Jitan Ram Manjhi, a close aide of Nitish Kumar and a Mahadalit leader was on Tuesday sworn in as new Bihar Chief Minister.

The 68-year-old JD(U) MLA was administered the oath of office by Governor DY Patil at a function at the Rajbhawan.

As many as 17 other ministers took oath along with the new Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi.

Jitan Ram Manjhi, a close confidant of Nitish Kumar was yesterday handpicked by the outgoing Bihar chief minister to be his successor.

Manjhi a JD(U) MLA from the Makhdumpur (SC) seat in Jehanabad district, lost the Lok Sabha polls from the Gaya (SC) seat and was third behind winner BJP’s Hari Manjhi and RJD’s Ramji Manjhi.

The Dalit leader had served as a minister in the previous Congress and RJD governments before joining the JD(U) in 2005.

His stint in the Bihar Assembly started in 1980 and he was elected six times so far and was the SC & ST, Backward Caste and Extremely Backward caste welfare minister in the Nitish regime.

He became minister for the first time in the Chandrasekhar Singh-led Congress government in 1980 and was also a minister in the Bindeshwari Dubey government.

In 1990, he joined the RJD and was made Human Resources Development minister.

Yesterday, after a crucial meeting of the JD(U)LP, the second since Sunday, the state party president said the legislators accepted Kumar’s decision to stick to his decision to resign with a heavy heart and authorised him to choose a new leader to head the JD(U) government.

It was decided, he said, that Kumar would continue to lead the party and coordinate between the party and the state government.

Singh said Sharad Yadav and JD(U) National General Secretary KC Tyagi were present at the meeting where he proposed the resolution accepting Kumar’s resignation and authorising him to choose a new leader.

“We have staked claim before Governor DY Patil to form the government under leadership of Jitan Ram Manjhi,” outgoing Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters outside Raj Bhawan.

He said, “We have handed over a list of support of 117 JD(U) MLAs, 2 Independents and 1 CPI member totalling 120 to the Governor for formation of the new government.”

Asked for the reason for choosing Manjhi as his successor, Kumar said “he is experienced and his contribution to the party is immense.”

The effective strength of the House at present is 239. JD(U) has 117 members, BJP 90, RJD 21, Congress 4 and others including Independents 1 CPI member 7.

The four-member Congress, which voted for the Nitish Kumar government in the trust motion in June last year has authorised party High Command to decide on the future course of action.

After Nitish Kumar, the BJP’s landslide win in Lok Sabha polls claimed new casualties in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday with 36 SP leaders having MoS status in the state government being sacked and BSP chief Mayawati scrapping all party units.

Stung by Samajwadi Party’s rout at the polls, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav gave marching orders to the 36 leaders who are holding various official positions in Minister of State(MoS) rank as part of political appointments. Yadav, however, ruled out his resignation.

SP sources said six leaders from the minority community were among those who got the axe. As the political fallout of the resouding BJP win in UP spread, the sources said some cabinet and state ministers may be also sacked.

Amid demands for his resignation, Akhilesh, however, indicated that he was in no mood to quit and said reasons behind SP’s poor show were being reviewed. He was speaking after presiding over the first state Cabinet meeting in the aftermath of the poll results.

Prominent among those who have been removed are Narendra Bhati and Surendra Mohan Agarwal, who lost in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Kanpur seats respectively, RLD turncoat Anuradha Chowdhury, traders’ body leader Sandeep Bansal, ex-Agra Mayor Anjula Mahaur, Surabhi Shukla, Ranjana Bajpai, KC Pandey, Kamlesh Pathak, Ashu Malik, Satish Dixit and Manoj Rai.

Those from the minority community included Anis Mansori, Mohammad Abbas, Iqbal Ali, Haji Iqram and Kamruddin, the sources added.

Raja Chaturvedi and Ram Singh Rana, former student leaders, were also sacked. The ruling party got five out of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, just two years after it got a spectacular mandate in the assembly elections and all the winners are from the Yadav family. SP had 23 MPs in the outgoing house.

BJP and its ally Apna Dal clinched 73 while Congress got two seats.

JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar resigned as Chief Minister last Saturday taking responsibility for the party’s rout in Bihar.

Mayawati, who reviewed the BSP’s performance with office bearers and leaders at a meeting at the party office here, dissolved all the assembly, district and state-level committees of the party, BSP sources said.

In a ‘met-on-Facebook’ love story gone horribly wrong, a 22-year-old youth shot dead a woman twice his age and then committed suicide after realising that she had cheated about her looks, age and marital status.

The accused Vineet Singh, hailing from Muzzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh befriended Jyoti Kori (44) on Facebook some two and half years ago.

Inspector General, Jabalpur Range, Upendra Jain said Jyoti never revealed that the photograph she had put up on the site was not hers, and that she was a married woman with three children.

On April 18, Vineet arrived in Jabalpur to meet her in person for the first time. The two went to Bhedhaghat on the banks of river Narmada near here, where after learning the truth he shot her dead and then shot himself.

He was taken to a hospital but succumbed to injuries after giving a statement to the police that he felt cheated by Jyoti. Police said the pistol he used too appears in some of his Facebook photographs, which Jyoti had ‘liked’.

Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is considering to hold a referendum to form government in Delhi, where they were wiped out in all seven seats in the recently concluded General Elections, several months after winning 28 seats in the assembly polls there.

Reports on Tuesday said that a large number of AAP leaders are in favour of holding a referendum to seek public sanction for forming government in the national capital. The AAP leaders are of view that holding a referendum will help the party understand the people’s mood and their expectations from them.

“We want people to advise us on what should we do next. We are discussing the possibility of holding public interactions during which we could ask them if they want a re-election in another six months or for AAP for form the government again,” said a senior member of the AAP’s political advisory committee (PAC) was quoted as saying.

The party had earlier conducted a people’s referendum in December last year to decide whether it should stake claim to form a minority government with Congress’ support in the national capital. With public opinion in its favour, AAP came to power and its convenor Arvind Kejriwal was appointed as the chief minister. Kejriwal, however, resigned within 49 days over his government’s failure to get the anti-corruption bill passed in the Delhi Assembly.

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, the party contested on 444 seats but could only win four seats, and that too, outside Delhi where it was completely wiped out in all seven seats.

Soon after the announcement of Lok Sabha results, its leaders admitted that their decision to quit government without taking the public into confidence in Delhi worked against them.

Now, standing at the crossroads and staring at an uncertain future, some senior AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, are not averse to the idea of coming back to power in the capital. There is a feeling within the party that Congress may also be in favour of supporting AAP as a re-election would mean that they could risk losing even the eight seats it won in the assembly elctions.

However, senior AAP leaders like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhusan have vehemently opposed the idea.

Officials of the Lokayukta raided the residence of R C Kuril — Joint Director (Industries) of the Madhya Pradesh government — on Tuesday morning in Bhopal.

Over half a dozen Lokayukta officials, including those of the rank of deputy superintendent of police, participated in the raid at Mr Kuril’s residence in Anna Nagar.

Simultaneous raids were also conducted at his residence in Jabalpur.

So far, the Lokayukta has found seven houses, three farmhouses, two shops, some vehicles, a plot in Jabalpur industrial area, Rs. 3.5 lakh and 1.5 lakh worth of jewellery among the assets allegedly owned by Mr Kuril.

Lokayukta officials said that the assets allegedly amassed by the joint director are worth Rs. five crore.

Lokayukta DSP SS Chauhan said, “If Kuril is found guilty, he faces a jail term of seven years.”

But Mr. Kuril claimed he was innocent.

“The wealth that I have amassed is from my hard earned money. I am a tax payer. I will resign from my post if I am proven guilty,” he said.

As Narendra Modi prepares to take charge as the next Prime Minister of India, an avoidable controversy is raging over the twitter handle PMOIndia. The managers of outgoing Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s official twitter handle PMOIndia have now renamed it as Dr Manmohan Singh @PMOIndiaArchive. Its bio/introduction says “Archival material under the RTI Act for @PMOIndia till 20/5/2014. @PMOIndia will be available shortly”.
The BJP which has returned to power under Narendra Modi is questioning the decision. According to a leading news agency ANI, the BJP said “Outgoing team PM Office has wrongly renamed Twitter handle of @PMOIndia against laws & accepted global norms of handover of digital assets”.
It argued that the post of the Prime Minister is permanent and nobody has exclusive right over what a Prime Minister does in his official capacity during his term in the office. Arvind Gupta,BJP IT Cell Head said,”In an unethical manner they renamed @PMOIndia accnt,should have archived the tweets & handed over the handle.”
BJP argues the post of the PM is permanent and nobody has exclusive right over what a PM does in his official capacity during his term in the office.
According to experts, the tweets of the PMOIndia twitter handle are India’s digital assets and it does not belong to outgoing Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
They demand that the outgoing team of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh must hand over the twitter handle to next Prime Minister Narendra Modi without archiving any of its contents or deleting it as alleged by some people.
Twitter is abuzz with tweets questioning, criticizing and ridiculing the decision. Some are even alleging that the team of outgoing Prime Minister is deleting a lot tweets and Direct Messages.
According to reports outgoing PM’s media advisor Pankaj Pachauri was handling the PMOIndia twitter handle. The outgoing team at the PMO has not given any reasons for changing the name of twitter handle and archiving its contents. He has tweeted, “An advisory- All our official communications are being archived according to the RTI Act. Copyrights and control remain with the office.”

Whether tourists or locals, no one is allowed to visit Boma mountains and anyone found flouting the rules is imposed with a fine of Rs 500.

Interestingly, the rules have been laid down not by the local administration, but by the Nelguda villagers.
These mountains that lie near Indravati river, approximately 26 kilometres away from Dantewada district headquarters, is pious and divine for the Nelguda villagers.

Locals here consider Boma mountains to be mother earth’s breasts and hence, believe that if anyone steps on it, it will be disrespectful towards goddess.

Their beliefs is based on the shape of the peak of Boma mountains. It resembles the shape of breasts and hence, people consider it to be mother earth’s breasts. It is pure and divine for them, and anyone found stepping on it is considered to be committing a sin.

“Because there is a ban on visiting these mountains for years, various kinds of herbs are found here, but they remain untouched. Many hunters and other villagers who climbed Boma in search of wood have been fined for the offence,” said Maniram Yadav, a Nelguda villager.