Jai Ho!

This exultation goes out for Bihar - the state where I spent the first 18 years of my life.
If Jug is a Hon. Bong, then I should be a Hon. Bihari - even though the town I grew up in is now part of Jharkhand. And whenever other fellow Indians have engaged in Bihar bashing - though I kept away from joining in the derision, I could not do much in defense either.
Things appear to be changing though. For quite some time there have been reports of economic progress. Also - we haven't heard of any caste related violence in a long time. Kidnappings in Patna - so common a couple of years back - seems to have reduced. At a recent lecture in Patna , Amartya Sen gave his prescription for the roadmap to progress.
A couple of weeks back , a colleague narrated the good experience he had in doing business with the state government officials. He had gone to Patna to get an office property registered. It seems the whole thing got done in a day. The concerned IAS officer himself calls up the sub registrar office to speed things up. The babus at the registry office ensure that the task is done ASAP with no speed money being asked for. Apparently a similar task in neighbouring WB has taken more than a year to accomplish.