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Mid Day (stylised as MiD DAY) is an afternoon daily Indian compact newspaper. Editions in various languages are published in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Pune (launched on 18 August 2008).

Establishment[link]

It was established in Mumbai in 1979 as a family-owned newspaper. A Sunday edition, Sunday MiD DAY, began in 1981.

Ownership[link]

The newspaper is owned by Mid Day Infomedia Limited, a subsidiary of Jagran Prakashan Limited, a publishing house listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India.

Sections[link]

The Magazine deals with the following sections:

• National/International news
• Lifestyle
• Sex and relationships
• Food and Health
• Travel

and others sections such as puzzles and games aiming to make work fun

The Newspaper by its own admission considers the content ^[1] light-hearted, easy-read, entertaining and mischievous aiming to make work fun].

Operations[link]

It publishes newspapers in three languages – English, Gujarati and an Urdu newspaper, The Inquilab. The Inquilab, the first paper of the group in Urdu, was born in the fervour of idealistic nationalism in 1938.

The Mumbai newspaper publishes two editions: an early-morning and a noon edition. However, since April 2009, only noon editions have been published and the company has dropped printing a morning newspaper, citing positioning issues. Its slogan is "Make Work Fun".^{[citation needed]} It has added a recent supplement ^[2]

^[3]

The Parent company JPL( Jagran Prakashan ) decided to close the Delhi and Bengaluru edition for the tabloid it acquired in May 2010. The reason for the pull out was stated as Escalating break even prices and rising competition, the management now wants to focus on strengthening the Mumbai and Pune additions of the tabloid.

Marketing Activity[link]

Mid Day's Marketing campaigns are considered to be effective. The MiD DAY’s Bollywood Lunch Contest "MiD DAY’s Bollywood Lunch Contest" won at the IFRA award 2008 and at the Asia Multimedia Publishing Media Awards 2009.

It is a contest driven promotion in which the winning person/reader and the entire office of the same gets to meet a star over a lunch date.

The magazine management has defined a specific target audience for its daily. They terms it as the YUMPI - Young Urban Mobile Professionals across India. Thus the games, puzzles and fun elements of the daily are aimed at creating a connect with the YUMPI.

Zing! - The latest section is a section that talks about "style at work". This section is also another such endeavor to connect with the YUMPIs of the cities the daily is in circulation.

Journalists jailed for reports on chief justice[link]

On September 20, 2007, four journalists of Mid Day, including Resident Editor Vitusha Oberoi and City Editor MK Tayal, were sentenced to four months jail on contempt of court charges,^[4] because of a report they had filed on the ex-Chief Justice of India, Y. K. Sabharwal. Whether the charges in the report were true or not was not considered in arriving at the decision.

Many in the legal community feel that in the 2006 Delhi sealing drive, Justice Sabharwal may have had a conflict of interest since his sons own a firm with relations to the Delhi real estate. Former Solicitor General KK Sud had called this behaviour "the height of indiscretion."^[5]

The High Court, however, sentenced the journalists without considering the veracity of the reports, and this led to considerable controversy.^[6] Ex-law minister Shanti Bhushan stated that the Parliament had in 2006 amended the Contempt of Courts Act to say that "if the allegations against a judge were found to be true, then they would not be considered contemptuous." In view of this, the judgment, he said, may be "only aimed at terrifying the media and an attempt to curb truthfulness."^[6]

Awards and other Achievements[link]

• Asia Multimedia Publishing Media Awards 2009 ^[7]
• INMA AWARDS 2008 at California - USAINMA AWARDS 2009 - Miami - USA
• AmsterdamIFRA AWARDS WOW Awards 2008

Senior staff[link]

Jyotirmoy Dey, the Special Investigations Editor of Mid Day was shot dead on 11 June 2011 in Mumbai by unknown assailants.^[8]

See also[link]

	Bangalore portal
	Delhi portal
	India portal
	Journalism portal
	Mumbai portal

• List of newspapers in India

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Corporate website

MID or Mid may refer to:

Computers and electronics[link]

