Congress Jamtara MLA and the party’s working president Irfan Ansari met the party’s Jharkhand in-charge RPN Singh in Delhi on Thursday. Ansari is learnt to have told Singh that inducting a person like expelled JVM MLA Pradeep Yadav, who faces sexual assault charges, would ruin the Congress. Singh is learnt to have expressed his displeasure over Ansari raking up the controversy in public.
Contractors
The state government on Wednesday partially lifted the ban on payment against civic construction works across the state after a gap of two months. Pending payment up to Rs 1 crore will be cleared. The ban on mobilisation (advance) payment against contracts will continue. Payments worth around Rs 2,000 crore were pending when the state government imposed the ban in December citing an empty treasury, and to probe anomalies by the previous government.
Officer shuffle
The state government on Thursday appointed Ajay Nath Jha as special secretary of the ST SC, OBC and minority welfare department. Satish Chandra Chaudhary will be the new joint director-cum-joint secretary of the State Development Council and Shrikant Kishore Mishra will be the new urban development department joint secretary.
Blood donation
Steel city resident and Tata Steel employee S.K. Jha on Thursday donated blood for 152nd time in his life to commemorate 152 years of Tata Group.
Water mission
Tata Steel hosted the two-day visit of 13 delegates from CII’s Water Mission at its Jamshedpur plant on February 19 and 20. The objective of the mission is to provide an opportunity for industry members to gain insights into facets of holistic water and waste water management and learn and adopt the best practices. The two-day visit concluded with master classes on subjects like strategies to reduce specific water consumption, and innovative technologies for waste water management.
Honour for school
Kerala Samajam Model School (KSMS) has bagged the Samagra Shiksha Empowering India Award that recognise the contribution of private schools in providing quality education to economically weaker sections. CISCE-affiliated KSMS was one of the 12 schools from across the country and the only one from Jharkhand to be awarded. Principal Nandini Shukla and KSMS chairman K.P.G. Nair received the trophy from Union human resource development minister in New Delhi on Wednesday. “It's like a pat for the work we have done from the early ’90s,” said Shukla. The school has around 350 underprivileged kids who receive fee concessions.
Youth fasts over marks
A third semester student of Jamshedpur Worker’s College, Kameshwar Prasad, started a hunger strike on Thursday demanding transparency in the internal marking system of semester exams.
Kameshwar, a third semester student of BA honours (2018-21), started his hunger strike alleging his internal marks in first semester’s history paper were fudged.
Timber haul
A team of forest officials, police and paramilitary personnel seized wooden logs worth over Rs 25 lakh from Saranda forest in West Singhbhum district, about 180 km from Jamshedpur, on Wednesday.
The joint raid by the forest department, police and CRPF was conducted in the Naxalite-infested dense sal reserve after a long time.
Students lock gates
Classes remained suspended at Mandar College on Thursday, as students locked the institution gate to mount pressure on Ranchi University seeking fulfilment of their 17-point charter of demands.
