■ Monthly Current Affairs
■ The Bihar Assembly passed the Bihar Special Armed Police Bill, 2021 amid protests by the Opposition.
This proposes to rename the Bihar Military Police (BMP) to Bihar Special Armed Police and grant it powers of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
The Act allows the Special Armed Police officers to carry out searches and arrests without a warrant. This is on par with CISF, which can arrest people, including on suspicion, “without any order from a magistrate and without a warrant”.
In case a Special Armed Police officer commits any offence under this Act, the court shall take cognizance of the offence only on receipt of a report and with the previous sanction of an officer authorized by the government. However if any State Armed Police Officer commits an offence under any other law such as IPC etc, there is no protection for him under this Act and action shall be taken against him as per law.
■ Bihar became the first state in India to have its own ethanol policy, called Ethanol Production Promotion Policy, 2021, which has been approved by the State Cabinet under the National Policy of Biofuels, 2018. This would allow investors to directly make ethanol from maize, molasses, broken rice and rotten grains.
•Bihar has been producing 12,000 crore litre ethanol per year and is the fifth- highest ethanol-producing state in the country.
■ Nawada in Bihar has topped the list of aspirational districts ranked by government think tank NITI Aayog in January.
■ Disney+ Hotstar is set to release 1232 KMS, a film that will showcase the aftermath of the lockdown. The film will narrate the journey of seven migrant workers who decided to return to their village in Saharsa, Bihar, 1232 kilometres away from their location in Delhi.
■ Manoj Bajpayee and Dhanush won the Best Actor Award for their films Bhonsle and Asuran, respectively while Kangana Ranaut won the National Award in the Best Actress category for her films Panga and Manikarnika.
■ As part of Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor (AKIC), the State Government of Bihar has identified a site at Gamhariya, Dobhi block, Gaya district for the establishment of Integrated Manufacturing Cluster (IMC).
■ State's first Portable Anganwadi Center is built in Fakuli (Muzaffarpur). This can work in rain and floods and can be easily shifted from one place to another.
■ According to the India Justice Report 2020, one in 4 cops in Bihar is a woman, which is the highest among states. At 25.3 per cent, Bihar leads the list of 25 states for employing most women in its police force.
The overall ranking of Bihar among large and mid-sized states is 13 with a score of 4.65.
India Justice Report is published by Tata Trusts and rank States on Police, Judiciary, Prisons and Legal Aid.
■ Bihar recorded a 10.5% growth rate in 2019-20, which was better than the national average.
■ Bihar provided electricity to every household, taking the power supply to 5,900 MW in the year.
■ Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation has once again got the status of state party in Bihar after about 11 years. It won 12 seats out of total 243 L.A seats.
A party is recognised as State Political Party if it fulfils any of the following conditions:
(i) 6% votes polled+ seats (1 L.S / 2 L.A);or
(ii) 8% votes polled;or
(iii) 3% of total number of seats in L.A/ 3 seats in L.A, whichever is higher; or
(iv) At least 1 seat in L.S for every 25 seats or any fraction thereof allotted to the state at a general election to the Lok Sabha from the State concerned.
CPI (ML) won 12 seats out of total 243 L.A seats. Therefore, according to the above third condition which is based on seat-share, it secured more than 7 seats.
■ On the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission (FC) (2021-26) local bodies in Bihar (Urban and Panchayati Raj Institutions) will get ₹35,577 crore compared to ₹ 21,143 crore from the 14th FC (2015-20).
■ For the first time, the Finance Commission has made a provision of ₹ 6,017 crore for the health sector, which will be spent through the local bodies. These include ₹ 5,033 crore in rural areas and in ₹ 984 crore in urban areas.
■ Share of Bihar in the center's taxes has been increased in the 15th FC. Bihar's share in divisible pool ( which consists of all taxes, except surcharges, cess levied for specific purpose and cost of collection) is 10.06% which was 9.67% in the 14 FC.
■ The Bihar Vidhan Sabha building turned 100 years old. It was formally inaugurated on February 7th, 1921 by Satyendra Prasanna Sinha, the first Governor of the erstwhile Bihar and Orissa province.
■ 149 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) of Bihar to become Center of Excellence, for which State Government has collaborated with Tata Technologies (a subsidiary of Tata Motors). In the first phase, 60 government-owned ITIs will be upgraded at a cost of ₹ 2,188 Crore. The work of upgrading 60 ITIs under Industry 4.0 will begin from 1st April 2021 and will be completed latest by March 31,2022.
■ Eminent jurist and former Governor of Bihar (19th) and Jharkhand (2nd), Justice (Retd) M Rama Jois, passed away.
■ Leading social scientist, political economist and founder of Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) Shaibal Gupta died after a prolonged illness.
■ Former principal of PMCH and renowned dermatologist Dr Amarkant Jha of Patna passed away.
■ Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy is associated with the domestic Twenty20 cricket championship in India.
■ Galwan martyr Colonel Bikumalla Santosh Babu was posthumously awarded Maha Vir Chakra on the 72nd Republic Day. Col Babu, the commanding officer of the 16 Bihar regiment, was among 20 Indian soldiers who laid down their lives in the fierce hand-to-hand combat on June 15 in the Galwan Valley.
• Nb Sub Nuduram Soren and Nk Deepak Singh of 16 Bihar regiment were posthumously awarded Vir Chakra.
- Bihar Regiment was established on 15th September 1941. The Bihar Regimental Centre is located at Danapur Cantonment, Patna and is the second oldest cantonment of India. Its motto is Karam Hi Dharam.