• MapInfo Interchange Format; .mid is also sometimes used as the filename extension for some MapInfo files
• Media Identification Code (MID code), a code indicating the manufacturer of a DVD
• Mobile Internet device, a category of mobile computer
• Molded Interconnect Device, an injection molded thermoplastic part with integrated electronic circuit traces
• Multiple interface declaration, a construct in some computer programming languages
• Musical Instrument Digital Interface: .mid is sometimes used as an alternate filename extension for MIDI files

Medicine and biology[link]

• Multi-infarct dementia, a disease also known as vascular dementia
• Monocyte, a type of white blood cell in the innate immune system of vertebrates

Military[link]

• Maritime identification digits, a 3-digit code identifying the country of a ship/coastal station using communication equipment.
• Mentioned in Despatches, a military award for gallantry or otherwise commendable service
• Militarized Interstate Disputes, conflicts between states that do not involve full-scale wars
• Military Intelligence Division, a former military intelligence branch of the United States Army

Other[link]

• Integration and Development Movement (MID), a political party in Argentina
• Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport, with IATA airport code MID
• Measuring Instruments Directive
• Mid vowel
• Midfielder, a position in association football (soccer)
• Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for which MID is a colloquial term

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Water, Rabbit, and Deer: three of the 20 day symbols in the Aztec calendar, from the Aztec calendar stone.

A day is a unit of time, commonly defined as an interval equal to 24 hours.^[1] It also can mean that portion of the full day during which a location is illuminated by the light of the sun, also known as daytime. The period of time measured from local noon to the following local noon is called a solar day.^[2][3]

Several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. In 1967, the second was redefined in terms of the wavelength of light, and it became the SI base unit of time. The unit of measurement for time called "day", redefined in 1967 as 86,400 SI seconds and symbolized d, is not an SI unit, but it is accepted for use with SI.^[1] A civil day is usually also 86,400 seconds, plus or minus a possible leap second in Coordinated Universal Time UTC, and, in some locations, occasionally plus or minus an hour when changing from or to daylight saving time. The word day may also refer to a day of the week or to a calendar date, as in answer to the question "On which day?" Day also refers to the part of the day that is not night — also known as 'daytime'. The life patterns of humans and many other species are related to Earth's solar day and the cycle of day and night (see circadian rhythms).

The average length of a solar day on Earth is about 86,400 seconds (24 hours) and there are about 365.2422 solar days in one mean tropical year. Because celestial orbits are not perfectly circular, and thus objects travel at different speeds at various positions in their orbit, a solar day is not the same length of time throughout the orbital year. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one entire rotation^[4] with respect to the celestial background or a distant star (assumed to be fixed), is called stellar day. This period of rotation is about 4 minutes less than 24 hours and there are about 366.2422 in one mean tropical year (one more stellar day than the number of solar days). Mainly due to tidal effects, the Earth's rotational period is not constant, resulting in further minor variations for both solar days and stellar 'days'. Other planets and moons also have stellar and solar days.

Introduction[link]

Dagr, the Norse god of the day, rides his horse in this 19th-century painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

Besides the day of 24 hours (86,400 seconds), the word day is used for several different spans of time based on the rotation of the Earth around its axis. An important one is the solar day, defined as the time it takes for the sun to return to the zenith (its highest point in the sky). Because the Earth orbits the Sun elliptically as the Earth spins on an inclined axis, this period can be up to 7.9 seconds more than (or less than) 24 hours. On average over the year this day is equivalent to 24 hours (86,400 seconds).

A day, in the sense of daytime that is distinguished from night-time, is commonly defined as the period during which sunlight directly reaches the ground, assuming that there are no local obstacles. The length of daytime averages slightly more than half of the 24-hour day. Two effects make daytime on average longer than nights. The Sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 minutes of arc. Additionally, the atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon by about 34 minutes of arc. So the first light reaches the ground when the centre of the Sun is still below the horizon by about 50 minutes of arc. The difference in time depends on the angle at which the Sun rises and sets (itself a function of latitude), but can amount to around seven minutes.

Ancient custom has a new day start at either the rising or setting of the Sun on the local horizon (Italian reckoning, for example) The exact moment of, and the interval between, two sunrises or two sunsets depends on the geographical position (longitude as well as latitude), and the time of year. This is the time as indicated by ancient hemispherical sundials.

