The investment climate in Bihar is continously improving and last few days has some multiple new projects being planned in Bihar.

These investment measures will surely bring new opportunities of employment and improve Bihar's overall economy.

After IIT, it is the IIM, which is all set to make a debut in Bihar. The state government has set in motion the process to open a B-school after its success in securing the arrival of some top-class institutions, like the IIT, National Law School University and National Institute of Fashion Designing, in Bihar.

The late principal secretary of the human resource development department, Madan Mohan Jha, had finalised all the modalities of opening the institute through a series of meetings with IIM, Ahmedabad, director B.H. Dholakia. Jha, who died on Friday, has also left behind a detailed project report (DPR) and the bylaws of the B-school in the offing.

Anjani Kumar Singh, who has replaced Jha as the department’s new secretary, said the new business would begin functioning from the next academic year. “We have all the groundwork ready,” he said. Sources in the department said that the government had already decided to appoint V. Mukund Das, a former professor of IIM-A, as the first director of its proposed school of management.

In fact, Das, at present working as the dean of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kozhikode, has also been working on the new project for Bihar. He, along with Piyush Sinha, a professor at IIM-A, got the DPR of the proposed institute prepared in consultation with Jha.

The proposed B-school will start with 50 students at the outset and the admission would be through CAT. Singh said the government had already procured the approval of taking admission in its upcoming B-school through CAT. Apart from the six IIMs, around 70 other B-schools take students based on CAT score.

Initially, the institute will function at the Hindi Bhavan adjacent to the All India Radio office here. Later, it will be shifted to a venue that the government would “exclusively” build for it.

The law university, too, is at present functioning at the AN Sinha Institute here. But the government has already allotted land for it in Mithapur on which the new building for the university is under construction. The government has also allotted 500 acres for the proposed IIT at Bihata on the outskirts of Patna.

Bihar is renowned for its great historical legacy and rich cultural heritage. This great land of Ashoka and Buddha has been the motherland of some great legends of human civilization. To recognize these great legends and pay a small tribute to our motherland we came out with a book titled “Gauravshali Bihar” last year .You can read about the launch of this book here.

One Bihar team has decided to make this book free for circulation and now the book is available for free circulation in the e-book version. Please click here to download the free to circulate version. Do pass it to your friends and colleagues who are interested in reading about the legends of this great land which is know as the soul of India.

We will also be publishing the English version of this book shortly and it will be available for sale in the next few months. Thanks for reading and don't forget to give your valuable feedback and suggestion.

Positive efforts are being made to brand Bihar as a social and cultural hub.To project Bihar’s rich cultural heritage in the international market and attract foreign tourists, the state government has decided to clinch a deal offered by Air India (AI) to brand one of its aircrafts, a Boeing 747, ‘Bihar’. The deal will cost the state Rs 40 lakh a year, but the government feels it is worth the cost. It will soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Air India.

Explaining the salient features of the deal, Anjani Kumar Singh, principal secretary, department of tourism, said Air India had made them an offer to inscribe ‘Bihar’, apart from its own insignia, on one of its soon-to-be-acquired aircrafts. Besides, the interior of the aircraft will have four different posters on heritage sites in Bihar. The airline will also run a 8-10 minute film and a 15-minute commentary on Bihar and its tourist destinations.

As part of this package, a four-page glossy pamphlet on Bihar and its ancient glory will be kept in the flap of each and every seat of the aircraft. The state government can change the in-flight posters every three months to avoid monotony. It has already prepared the film and audio commentary to be shown on board the aircraft and sent it to AI authorities, Singh said.

At the same time, the state is leaving no stone unturned to woo tourists from Buddhist countries, particularly Japan. Bihar’s tourism minister Nand Kishor Yadav and Anjani Kumar will soon go to Tokyo to participate in a world travel fare. The Indian ministry of tourism will organise a road show and a seminar with FICCI on the sidelines of the fare to showcase its tourism products to tour operators in Japan. Bihar wants to use the opportunity for aggressive marketing of its ‘Buddhist circuit’ in Tokyo, said Anjani Kumar.

