined security forces in firing on the militants.

Parliament was in session when the gunmen targeted it in the deadly wave of attacks in Kabul and three other eastern cities.

Mohammad Naeem Lalai, an MP, was quoted as having said that some lawmakers including him and his bodyguards fought the militants who had seized a six-storey building in front of Parliament. The gunmen stopped firing at Parliament after a brief while after beiing engaged by security forces.

The United States embassy in Kabul was meanwhile in lockdown as explosions and gunfire rocked the capital. All staff were accounted for and safe, with no reports of injuries, spokesman Gavin Sundwall said. Taliban meanwhile said the wave of attacks marked the start of the rebels’ “spring offensive.”

According to Zabihullah Mujahed, the Taliban spokesman, the attacks were also a message to the Kabul government and its Western military backers “who believed we will not launch a spring offensive.”

“The Kabul administration and the invading forces had said some time ago that the Taliban will not be able to launch a spring offensive. Today’s attacks were the start of our spring offensive,” he was quoted as having said from an undisclosed location.

Meet Udasi Sahu revolutionizing Maternal Health for Poor

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 05:21 AM PDT

The frail and seemingly calm Udasi Sahu manages to conceal the excitement of her first plane journey. But the 42-year-old health worker can’t conceal the thrill of her job – trying to change the face of maternal health in conflict-torn districts of Odisha.

Spanning a journey across the boondocks of north Odisha’s landlocked Keonjhar district, Sahu’s 16 years of unflinching passion to work for womenfolk in the Maoist heartland has landed her the national award as one of the best auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) in India.

“I always wanted to do this…Almost two decades ago, right after my marriage, I told my husband about my wish to work for village women who were not aware and never cared to think of their own health,” Sahu, a Class 9 dropout, said in Odiya as her colleague translated it into English.

She travelled by an airplane for the first time to receive this award. A well-known face in the district, not even once has she thought of leaving her job or village due to harsh circumstances, thanks to her husband’s support.

Udasi conducts 50 to 60 deliveries a month while she maintains the track record of zero maternal mortality rate in Childa subcentre over the last five years.

“The villages we work in have been facing constant conflict. There have been several indirect attacks from time to time around the sub-centre where our staff gets injured, but that does not mean we will leave women and children unattended,” Sahu says.

In the rural healthcare system, an ANM is the key field level functionary who interacts directly with the community and has been the central focus of all the reproductive child health programmes. The ANM mans the sub-centre – the first contact point between the primary health care system and the community.

Sahu was awarded here at a two-day national consultation on safe motherhood April 11-12. The nominations received from 10 high-focus states were judged by a team led by the ministry of health and family welfare in collaboration with White Ribbon Alliance and other experts on board.

“Udasi has professionally handled many emergency and complicated cases on life-saving childbirths,” Aparajita Gogoi, national coordinator, White Ribbon Alliance India, told IANS.

A mother of two, Sahu has seen it all – being a birth attendant in villages amid confrontation between Maoists and security forces, helping women make an informed choice on family planning, immunisation of babies, nutrition programmes or running a health subcentre all by herself.

In forest fringe villages where institutional delivery was a distant dream, Sahu managed to take hospital care to the doorstep, even if she was called at midnight by any family.

Considered to be the pulse of the government’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), around 800,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and ANMs form the ground force of delivering health services in rural parts of the country.

With nearly 150,000 sub-centres across India, the number of ANMs at sub-centres and primary health centres increased from 130,000 in 2005 to 190,000 in 2009.

Inspite of the increase, the National Family Health Survey (2006) puts the picture clear on lack of skilled birth attendance: only 52 percent of women receive three antenatal contacts and 42 percent receive any postnatal care. There are districts with just one ANM per 500 population.

Unlike the ASHAs who receive a performance-based incentive, the ANMs are given a monthly pay. However, there are times when these health workers do not get salaries for months together, Sahu admits.

“My children are studying, so we sometimes take loans to run the family. Being an ANM or ASHA doesn’t come easy because there is a lot of running around and little pay,” she said.

Her colleague Jaykumari Dila, a 29-year old ASHA from the same district, took the job because the family was under heavy debt.

Dila, whose monthly earning ranges from Rs.400 to Rs.1,000, received the national award for one of the best ASHAs among the 10 high focus states.

“I know there is no money, but our job calls us ‘actvists’,” Dila, clad in her deep blue ASHA uniform, told IANS.

Sahu has even motivated her 22-year-old daughter to become an ANM. She is all set to fly back to her state where she is popularly known as “Udasi dai” and is seen carrying a cotton sling with medical kit over her shoulder.