A more constant day can be defined by the Sun passing through the local meridian, which happens at local noon (upper culmination) or midnight (lower culmination). The exact moment is dependent on the geographical longitude, and to a lesser extent on the time of the year. The length of such a day is nearly constant (24 hours ± 30 seconds). This is the time as indicated by modern sundials.

A further improvement defines a fictitious mean Sun that moves with constant speed along the celestial equator; the speed is the same as the average speed of the real Sun, but this removes the variation over a year as the Earth moves along its orbit around the Sun (due to both its velocity and its axial tilt).

The Earth's day has increased in length over time. This phenomenon is due to tides raised by the Moon which slow Earth's rotation. Because of the way the second is defined, the mean length of a day is now about 86,400.002 seconds, and is increasing by about 1.7 milliseconds per day every century ( an average over the last 2,700 years. See tidal acceleration for details. The length of one day has been estimated as 21.9 hours 620 million years ago from rhythmites (alternating layers in sandstone). The length of day for the Earth or Proto-Earth before the event which created our moon by an impact is yet unknown.

Etymology[link]

The term comes from the Old English dæg, with its cognates such as Tag in German, and dag in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Dutch. "Day" is the 98th most common word in English according to AskOxford.com.^{[citation needed]}

International System of Units (SI)[link]

A day, symbol d, is defined as 86,400 seconds. The second is the unit of time in SI units.

A day on the UTC time scale can include a negative or positive leap second, and can therefore have a length of 86,399 or 86,401 seconds.

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) currently defines a second as

… the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.^[5]

This makes the SI-based day last exactly 794,243,384,928,000 of those periods.

Decimal and metric time[link]

In the 19th century it had also been suggested to make a decimal fraction (¹⁄_10,000 or ¹⁄_100,000) of an astronomic day the base unit of time. This was an afterglow of decimal time and calendar, which had been given up already for its difficulty to comply with familiar units. The still most successful candidate is the centiday = 14.4 minutes, as a shorter quarter of an hour and also close to the SI target kilosecond and old Chinese ke.

Astronomy[link]

A day of exactly 86,400 SI seconds is the astronomical unit of time (the second is not preferred in astronomy).^[6]

For a given planet, there are three types of day defined in astronomy:

• stellar day - an entire rotation of a planet with respect to the distant stars
• sidereal day - a single rotation of a planet with respect to the vernal equinox
• mean solar day - average time of a single rotation of a planet with respect to the sun as the central star

For Earth, the stellar day and the sidereal day are nearly of the same length and about 3 minutes 56 seconds shorter than the solar day. Relative to the fixed stars, the Earth spins just over 366 times upon its axis during one complete orbit. The Earth's orbit around the Sun reduces (by one) the number of transits the Sun makes across the Earth's sky in a sidereal year.

Colloquial[link]

The word refers to various relatedly defined ideas, including the following:

• 24 hours (exactly)
• the period of light when the Sun is above the local horizon (that is, the time period from sunrise to sunset);
• the full day covering a dark and a light period, beginning from the beginning of the dark period or from a point near the middle of the dark period;
• a full dark and light period, sometimes called a nychthemeron in English, from the Greek for night-day;
• the time period from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM or 9:00 PM or some other fixed clock period overlapping or set off from other time periods such as "morning", "evening", or "night".

Civil day[link]

For civil purposes a common clock time has been defined for an entire region based on the mean local solar time at some central meridian. Such time zones began to be adopted about the middle of the 19th century when railroads with regular schedules came into use, with most major countries having adopted them by 1929. For the whole world, 40 such time zones are now in use. The main one is "world time" or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The present common convention has the civil day starting at midnight, which is near the time of the lower culmination of the mean Sun on the central meridian of the time zone. A day is commonly divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds each.

Leap seconds[link]

To keep the civil day aligned with the apparent movement of the Sun, positive or negative leap seconds may be inserted.

A civil clock day is typically 86,400 SI seconds long, but will be 86,401 s or 86,399 s long in the event of a leap second.