“We have prepared a 30-minute documentary in Japanese for the occasion. Twenty-five minutes of the documentary have been dedicated to Buddhist sites,” he said.

Bihar is currently playing host to a group of hundred Buddhist followers from five Southeast Asian countries in a bid to promote Buddhist sites as tourist destinations.

"This delegation (ministers, officials and leaders of religious bodies) which has come from the five nations, are all believers of Buddhism. We are showing them around and we hope that when they return to their countries, they would promote the places of Buddhism in Bihar. We hope that the number of tourists would increase," said Anjani Kumar Sinha, Secretary of Tourism Department.

The delegation visited the Patna Museum, which houses some rare Buddhist antiques."As I am a Buddhist and all are Buddhists, we are proud that we have visited the land of Buddha. We are very pleased," said Nabhaspor Bhutto Richal, Councillor, Ministry of External Affairs, Thailand.The visit, part of the Mekong-Ganga project, has been initiated by the Indian Government to promote Buddhist heritage sites in the country.

Interesting article by A V S Rao in Deccan Herald on the finest monuments built by Sher Shah Suri at Sasaram, located in Bhojpur district of Bihar.

Sasaram is a small town in Bhojpur district of Bihar and is well-known for its group of beautiful mausoleums built during the time of Sher Shah Suri, who ruled Delhi from 1540 to 1545 AD. There are three magnificent structures of the Sur dynasty and one, a memorial to the architect who built them.

However, it is strange that the finest monuments built by Sher Shah are at Sasaram, a place he loved most, though it was far away from his capital. He desired to ensure that the mausoleums of the Sur family should be the finest in style.

He procured the services of Ali Wal Khan, an experienced master builder and a trained architect in Imperial tradition. The fine mausoleum built for Sher Shah at Sasaram, during his lifetime itself, is considered a class apart. It is one of the grandest and most imaginable architectural conceptions in the whole of India.This mausoleum is about 76 metres wide, producing immense pyramidal layers of orderly laid masonry in five different stages, rising to a height of about 46 metres.

The monument is constructed out of the best red sand stone procured from the historic quarries of Chunar situated very near Sasaram. Finely dressed large blocks are laid with good joints.

Although the structure was built for the solemn purpose, it was intended to convey the grand impression of its massiveness and beautiful ornamentation. Even to this day, one can see the remains of glazed and painted decorations on the exterior walls. The composition of this mausoleum is unique and unrivalled in setting as the entire structure has been built in the centre of a vast lake.

To know more about the famous tourist places around this place click here.

The gloom and agony of floods and the disturbing incident in Bhagalpur has been grabbing most of the media attention. Amidst all this, the state has taken a positive step ahead by becoming perhaps the first in the country to go for virtual classroom in its varsities. College and university students of Bihar had an interaction with Chancellor RS Gavai at Rajbhawan through video-conferencing. This has also heralded the concept of virtual classrooms in the state.

At a meeting of the vice chancellors of all the universities in the state at Rajbhawan held here under the chairmanship of Chancellor Gavai, the students of Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University asked several questions to the chancellor and got satisfactory replies to their queries from him. They interacted with the chancellor through video-conferencing facilitated by National Informatics Centres at Bhagalpur and Munger.

It was later decided at the meeting that each university would develop its video-conferencing system within the next two months. Subsequently, all the colleges would have their own video-conferencing system linking them with each other and also with the institutions of other universities. Thus, students would be able to attend the lectures delivered by teachers of any institution through video-conferencing.

It was further decided that the examinations and libraries of all the universities would be fully computerized within the next months with the help of NIC, which would act as the nodal agency. NIC would provide the necessary software and trained manpower to the universities for the automation work. NIC would also help the universities in developing their websites.

This will be definitely be the most momentous occasion for the students and the teaching community in Bihar, in the last few decades our institutions have been floundering due to lack of access to quality research. If the plan to connect the classes and libraries to the virtual networks works out as desired I’m sure this will be a big boon for the talented and meritorious students in Bihar. This move will help in controlling the migration of students from Bihar to other states and help in improving the academic environment of the varsities.