■Former Union Minister Shri Ram Vilas Paswan was awarded Padma Bhushan posthumously.
■ Four people from Bihar
- Ms. Dulari Devi in Art
- Shri Ramachandra Manjhi in Art
- Dr Dilip Kumar Singh in Medicine
- Ms. Mridula Sinha (Posthumous) in Literature and Education
were conferred with Padma Shri Award in 2021.
• Ramchandra Manjhi has recently been conferred with the Life Time Achievement in Theater Award by the Department of Art, Culture and Youth, Government of Bihar. He has worked in a documentary film on Launda Naach named "Naach Bhikhari Naach" by dressing up as a woman to perform the songs and plays of Bhikhari Thakur. Born in village Tujarpur in Saran district, he was also awarded Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2017.
• Dulari Devi from Ranti village in Madhubani district is famous for Madhubani Art ( Mithila Art). She also teaches Madhubani paintings and practices both, the ‘Kachnhi' (line sketching) and ‘Bharni’ (coloured) styles of Madhubani.
• Dilip Kumar Singh, a 92-year-old Physician from Bhagalpur has been awarded Padma Shri in the field of Medicine this year. He has devoted his life to the health of the poor for over seven decades.
• Mridula Sinha was an Indian writer and politician born in village Chhapra Dharampur Yadu in Muzaffarpur district. She has been awarded the Padma Shri posthumously in the field of Literature and Education. Sinha started her political journey from Muzaffarpur as an active worker of Jan Sangh. Later she was nominated as the national president of the BJP Mahila Morcha. She was the first woman Governor of Goa and breathed her last in New Delhi on November 18 2020.
■ Recently, Anand Kumar from Bihar has been conferred with Mahavir Award. He is known for running the Super 30 programme for the last 18 years in Patna to mentor 30 students free of cost through coaching for India’s premier IIT-JEE.
■ Mohankrishna Bohara will be awarded the 30th Bihari Puraskar Award for his
critical work ‘Taslima:
Sangharsh aur Sahitya’, The Bihari Puraskar is one of the three
literary awards instituted by the KK Birla Foundation in 1991.
■ Bihar govt plans Didi Ki Rasoi (DKR) canteens in all district hospitals of Bihar. This project was first started at Vaishali district hospital. DKR is run by women SHGs popularly known by the name of Jeevika didis along with the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS).
■ Bihar’s score in the NITI Aayog’s India Innovation Index 2020 is 14.48. Bihar was ranked the last while Karnataka topped among major states with a score of 42.5.
■A National Skill Institute will open in Darbhanga, Bihar. This will be the first National Institute of Skill Development where both boys and girls will be able to receive training.
■CM Nitish Kumar inaugurates Bihar's first state bird festival 'Kalrav' at Jamui district's Nagi bird sanctuary. Spread in an area of 2.1 square kilometres, Nagi bird sanctuary is home to over 133 bird species.
■ CM Nitish Kumar has been felicitated by the World Book of Records, London for being Chief Minister of Bihar for 04 terms with Matchless Contribution in Politics to Strengthen Democratic Values.
■ CM Nitish Kumar expanded the Cabinet by inducting 17 new ministers.(Click here to know more)
■ Bihar will publish the Gazetteer Cum Atlas of Water Bodies of Bihar under the State Government's Jal Jiwan Hariyali programme. It will be the first state in the country to publish water bodies as gazetteers. This will cover all water bodies located in the 38 districts, their historical and socio-cultural perspective, information related to available natural resources and local administration.
■Panchayats with a population of less than 3000 in Bihar will cease to exist. It will be determined on the basis of the 1991 census.
■Recently two burnt clay sealings were discovered from the hilltop known as Lal Pahari in Lakhisarai. The inscription on the sealings are written in Sanskrit and the script is Siddhamātṛkā dating around the 8th-9th century.
Researchers say the discovery is evidence of the fact that the excavated area atop the red-soiled hill was a Buddhist monastery of the early medieval period. The geographical location of the site also makes it the first such hilltop monastery in the entire Gangetic valley. Artefacts extracted from the site also substantiate a nearly 140-year-old clue that the monastery was run by a woman monk named Vijayshree Bhadra.
The excavation at Lal Pahari is yet another clue found in recent years as part of a larger effort by researchers and government officials to resurrect a long-forgotten, prosperous city called Krimila, which has been identified in and around the present-day town of Lakhisarai in Bihar.
The ancient city of Krimila is said to be a religious-cum-administrative centre in eastern India during the early medieval period.
■ Global Learning Center 'Nalanda Institute of Dalai Lama' is being established at Bodh Gaya, Bihar.
■ Khagaria district became the first corona-free district of Bihar in the last week of January 2021.
■ Ranju Kumari from Siwan who has done outstanding work in the field of service to humanity has been selected for the Florence Nightingale Award for the year 2020 by the Indian Nursing Council.
■ Facing a high drop-out rate, Bihar will track each student till UG level. The Education Department has identified four points where children tend to drop out from school which are after Class 5 and Class 8, when a student has to change from primary to secondary and from secondary to higher secondary classes, respectively; as well as after the Class 10 and Class 12 boards.
At present, Bihar has about 78,000 schools for Class 1 to Class 12, with a total enrollment of 2.5 crore students.
■ Shri Ramawatar Sharma has been appointed as the new Accountant General of Bihar.
■ Shri Akhilesh Kumar Jain becomes chairman of the Bihar Religious Trust Board.
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