Cool Bihari: Small but significant steps

Last week a small article appeared in The Telegraph which talked about the contribution of Non Resident Biharis towards initiating new ventures in their native state.

It didn’t appear in many newspapers or repeatedly telecasted umpteen times on any of new channels as it didn’t go well with their idea of Bihar. Small but significant moves like these seldom get the attention it deserves.

Doubting Thomas may continue to wonder how significantly it is going to change things. But this surely marks a new beginning as traditionally we have continued to rely upon political leadership for support and driving social and economic change. These are no acts of charity but sustained and well planned efforts towards making fundamental changes in the area of Educational research, Tourism ,Science and technology and higher education in the state.

We have worked closely with some of the members on various Bihar related initiatives and it’s a great pleasure to see the efforts getting recognized and setting right examples for others to emulate.

NRB’s like Ramraj Pandey, Naveen Sharma, Bibhuti Bikramaditya and Ramesh Yadav have shown the passion and conviction to come forward and collaborate with the state machinery and private groups in setting out the new agenda of bright and promising Bihar.

Our Bihar based groups like One Bihar, Cool Bihari, Bihari Brains and many others groups have also been exemplifying this approach of collaboration and people with diverse professional and academic background have been working on various Bihar initiatives .Through these teams /groups our Non Resident Biharis have responded to the call of coming forward and giving back to their country and state. So ideas which appear herculean from periphery gets real shape and are put into implementation with the support of the large NRB community which contributes whole heartedly for these projects.

We have had few exemplary success in these collaborative effort and some of the projects have had profound impact. Be it a Global Scientific meet like scientific foresight or Multimedia Tourism project in Nalanda, Patna Rice or I am Bihar t-shirt project, Gauravshali Bihar book or flood relief effort, our friends and well wishers have always joined hands for all our projects. An encouraging aspect which comes out in all these efforts is that the common driving passion for one and all has been the interest of Bihar. So it’s not about what individuals get out of it, or who takes the credit for these efforts, as a team and well wishers everyone has come together.

In this journey so far we have made new friends everywhere, faced odds and converted it into great opportunities, some laughed at us ,while we were smiling :) as we could what we have set ourselves for and what we stand for ….yes we all dream of a better mankind, nation and an identity called Bihari.