Bihar CM Invites India Inc on backdrop of Bihar Diwas in Mumbai

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 04:48 AM PDT

Visiting Mumbai after settling of a controversy stoked by MNS leader Raj Thackeray, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today invited India Inc to invest in his state, touting the industrial policy announced by his government last year.

“The Chief Minister urged the industry captains to come and invest in Bihar as it offers a industry-friendly climate,” sources said after Kumar’s hour-long meeting with corporate honchos here. “The state offers tremendous business opportunities in sectors such as solar energy, education, healthcare etc,” Nitish Kumar told the industrialists.

The meeting was attended by Vedanta Group Chairman Anil Agarwal, Bharat Forge Group Chief Baba Kalyanai, ICICI Bank’s CMD Chanda Kochhar and Axis Bank’s chief Shikha Sharma among others.

Bihar government had last year announced a new industrial policy which focused on areas like power, food processing, agro-based industries, tourism, super speciality hospitals, IT, technical and higher education, electronics, hardware and non-conventional sources of energy. The policy provides for a subsidy grant of 50 per cent for setting up captive power plants and 60 per cent in case of non-conventional sources of energy.

The Industrial Policy 2011-2016 also provides a capital subsidy of about Rs 5 crore to those making less than Rs 500 crore of investments whereas Rs 30 crore would be given as capital subsidy to industrial units that invest Rs 500 crore or above.

Asia’s first dolphin research centre to come up in Bihar

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 04:40 AM PDT

Asia’s first dolphin research centre will come up in Bihar with an aim to strengthen conservation efforts to save the endangered mammal.Currently only about 2,000 Gangetic river dolphins left in India, down from tens of thousands just a few decades ago.

An official in the chief minister’s office said the Gangetic dolphin research centre would be set up in Patna, where dozens of dolphins can still be seen in the stretch of the river near the state capital.

The man behind the proposal is R.K. Sinha, an expert on Gangetic river dolphins and chairperson of the working group for dolphin conservation set up by the central government. He said the centre was suggested by the Planning Commission and subsequently received “in principle” approval by the state government.

“A final decision in this regard is likely soon,” said Sinha, popularly known as the dolphin man.

Gopal Sharma, a scientist with the Zoological Survey of India here, said the centre would carry out research activities on the dolphin and also conduct a census in rivers in Bihar.

The Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary, India’s only dolphin sanctuary, spread over 50 km along the Ganges, is located in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district.

The Gangetic river dolphin is India’s national aquatic animal but frequently falls prey to poachers. Their carcasses are found regularly on river banks.

The mammals are killed at an alarming rate with wildlife officials saying poachers kill them for their flesh and oil, which is used as an ointment and aphrodisiac.

Gangetic river dolphins fall under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act and have been declared an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Last year, the Bihar government decided to set up a task force for the conservation of endangered species.

The Gangetic river dolphin is one of the four freshwater dolphin species in the world. The other three are found in the Yangtze river in China, the Indus river in Pakistan and the Amazon river in South America.

The Gangetic river species – found in India, Bangladesh and Nepal – is blind and finds its way and prey in the river waters through ‘echoes’.

Internet giant Google fined for breach of Privacy

Posted: 16 Apr 2012 03:32 AM PDT

Internet Giant Google  has been fined $25,000 for impeding a U.S. investigation into the Web search leaders data collection for its Street View project, which allows users to see street level images when they map a location.

The Federal Communications Commission imposed the fine late on Friday, saying Google had collected personal information without permission and had then deliberately not cooperated with the FCCs investigation.

‘Google refused to identify any employees or produce any e-mails. The company could not supply compliant declarations without identifying employees it preferred not to identify,’ according to an FCC order dated April 13.

‘Misconduct of this nature threatens to compromise the commissions ability to effectively investigate possible violations of the Communications Act and the commissions rules.’ Google said in a statement said it turned over information to the agency and challenged the finding that it was uncooperative. ‘As the FCC notes in their report, we provided all the materials the regulators felt they needed to conclude their investigation and we were not found to have violated any laws,’ the company said in a statement.

‘We disagree with the FCCs characterization of our cooperation in their investigation and will be filing a response.’ Between May 2007 and May 2010, Google collected data from wi-fi networks throughout the United States and across the world as part of its Street View project, which gives users of Google Map and Google Earth the ability to view street-level images of structures and land adjacent to roads and highways.

But Google also collected passwords, Internet usage history and other sensitive personal data that was not needed for its location database project, the FCC said. Google publicly acknowledged in May 2010 that it had collected the so-called payload data, leading to an FCC investigation on whether it had violated the Communications Act
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