Leap seconds are announced in advance by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service which measures the Earth's rotation and determines whether a leap second is necessary. Leap seconds occur only at the end of a UTC month, and have only ever been inserted at the end of June 30 or December 31.

Boundaries of the day[link]

Sun and Moon, Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

For most diurnal animals, the day naturally begins at dawn and ends at sunset. Humans, with our cultural norms and scientific knowledge, have supplanted Nature with several different conceptions of the day's boundaries. The Jewish day begins at either sunset or at nightfall (when three second-magnitude stars appear). Medieval Europe followed this tradition, known as Florentine reckoning: in this system, a reference like "two hours into the day" meant two hours after sunset and thus times during the evening need to be shifted back one calendar day in modern reckoning. Days such as Christmas Eve, Halloween, and the Eve of Saint Agnes are the remnants of the older pattern when holidays began the evening before. Present common convention is for the civil day to begin at midnight, that is 00:00 (inclusive), and last a full 24 hours until 24:00 (exclusive).

In ancient Egypt, the day was reckoned from sunrise to sunrise. Muslims fast from daybreak to sunset each day of the month of Ramadan. The "Damascus Document", copies of which were also found among the Dead Sea scrolls, states regarding Sabbath observance that "No one is to do any work on Friday from the moment that the sun's disk stands distant from the horizon by the length of its own diameter," presumably indicating that the monastic community responsible for producing this work counted the day as ending shortly before the sun had begun to set.

In the United States, nights are named after the previous day, e.g. "Friday night" usually means the entire night between Friday and Saturday. This is the opposite of the Jewish pattern. This difference from the civil day often leads to confusion. Events starting at midnight are often announced as occurring the day before. TV-guides tend to list nightly programs at the previous day, although programming a VCR requires the strict logic of starting the new day at 00:00 (to further confuse the issue, VCRs set to the 12-hour clock notation will label this "12:00 AM"). Expressions like "today", "yesterday" and "tomorrow" become ambiguous during the night.

Validity of tickets, passes, etc., for a day or a number of days may end at midnight, or closing time, when that is earlier. However, if a service (e.g. public transport) operates from for example, 6:00 to 1:00 the next day (which may be noted as 25:00), the last hour may well count as being part of the previous day (also for the arrangement of the timetable). For services depending on the day ("closed on Sundays", "does not run on Fridays", and so on) there is a risk of ambiguity. As an example, for the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways), a day ticket is valid 28 hours, from 0:00 to 28:00 (that is, 4:00 the next day). To give another example, the validity of a pass on London Regional Transport services is until the end of the "transport day" -- that is to say, until 4:30 am on the day after the "expiry" date stamped on the pass.

24 hours vs daytime[link]

To distinguish between a full day and daytime, the word nychthemeron (from Greek for a night and a day) may be used in English for the former, or more colloquially the term 24 hours. In other languages, the latter is also often used. Other languages also have a separate word for a full day, such as vuorokausi in Finnish, ööpäev in Estonian, dygn in Swedish, døgn in Danish, døgn in Norwegian, sólarhringur in Icelandic, etmaal in Dutch, doba in Polish, сутки (sutki) in Russian, суткі (sutki) in Belarusian, доба́ (doba) in Ukrainian, денонощие in Bulgarian and יממה in Hebrew. In Italian, giorno is used to indicate a full day, while dì means daytime. In Spanish, singladura is used, but only as a marine unit of length, being the distance covered in 24 hours.^{[7][not relevant]}

See also[link]

• 10⁴ s, times from 10 kiloseconds to 100 kiloseconds
• Calculating the day of the week
• Daylight
• Daylight saving time
• Meteorological day
• Season, for a discussion of daylight and darkness at various latitudes
• Synodic day

