Current GSDP growth statistics

As per data presented by Minister of State for Planning, Ashwani Kumar, in Parliament today, Bihar, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Gujarat have been doing well in terms of economic growth in the last three years. Some of these states exceed the national average for growth.

Gujarat recorded consistent increase in Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) from 6.8 percent in 2008-09 to 10.47 percent in 2010-11 and Bihar grew from 14.58 percent to 14.77 percent during the same period.

More details on Ashwani Kumar's discussion in parliament can be found in IBNlive's article "Bihar, UP among states that done well in last 3 yrs in growth"

25 small Hydel power plants for Bihar

From a long time all of us know that Bihar does not have much power generation capacity. And then many of us would have heard or read about Bihar not getting the coal linkages or the water linkages for generating power through proposed thermal power plants. These thermal plants are good as they will be able to produce hundreds and thousands of Mega Watts of power. However we have been just hearing about them in the last 3-4 years with work only starting on one or two of such plants.

So I am very happy when someone finally spoke of generating power by hydro electric means. After all we get a lot of excess water in some places of Bihar and then we have rivers which can be used for generating Hydro electric power. So the proposal of putting together 25 Hydel power plants which will produce a total capacity of 800MW came as good news to me. Even if the capacity per plant would be small, the chances of getting these power plants built and commissioned faster, are much higher and can happen more quickly as we do not have to depend on coal linkages.

One of such projects is the Dagmara Hydel Power Project over River Kosi which will generate 130 MWs of power. Atleast Kosi will do more than disrupting lives of people if this power plant gets approved and built.

More details can be found in the Times of India article "Bihar proposes to setup 25 Hydel power projects"

George Orwell

Millennium writer George Orwell's birth place at Motihari in East Champaran district , which was earlier declared as a "Protected" site, will now be converted into a full-fledged museum. George Orwell (Born Eric Arthur Blair) was born in a seven-acre campus which also housed an opium warehouse. His father worked for the opium department during the British rule.

George Orwell moved to England and went on to write last century's best dystopian novels 1984 and Animal Farm.  Hopefully the restoration work and conversion into a full fledged museum will attract more tourists to Bihar and Motihari in particular increasing the means of livelyhood for the people there.

More details can be found in the First Post article "George Orwell museum to come up in Bihar"

Hafeez Contractor's plan for developing a world city at Patna

Hafeez Contractor has submitted a proposal for developing a world class city, in lines of Dubai, alongside River Gang to the Bihar Chief Minister during his visit to the City on Tuesday (24th April).

He plans to develop a city spread over 1,700 acres that boasts of  eco-friendly buildings and water sports facilities. This would include residential , commercial and entertainment centers on 300 acres while 350 acres would be developed as green fields. There will also be a park on 600 acres.  The other facilities planned include a seven star hotel, malls, shopping centers, schools, hospitals, health clubs, meditation centers, art galleries, convention centers and sports centers.

Now why would anyone propose building a seven star hotel and other such facilities in Patna unless he or she was convinced that Patna  had reached a potential that people will start needing such facilities in the near term.

For those who do not know, Hafeez Contractor is one of the most renowned architects from India. Some of the key facilities that he has architected are

• Mumbai airport redesign
• Infosys complexes in Bangalore, Pune, Mysore, etc
• Russi Modi Center of Excellence in Jamshedpur
• TC Grand Central, Mumbai
• Hyatt Regency, Mumbai
• Birla Institute of Technology & Science

More details on the news can be found in the Times of India article "Hafeez Contractor plans Dubai-like 'New Patna" on Ganga"

"The D Labs" Wins national Microsoft Contest

This news is just a re-iteration that Biharis are intelligent, can do better and be the best given a chance and therefore I wanted to share it with everyone.

Microsoft is conducting a worldwide student competition called "Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012" for which a national level competition was conducted. About 50,000 students from across India participated in this competition and 4 students from Bihar , christened  "The D Labs" won this competition. The four students are Devesh, Kumar, Amit Kumar Sharma and Abhishek Kumar from BIT, Mesra (Patna campus) and Deepali Sinha from NIFT, Patna. The winners were announced by Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft in New Delhi.

The worldwide finals will be conducted in Sydney in July 2012.

The D Labs team has developed a software to enhance the learning abilities of school students suffering from dyslexia. The device records minute details about a child's activities and then creates solutions suited to the needs of the student, and orients games and exercises to address those needs.

I think its a well deserved win, as not only it is innovative but also focuses on an area that would help lots of people who will benefit from it.

More details can be found in the Times of India article "Patna students win national round of Microsoft contest"