The post office in Bihar's Siwan district HQ remained the richest post office for the third consecutive year, receiving the highest number of 35,600 international money orders via western union between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011. Gopalganj was a poor second, receiving 24,800 international money orders while Motihari with 21,000 and Darbhanga with 20,000 international money orders via western union remained at the third and fourth positions respectively. Patna...

While mass predilections in Bihar are still veering towards the male child, the Nitish Kumar government will be pleased with the provisional Census 2011 data for the State, which has indicated a 20 per cent jump in the State's female literacy rate. As per the report, literacy rates for women in Bihar have soared from 33.12 per cent in 2001 to 53.33 per cent this census year. The State's overall literacy rate...

The Bihar government has launched an "organic farming promotion programme" for the cultivation of organic crops in all the districts of the state. The government has decided to develop 38 "organic grams (organic villages)" for which a sum of Rs 255 crore has been sanctioned for five years. Some of these villages are: Dahour (Patna), Sartha (Nalanda), Belsand (Gopalganj), Gaighat Jaata (Muzaffarpur), Rajapaakar (Vaishali) and Narpatganj (Araria). This programme is being run...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Thursday said that the kharif production at 114.63 million tonnes for 2010-11 crop year was “comfortable.” “The output is better than last year which was a drought year, but lower than 2008-09, which was a normal year.” “The kharif production looks good. Area under crops such as paddy, pulses, cotton and sugarcane is more than last year,'' he told journalists after the Agriculture Ministry released the...

Union minister for rural development CP Joshi on Monday turned the table on the Nitish Kumar led-NDA government, saying that the state government had failed to bring into play good governance in the implementation of centrally-sponsored schemes, which resulted in the poor performance of the present dispensation. Joshi, who on Sunday had first hand experience of the implementation of village road construction under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act...