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Day

Look up day in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Definitions of day, night, twilight (USA navy site)
• Formulas to calculate the length of day and night
• Sunrise and sunset, all year long, anywhere
• Show where it is daytime at the moment

v t e Time Major concepts Time Eternity Arguments for eternity Immortality History Past Present Future Futures studies Deep time Time Portal Measurement and standards Chronometry UTC UT TAI Second Minute Hour Sidereal time Solar time Time zone Metric time Decimal time Hexadecimal time Clock Astrarium History of timekeeping devices Horology Marine chronometer Sundial Water clock Calendar Day Week Month Year Tropical year Gregorian Islamic Julian Intercalation Leap second Leap year Chronology Astronomical chronology Calendar era Chronicle Dating methodologies Geochronology Geologic Time Geological history Periodization Regnal year Timeline Religion and mythology Dreamtime Kāla Kalachakra Prophecy Time and fate deities Wheel of time Philosophy A-series and B-series B-Theory of time Causality Endurantism Eternal return Eternalism Event Perdurantism Presentism Temporal finitism Temporal parts The Unreality of Time Physical sciences Time in physics Absolute time and space Arrow of time Chronon Coordinate time Planck epoch Planck time Proper time Spacetime Theory of relativity Time dilation Gravitational time dilation Time domain T-symmetry Biology Chronobiology Circadian rhythms Psychology Mental chronometry Sense of time Specious present Sociology and anthropology Long Now Foundation Time discipline Time use research Economics Time value of money Time-based currency Time Banking Related topics Carpe diem Duration Space System time Tempus fugit Time capsule Time signature Time travel

v t e Parts of a day Dawn · Twilight–Sunrise · Morning · Daylight · Evening · Sunset–Twilight–Dusk · Night Related articles: Blue hour · Golden hour · Terminator · Forenoon · Noon · Afternoon · Midnight · Daytime · Midnight sun

v t e SI units Base units Ampere · Candela · Kelvin · Kilogram · Metre · Mole · Second Derived units Becquerel · Coulomb · Degree Celsius · Farad · Gray · Henry · Hertz · Joule · Katal · Lumen · Lux · Newton · Ohm · Pascal · Radian · Siemens · Sievert · Steradian · Tesla · Volt · Watt · Weber Accepted for use with SI Dalton (Atomic mass unit) · Astronomical unit · Day · Decibel · Degree Celsius · Degree of arc · Electronvolt · Hectare · Hour · Litre · Minute · Minute of arc · Neper · Second of arc · Tonne Atomic units · Natural units See also SI prefixes · Systems of measurement · Conversion of units · New SI definitions · History of the metric system Book:International System of Units  · Category:SI base units

Nitish Kumar
Chief Minister of Bihar
In office 3 March 2000 – 10 March 2000
Deputy CM	Sushil Kumar Modi
Preceded by	President's rule
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 November 2005
Preceded by	Rabri Devi
Minister of Railways
In office 20 March 2001 – 21 May 2004
Preceded by	Ram Vilas Paswan
Succeeded by	Lalu Prasad Yadav
In office 19 March 1998 – 5 August 1999
Minister of Agriculture
In office 27 May 2000 – 21 July 2001
In office 22 November 1999 – 3 March 2000
Minister of Surface Transport
In office 13 October 1999 – 22 November 1999
In office 14 April 1998 – 5 August 1999
Personal details
Born	(1951-03-01) 1 March 1951 (age 61) kalyanbigha, Nalanda
Nationality	Indian
Political party	Janata Dal (United)
Spouse(s)	Late Smt. Manju Kumari Sinha
Children	Nishant Kumar (son)
Residence	1 Anne Marg, Patna
Alma mater	National Institute of Technology, Patna
Profession	Politician Social Worker Agriculturist Engineer
Religion	Hinduism
Website	http://cm.bih.nic.in
As of 18 June, 2006 Source: Government of India

Nitish Kumār (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician who has been a Union Minister and is the Chief Minister of Bihar, an eastern state of India, since 2005. He belongs to the Janata Dal (United) party. As Chief Minister, he gained popularity by initiating a series of developmental and constructive activities including building of long-delayed bridges, re-laying roads that had ceased to exist, appointing over 100,000 school teachers, ensuring that doctors worked in primary health centers, and keeping crime in check.^[1]

Early life and career[link]

