Neena Jha, is a teacher in St. Thomas School in Indirapuram (Ghaziabad). She was born on October 14, 1971 in Delhi. Having an Indian Air Force background - her father was working in Indian Air Force as a combatant member - she did her matriculation from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jalahhalli in Bangalore followed by B.Sc from Rajasthan University in 1989. She joined Kendriya Vidyalaya in 1991. Later, she left the job and joined the St. Thomas School in Ghaziabad.
She also runs a non- government organization to provide financial and infrastructural support to the orphans and children of weaker section of the society in the western Uttar Pradesh.
Shivnath Jha is a senior journalist having acquired expertise in scoops and investigative journalism. That he has worked in prestigious national dailies and magazine, like The Telegraph, SUNDAY, The Indian Express, The Statesman, The Asian Age, Sahara Time and others speak volumes of his caliber, sincerity. devotion and hard work. He wields a facile pen. Shivnath's is the scratch-to-sky- scrapper story. He has an humble beginning. As a post- graduate student of the prestigious Patna University, he pedaled through the Patna streets to deliver newspapers from house to house in the wee hours. Born in a traditionalist Maithil Brahmin family in Darbhanga district of Bihar he shed all pretensions and set himself on the path of modernity. He tasted journalism in Bihar leading English daily, The Indian Nation in early seventies and was groomed in another English daily, The New Republic, published from Dhanbad and Ranchi. He has been growing from strength to strength in journalism. It is the investigative eye that lured Shivnath to peep into the life of legendry shehnai wizard Bismillah Khan.
I was quite taken by Shivnath Jha's story when he turned up at my home with the request that I write this foreword. It is quite an inspiring and amazing tale filled with strife, struggle and then success. He started of as a newspaper hawker even when he was a child, then became a copyhandler at a Patna based newspaper The Indian Nation in 1975. A few years later he was to be discovered by the eminent journalist MJ Akbar who introduced him to mainstream journalism through The Telegraph, the newspaper he had launched as an editor. Thereafter, Shivnath has gone on to work under the finest editors India has known like Vir Sanghvi, HK Dua, CR Irani, Prabhu Chawla and Shekhar Gupta. Today he is an investigative journalist with Sahara Time and though I am yet to read his final draft I am still pleased by his spirit, passion and honesty.
Man is a mortal creature. Every born is destined to die, But, there are people who leave behind indelible footprints. History adores them in golden words. Shehnai wizard Bismillah Khan sits high in the galaxy of such exalted personalities. His shehnai has charmed every body around the globe. The uniqueness of Bismillah's shehnai lies in the fact that this lad from a faceless Bihar village not only scaled Himalayan heights in the world of music but also brought pristine glory to this innocuous musical instrument. He enthroned shehnai on a high pedestal.
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