Nitish Kumār was born in Kalyanbigha, Bihar to Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh and Parmeshwari Devi.^[2] His father was a freedom fighter and was close to the great Gandhian Bihar Vibhuti Anugrah Narayan Sinha, one of the founders of modern Bihar. His nickname is 'Munna'.^[3] He is a teetotaler, does not smoke, and is a frugal eater.^[4]

He has a degree in electrical engineering from the Bihar College of Engineering, Patna now NIT Patna.^[5] He joined the Bihar State Electricity Board, but almost halfheartedly, and later moved into politics.^[6]

Political career[link]

Nitish Kumar belongs to a socialist class of politicians.He learnt the lessons of politics under the tutelage of stalwarts Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Karpoori Thakur, S N Sinha, George Fernandes and V. P. Singh.^[7]

Early career[link]

Nitish Kumar participated in Jayaprakash Narayan's movement^[8] between 1974 and 1977, and was close to Satyendra Narayan Sinha, a prominent leader of the time. In the 1980 Bihar assembly elections, Kumar stood from Harnaut, which had a strong presence of his fellow Kurmis. He lost, however, to a Kurmi ‘bahubali’ (muscleman/criminal politician).^[9] He was first elected to the Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1985 as an independent candidate. In 1987, he became the President of the Yuva Lok Dal. In 1989, he became the Secretary-General of the Janata Dal in Bihar. He was also elected to the 9th Lok Sabha the same year. Nitish was aligned with Laloo Prasad Yadav for years before they parted ways and Janata Dal (United) came into existence in 2003.^[10][11]

During his term as Minister of Railways, he brought widespread reforms.^[12]

Union Minister in Centre[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2011)

In 1989, Nitish Kumar was appointed as the Union Minister of State for Agriculture in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh. In 1991, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha and became General Secretary of the Janata Dal at the national level and the Deputy Leader of Janata Dal in the Parliament. He represented Barh parliamentary constituency in the Lok Sabha between 1989 and 2004.

He briefly served as the Union Cabinet Minister for Railways and Minister for Surface Transport and then as the Minister for Agriculture in 1998–99. In August 1999, he resigned following the Gaisal train disaster. He introduced internet ticket booking facility as well as opened record number of railway ticket booking counters. He introduced revolutionary tatkal scheme for instant booking.

Later that year, he rejoined the Union Cabinet as Minister for Agriculture. From 2001 to May 2004, he served as the Union Cabinet Minister for Railways in the NDA Government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections he contested elections from two constituencies, Barh and Nalanda. He was elected from Nalanda but lost from his traditional constituency, Barh. He was the leader of the Janata Dal (United) Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha.

Chief Minister of Bihar[link]

1st Term (3 March 2000 – 10 March 2000)[link]

On 3 March 2000, Nitish Kumar was appointed the Chief Minister of Bihar, but he resigned seven days later because failed to prove majority.

2nd Term (24 November 2005 – 24 November 2010)[link]

In November 2005, he led the National Democratic Alliance to victory in the 2005 Bihar assembly elections bringing an end to the 15-year rule of the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal. He was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar on 24 November 2005. Under his government, Bihar developed an electronic version of the Right to Information Act called Jankari scheme. In addition, he launched the E-shakti NREGS program, by which rural people can get employment information by telephone. He is credited with improving infrastructure, and reducing crime, widely felt to be serious problems in the state.

Under his governance Bihar has had a record number of criminal prosecutions through fast track courts. His government initiated a mandatory weekly meeting with all District Magistrates to monitor progress at the grassroot level. His government has generated employment in police services and teaching. Bihar recorded record construction work during his five year mandate, surpassing the national average.

Nitish Kumar government also initiated bicycle and meal programs – the government gave bicycles to girls who stayed in school – which saw Bihar getting huge number of girls into schools and fall in school drop out rates.^[13] Women and extremely backward castes were given 50% reservation in electorals for the first time ever in India. However, bicycle scheme of Nitish Government has been criticised by some people because of corruption involved in the scheme.

Health schemes were launched to improve village hospitals and the free medicine distribution system. Loan schemes for farmers were improved by involving national banks.

The state witnessed steep hike in GSDP growth, the second highest in the country. Bihar was recorded as the highest tax payer state in eastern India.

Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of India and Nitish Kumar initiated the Nalanda International University project, headed by the Prime Minister of India.

In 2010, Nitish Kumar's party swept back to power along with its ally Bharatiya Janata Party. On 26 November 2010, Nitish Kumar took oath as a Chief Minister of Bihar. This is his second consecutive term as Chief Minister of Bihar.[6]

3rd Term (26 November 2010 – Till Now)[link]

In a keenly fought contest, Nitish Kumar led JDU-BJP combine won with four-fifth majority. NDA won 206 seats while RJD won 22 seats. No party there has won enough seats to represent the opposition in the state assembly, which requires at least 25 seats to become eligible to represent the main opposition party.^[14][15]

For the last time electorates witnessed high turnout of women and young voters, while this declared as the fairest Bihari election, with no bloodshed or poll violence.^[16]

Personal life[link]

On 22 February 1973, Nitish Kumar married Manju Kumari Sinha, a teacher by profession. They have a son, Nishant, who is a graduate of BIT, Mesra.^[17] His wife died in 2007 at the age of 53. He is credited with giving a new face to Bihar. The kind of win his Alliance registered during 2010 Bihar Assembly is viewed amongst the biggest ever election win by anyone in Indian elections, where the entire opposition was almost wiped off. Many sections of media and political sections consider him as the best Chief Minister from India, able to bring success of governance in a state of turmoil, finishing caste, religion barrier and paving way for development. For his clean and Statesmanship he owns respect from his bitter opponents and all political parties including Congress whose many prominent leaders including chief Sonia Gandhi, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, NCP leader Agatha Sangma and Congress leader(Minister for information and broadcasting) Ambika Soni, credited Nitish Kumar's clean, pro-citizen development oriented governance. It is a status which currently only Nitish Kumar enjoys, something a rare feat in Indian politics where someone achieves respect and appreciation from opposition along with landslide public support from all sections of Society.

Awards and recognition[link]

• XLRI,Jamshedpur "Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal" for Industrial & Social Peace 2011.^[18]
• "MSN Indian of the year 2010"^[19]
• NDTV Indian of the Year – Politics, 2010^[20]
• Forbes "India's Person of the Year", 2010^[21]
• CNN-IBN "Indian of the Year Award" – Politics, 2010^[22]
• NDTV Indian of the year – Politics, 2009^[23]
• Economics Times "Business reformer of the Year 2009".^[24]
• 'Polio Eradication Championship Award' 2009, by Rotary Internationals.^[25]
• CNN-IBN Great Indian of the Year – Politics, 2008^[26]
• The Best Chief Minister,^[27] according to the CNN-IBN and HT State of the Nation Poll 2007.

Positions Held[link]

See also[link]

• List of Chief Ministers of Bihar

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nitish Kumar

• Biography on Bihar Govt. web site
• Biography on website of Lok Sabha

v t e Current Chief Ministers of Indian states (list)     Andhra Pradesh: Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy Arunachal Pradesh: Nabam Tuki Assam: Tarun Gogoi Bihar: Nitish Kumar Chhattisgarh: Raman Singh Goa: Manohar Parrikar Gujarat: Narendra Modi Haryana: Bhupinder Singh Hooda Himachal Pradesh: Prem Kumar Dhumal Jammu and Kashmir: Omar Abdullah Jharkhand: Arjun Munda Karnataka: D. V. Sadananda Gowda Kerala: Oommen Chandy Madhya Pradesh: Shivraj Singh Chauhan Maharashtra: Prithviraj Chavan Manipur: Okram Ibobi Singh Meghalaya: Mukul Sangma Mizoram: Pu Lalthanhawla Nagaland: Neiphiu Rio Orissa: Naveen Patnaik Punjab: Parkash Singh Badal Rajasthan: Ashok Gehlot Sikkim: Pawan Kumar Chamling Tamil Nadu: Jayalalithaa Tripura: Manik Sarkar Uttar Pradesh: Akhilesh Yadav Uttarakhand: Vijay Bahuguna West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee Delhi: Sheila Dikshit Pondicherry: N. Rangaswamy